Strength Training

Meet the Ass-Whompin’ Jump Squat

If you have never worked with plyometrics, then you are in for a treat today.

Multisport athlete, meet the Jump Squat.

Jump Squat, meet your next victim.

Jump Squats are a staple of athletes trained under the tutelage of Steve Ilg. He uses them to develop power in his athletes, from mountain bikers, triathletes, trail runners, marathoners, rock climbers, fitness moms and anyone in between.

When I first looked at the Jump Squat in my training plan many moons ago, I didn’t think twice about it. “How friggin’ hard is it to jump up and down?” I reasoned.

So, I gave it a try and 60 seconds later I thought I thought I had blown a lung and my non-responsive legs had turned to a burning mass of quivering Jell-O. The next morning, I could hardly walk as the muscle fibers in my quads were fried. The day after that, I couldn’t walk up the stairs, nor could I sit down without a lot of groaning. That’s when I discovered my glutes had been shredded as well.

Over time, I grew to have a twisted love affair with Jump Squat. To be honest, I held off doing them for a while after that first session. I didn’t particularly appreciate the pain. Plus I felt like all of that jumping up and down in the manly, free weight section of the gym made me look like Richard Simmons with a jalapeno-spittin’ gerbil shoved up his ass.

Over time, I became less self-conscious about my Jump Squat antics and just got the work done. Soon, I started to feel stronger and more powerful.

However, I didn’t fully appreciate those new super powers until I got on the bike during my first triathlon in 1993. The Nautica Triathlon in Malibu (I believe it went by another name back then) is right on the coast and is chock full of nice rolling hills. Those hills freaked me out the first time I saw them when I drove the course the night before. You see, we don’t have rollers in Las Vegas…just long, gradual inclines and declines. Real hills were a foreign concept.

That night I tossed and turned fretting about those damned hills. I worried about embarrassing myself, or worse, not finishing, because those hills were going to kick my ass.

Turns out, I kicked their ass. The only time I passed anyone that day was going up a hill. It amazed me. It also frustrated the crap out of me to be passed on the down hill, but shit, I was just a machine going up the hill.

That’s when I truly fell in love with the Jump Squat.

What are plyometrics?
To understand the Jump Squat you need to know where it came from. It belongs to a family of exercises known as plyometrics. Plyometrics are explosive movements designed to build muscular power. As we all know from high school physics, power is the ability to move something from point A to point B lickity split (yes, it’s a scientific term).

Let’s take the Jump Squat and compare it to the regular old Barbell Squat. With the Barbell Squat, you will typically move somewhat slowly during the repetition. Perhaps four seconds to squat and 1-2 seconds to return to the standing position. In this type of exercise, your focus is on time under tension. You want your body to move a heavy weight over a relatively long period of time.

With the Jump Squat, our goal is the opposite. We want to move the weight as quickly as we can. We’re talking fast twitch, Bruce Lee-type explosive movements.

The Multisport Mutant Steve Ilg and the guy who introduced me to Jump Squat and other plyometric nasties, shows how they are used to quickly launch his 45-year-old body from point A to point B. Nothing like testing your plyometric fitness a few stories above the deck. Notice there is no rope. This is the Jump Squat put to practical use.

It works like this: Let’s focus on the quadriceps (the group of four muscles on the front of your upper leg) during the squatting movement. As you lower yourself to the ground, your quadriceps are elongated (eccentric contraction). The quads contract (concentric contraction) as you return to the standing position. There is only so much force that the muscle fibers can generate in a standard concentric contraction. If you elongate the muscle just before the concentric contraction, you get a nice little rebound effect called into play which is known as elastic energy. The shorter the time between the eccentric contraction and the concentric contraction, the greater the elastic energy and the faster you can haul your ass from point A to point B.

In addition, there’s a neurological component involved with plyometrics. I won’t go into the details here, but just know that doing plyometrics inhibits your body’s sensors that tell you to “Whoah….put the brakes on there Hoss. I don’t want us to do too much work and pop a nut.” The beauty of this amazing collection of cells and parts we call our body is that the stretching action that occurs from the plyometrics triggers this neurological component. How the body works is sooooo friggin’ cool.

But, enough of the science. Let’s go Jump Squat!

How to Jump Squat
Used with permission from Steve Ilg’s “TOTAL BODY TRANSFORMATION“: Take a standing position with your feet spread apart, just wider than your shoulders, with your toes pointed just slightly outward. Interlace your fingers behind your head, and keep your elbows wide. Do not push your head forward.

Drop into a half squat and explode upward as high as possible. As your feet leave the ground, focus on leading from the heart to keep your spine as upright as possible. The moment your feet contact the ground, explode upward again. Repeat for the required number of reps.

…(You are primarily working) fast-twitch fiber development, hips, thighs, core postural muscles, and (the) increase of pain threshold (ego slaying).

Wholistic Notes: Do not overattenuate the landing; land nearly flat-footed then jump as fast and high as possible. Imagine doing this movement with bare feet on a ground of redhot coals! As the reps go on, your upper body will want to collapse — don’t let it. This is key. Work those postural muscles. Allow pain to come. When everything is comfortable, we get complacent.”

When to Jump Squat
There are several ways to incorporate Jump Squats in to your training program and Total Body Transformation will give you some examples. One basic way to start is to just add them to your leg training day when you’re in the gym. Start out with two sets of 30-seconds jumping with a 30-second recovery between sets. Rather than add more sets, work on adding more time. If you can go a full 60 seconds for three sets, you’re a stud.

You may also want to incorporate them in the middle of your track sessions, or even take a “plyo break” during one of your longer runs and crank out a couple sets. However you do decide to use them, make sure you’re warmed up first. You don’t want to be doing these with cold muscles and joints.

One last reason to Jump Squat
If you don’t want to Jump Squat for the pure power it develops, do it for the aesthetics. Especially for you guys with flat asses. My wife could always tell when I wasn’t doing Jump Squats. In her words, “Your ass disappears. Start doing those jumpie things again.”

Find your edge and dance upon it,

hak

Photo credits:

• Steve Ilg bouldering this past week in Flagstaff, Arizona courtesy of Steve Ilg. Photographs by Bill Galen. Steve’s notes that accompanied the photos–(middle photo) With air beneath the britches, i set up, keeping my spine elegant, hips open; just as in my professional descriptions of performing Jump Squats, then, without losing eye or chi contact on the key hand hold, i visualize, KNOW that i have ‘already done it,’ and…(right photo) JUMP! now, you see, if you’ve been doing this for as long as i have (and are still alive) you realize that in m(om)ents like these, you need the fast-twitch, strong, clear, committed, explosive expressions of body/mind fitness which Jump Squats impart!

• Steve Ilg executing the Jump Squat by photographer extraordinaire, Wayne Williams of Sherman Oaks, California, www.WayneWilliamsStudio.com