Spenstig

'Spenst' is one of the most fun words to say.  It is right up their with 'torque.'  I was going to say 'one of the most fun words in the English language,' but it really isn't an English word, as skiers have borrowed it from the Norwegians.  In translation it basically means something like jump or spring (the verb, or course).  The adjective is 'spenstig' which is something like 'springy.' 

Anyway, etymology lesson aside, we did a plyo session this morning before strength training.  When I was an athlete I remember some punishing sessions when we used to do what seemed like an hour of explosive jumping exercises and your back and legs where pretty darn sore after it.  Thankfully, research has shown that there is little benefit in additional time, as the quality of the work tends to suffer and it becomes 'just work' instead of 'purposeful training.'  Today we were done in about 15 minutes, and we did about as much as we'll ever do.  We may shift the exercises to more complex or challenging exercises at some point and that's how we'll progress things.  That and hopefully we'll be jumping farther and being more explosive.

Shots from this morn:

We started off with a good warm-up.  Here the athletes do some hot-feet ladder drills.

Then we started off with some two-footed broad jumps.

Then we progressed to some bounding.

We finished the spenst with some single-leg classic bounds.

First we did the single-response version where the athlete as to absorb each impact.

and then we removed the pause to stabilize after each jump and did them quickly in a row.