stiff-legged hops | Power and Speed | Forum

22charginghawks said:

On Joe Defranco's website, in the article for vertical jump development he mentions the following:

 

9 “Pogo Jump” Warm-up – This is a warm-up we use

before many of our lower body strength workouts, plyo workouts and

speed workouts. It is not only a great warm- up, but we believe this

“warm-up” may actually increase your vertical jump in and of itself!

But first, let us describe exactly what a pogo jump is, anyway. A pogo

jump is performed by jumping off of the ground by just springing off

your ankles. While you’re in the air you want to dorsiflex your ankles,

a.k.a. “pull your toes up”. You also must prevent your heels from ever

touching the ground. The key to this exercise lies in your ability to

keep your knees locked while jumping and landing on and off the ground,

as well as spending the least amount of time on the ground as possible.

Be sure not to flex at the hips, either. Many times when athletes

perform this exercise their feet kick uncontrollably out in front of

themselves. Don’t let this happen! Your whole body should remain in a

perfectly straight line, with the exception of your ankles dorsiflexing

while you’re in the air. We do both low and high pogo jumps in our

warm-up. The technique remains exactly the same except for the height

differences, of course. Low pogo jumps should be performed for speed.

You only want to jump about 1” – 2” off the ground, but try to perform

as many reps as possible in the required time. The goal of the high

pogo jumps is to get as much height as possible by just springing off

of your ankles during each jump. Pogo jumps are an incredible exercise

that trains the Achilles tendon for elasticity. This will help to

prevent ankle injuries as well as increase explosiveness. Here’s the

warm-up we use…

A. Low Pogo Jumps – 3 sets of 20 seconds, rest 30 seconds between each set

B. High Pogo Jumps – 3 sets of 20 seconds, rest 30 seconds between each set

 

 

The gist of this is it is a standing straight legged jump where you dorsiflex the ankles in the air and then rapidly plantar flex when touching the ground which should just "pop" you in the air.

 

Does this not directly oppose the idea that ankle stiffness is important–isn't this training the ankles to be floppy or am I missing something?   I was always under the impression that one should try to keep them as locked as possible…

 

Thoughts?

im confused how you get "ankles to be floppy" from that description?

you land with toes up, ankle stiff, which facilitates a rapid & more forceful contraction of the calfs… ankles are stiff & "cocked" on landing.

stiff leg ankle hops helped me get everything I could out of my vert, very effective exercise.

pc