Tomorrow my family and I depart on our big trip to Disney. My kids are going bonkers just thinking about it. Even though it has always been hard for me to relax and take a vacation, I must admit I am ready and looking forward to this one. My posts for the rest of the week will be coming from sunny Florida.

Traveling on this vacation reminds me of when I use to live near the beach when I was completing my masters at the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Alabama. I use to get up everyday and walk down near the water and train. There was a grassy area with picnic tables and I use to perform my sprints and jump training there. I was in Daphne during the early 90’s and most of the documentation on plyometric training was based off a progression of foot contacts. The difference then and now is the number of foot contacts for experienced athletes. My training was close to 250 and up. I am sure I don’t have to tell you, but I was completely exhausted at the end of these workouts.

Over the past 15 years I did a complete 180 and realized the extreme high volume was nothing more than abusive to my body. It was over-kill to my nervous system and its ability to adapt. My workouts went from the high volume to small volume with high intensity. I walked away from my new workouts feeling great and powerful. I performed enough reps when my “pop” was not there any more or my balance started to waiver during my jumps. I didn’t wait for a big drop in performance. I stopped the minute I felt a drop off. This was the best training time of my life. I was able to jump like crazy and felt physically awesome.

Please realize you do not need to over due jumping. You simply need to do it intensely (of course when ready and prepared for intensity) followed by rest.

I can not emphasize it enough if you overdue jumping, then you are asking for injury somewhere in the future. I don’t accept achieving great results now for later broken down bodies. We all have to take a look at forward at what will occur when the athletes are finished playing sports and training with us did we leave them better off or did we set them up for a lifetime of pain and discomfort?

Give this post some thought. Proper training can give athletes great improvements in performance and also save their bodies for the future.

P.S. – www.SportsSpeedEtc.com was designed off the premise of making a difference in the athlete’s life and performance for now and the future.