Home Fitness with Chinmoy Roy (Plyometrics)

With The ECB mulling over short listing the venues for the upcoming test series, there are distinct sign of hope at the end of the tunnel. The threat of Covid-19 is on the wane.

Sensing this there seems to a spring in the stride of a Joe Root or Virat Kohli. And this video unleashes some bang for buck exercises to produce a spring in the stride in true sense.

Most fast bowlers have a jump in the final delivery stride. Zaheer Khan of India had a big one. Pat Cummings and James Anderson do not jump that high. For any kind of jump the leg demands solid explosive strength to propel the body up in the air. Plyometric exercises, in layman’s terms the jump based stuff fire up the fast twitch muscle fibres of the body. The vertical jump works on the vertical force vector to take the body up. My first exercise on the box exactly targets that. During running based activity, especially in sprint, the body moves forward horizontally. That’s why the second exercise with bounds is used.

Exercise-1: Box Strike Jump

Target: Vertical elastic strength of leg.

Equipment required: 1 foot high wooden step box & one 4 or 5 kg medicine ball.

Execution: Strike the box with one foot like a tap and immediately jump for height. Keep the body upright throughout the exercise.

Reps and Sets: 10 Reps, 3 sets with 2 minutes rest between each set

Exercise-2: Single leg bound to hurdle sprint

Target: Horizontal elastic strength of leg and afterwards speed.

Equipment required: Two cones or pole and 6 six inches hurdles.

Set up: From pole one to first hurdle the distance is 10 metres. 6 hurdles with a gap of one big stride length between each. From last hurdle to pole two at other end is 10 metres. Total distance is 30 metres.

Execution: Start with single leg A-switch bound and then sprint over the hurdle till pole two. Jog or walk back to start. Add challenge with double A-switch.

Reps and sets: 4-5 back to back sprint and jog or walk back. Rest 2 minutes. Do 3 sets