Hello Amazing Tribe Member! Happy New Year! We are jumping into 2024 and this month is the second and final one in the Agility Block. And JUMPING is, literally, what we are focusing on this week and month.
Many of you were very patient with our last month, recognizing its fairly easy and preliminary nature. This month we get to go a bit more zany, and jumping is a big part of that. While agility is that artistic multidirectional movement competency which combines mobility, stability, reactivity, and fluidity…it also is expressed significantly in the ability to jump and land.
In fact, jumping as a whole is a lost art in fitness (not so much athletics, where jumping is known and appreciated). Jumping stimulates your fast twitch muscles and helps you to maintain elasticity – which is important for peak performance as well as functional longevity. It’s youthful vitality. It’s anti-aging. It’s pure gold.
For the purpose of simplification, jumping is the act of launching into the air (no matter how minimally) off of either one or two feet…but always landing on two feet. To clarify…there are a lot of ways to take off, but if you land on 2 feet, it’s a jump. That’s our main focus this week. I’ve included a podcast episode in this document as a reference. It’s optional listening but it goes over the differences between hops, skips, bounds, leaps, gallops and some of their applications in training.
In particular, this week, we are going to look at 3 specific types of jumps, each onto (but not off of) a box, bench, stool, chair, or even a board if that’s the height that’s right for you. These are:
- Countermovement Jump
- Approach and Impulse Jump
- Long Run Up and Single Leg Takeoff
I’ve included the AnimalFIT Jump Test video below so that you can learn a bit more about these three styles of jumping. We’re going to use all three styles in our workouts this week, but you just might notice that you really prefer one over the other two. That’s normal, but if we train in all the techniques, we become even more versatile Lifetime Athletes.
Another thing to mention about this week is that we’re going to be jumping every day. That’s why I kept the volume rather sane. We don’t want to push it so hard one day that we’re too sore to rally and jump again the next. Remember, we are in the agility block, and we’re not seeking soreness or exhaustion…we are practicing better movement. Reps, frequency, exposures = motor learning.
At first you will look at these workouts and think “something’s missing…where’s all the other stuff?” Once you get into it, you’ll see how this works. Jumping practice. Big functional compound lifts paired with complementary HIIT. Feel free to add some extra easy free choice cardio and stretching onto the end of your sessions.
Week of 2024-01-01 (week 1 of month 2: Agility Block)
| WOW | PREPARATORY | PRIMARY | ACCESSORY | TIPS |
| A 2X | CMJ Work 1.0 Low Height 10 x 1 :15 rests | Deadlift BW 10 x 5 Max Rests Rowing 2 x 500 RPE 8 1:00 rest | CMJ Work 2.0 Med. Height 20 x 1 :30 rests | Note how the mechanics for all exercises are similar. Generate force. |
| B 2X | IJ Work 1.0 Low Height 10 x 1 :15 rests | Front Squat Box Technique ¼ BW 5 x 10 Max rests Biking 10 x 1:00/1:00 hard/easy | IJ Work 2.0 Med. Height 20 x 1 :30 rests | Be bouncy in all moves. Transfer force. |
| C 2X | RUJ Work 1.0 Low Height 5 x 1 L 5 x 1 R :15 rests | Lunge DB’s @20% BW 10 x 10 steps Max Rests Locomoting Walk or Run Hill or Treadmill 10 x :30 up Walk back 1:00 | RUJ Work 2.0 Med. Height 20 x 1 :30 rests | Find a rhythm. Maintain force. |
Workout A Breakdown: CMJ = Countermovement Jump. A low height can be a board or anything higher than that per your judgment. Just lightly practice the movement in the warmup. Take 1 warmup set at half bodyweight in any deadlift style you like. Then bang out your 10 sets of 5 reps with BW. Rest all you need. Jump on a rower and give a strong but not all out effort for 500m, rest one minute, then repeat. If you don’t have a rower, use a tubing with handles and a low anchor, doing partial squats and rows for 2 x 2:00. On the second round of jumps, go higher but keep it safe and take those longer rests.
Workout B Breakdown: IJ = Impulse Jump. Nice and easy on the warmups again. Snag one set of box squats with no weight to get in the groove, then hit your 5 sets of 10 using ¼ bodyweight with any barbell, sandbag, or goblet variation you like. This is pretty light but it’s still good work. On the bike intervals, you get to select output without using any fancy metrics. Just go hard for a minute, then very easy the next minute, until you get 10 rounds of this excellence. On your final jumps, feel free to mix up your approach styles (shorter vs. longer, asymmetrical, etc.)
Workout C Breakdown: RUJ = Run Up Jump. You know the drill by now for warmup. Just to clarify on lunges. If you weigh 200 pounds, hold 20 pounds in each hand for total of 40 pounds. Take 10 steps total, not 10 on each leg (that is 20 steps). The locomotion can be done indoors or out. You’ll notice there’s no requirement on exact effort. Just let the hill or percent grade work you to the degree you are seeking. Train by instinct. Tell your watch how YOU feel, don’t ask it. In fact, tell it to go to hell and be a natural beast. Make sure you have enough space for the final jumps and that your box (or other landing base) is stable so the horizontal force doesn’t cause a topple-over. Safety always comes first.
Trust in this stuff. It really works. Next week we’ll be adding movements and mixing it up again. Keep the agile mindset just like your beastly body. As I mentioned before, the app is coming and now the official launch will be Feb 1. I’ll be giving all the details over the next few weeks plus I’m always available for personal assistance.
New format for the MasterClass sessions. Based on great feedback, I’m moving them into on-demand mini-masterclasses (like Mini Me only better…let’s all raise our pinkie finger to the corner of our mouth at this time). They’ll be about 15 minutes (give or take) and the first one will be out later this week…I’ll send it to you in the daily eBlast.
Van Halen “Jump” is good for training. Rolling Stones “Jumping Jack Flash” equally excellent. Pointer Sisters “Jump…for my Love” is great. Loverboy (you better) “Jump” gives you that 80’s Canadian freshness. Plus more!
