Explosiveness and jumping

[soccerplaya]

I need to improve in those areas, any excersizes you recommend? Im already doing leg press.

[Worrier]

Have you tried grid sprints?

I have to do a firemans carry in a certain time for a course and it has got me quicker.

Make two landmarks  say 800 mtrs apart and sprint from point to point.At each point do some pressups or situps. After doing one lap take a short rest say 30 secs. Then do it again. Each week increase the reps. Footballl pitches are good to do this. I do mine on the beach.

Just don't do this on   full stomach. Real men do this straight after a run....

[soccerplaya]

Yeah football pitch! thats my sport, the problem is that the snow will stay until march or april... right now I do a different kind of sprint out in the snow.

I wanna get faster than all the competition, and I need to be able to win headers better. btw how many reps of those are you at?

[Bakajin]

squats and snatches are much better for building strength & explosiveness than doing things like leg presses or leg curls.  these types of exercises have excellent power transfer into sports if you focus on using good form and explosive lifting (eg not the 4 seconds down and 2 seconds up style of lifting), especially olympic style lifting.  I've seen video of an olympic lifter around 5'9"-5'10" dunk basketballs without a runup.  My own brother is 5'11" and can dunk one or two handed without trouble and he happens to be pretty strong at (full/deep) squatting for his size.  

free weights should always be used in preference of machines for building functional strength unless there is no other option.  

[abaz]

this crazy asian at my gym takes 2 25pnd dumbbells, squats down and jumps up for about 15x. give it a shot  

[soccerplaya]

What are snatches??? what is "good form" for doing squats?? thanks for the advice!

[Bakajin]

soccerplaya, the snatch is one of the two types of olympic lifts (clean & jerk is the other).  There are various ways to train the lift.  to see videos and slide shows of snatches and various other exercises check this link;

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html

you can also see several videos showning good squatting form although unfortunetly they dont have a regular barbell squat video.  The basic idea for all squats is to keep your head up and back straight at all times, and to keep the line of your shoulders behind the line of your front toes (or as close as you can get).  Also you need to at least go down low enough so that your hips are dropping below the line of your knees (the lower the better but it requires a lot of flexibility).   a lot of casual gym-goers only do half or quarter squats but the athletic gains from this type of training is considerably less.

my advice is to start working with bodyweight squats until you get the form down and then slowly start working with barbells.  Snatches are a fair bit more advanced and I would recommend mastering squats first unless you have a friend or trainer who can monitor your form and give you advice in person.

p.s. the linked site is an excellent source of all-round training for improving athletic performance but isn't specifically a power or weight lifting site.

[Bakajin]

this crazy asian at my gym takes 2 25pnd dumbbells, squats down and jumps up for about 15x. give it a shot  

that sounds similar to a burpee.  Burpees are like a squat but at the bottom you drop to your hands, kick your feet out and do a pushup.  Then you kick your legs back into squatting position and stand into a jump.  Thats 1 burpee     its another fairly good exercise although its mostly used for conditioning.

I wouldn't recommend combing dumbbells with a squat jump simply because your knees would not be used to the extra weight and you are increasing your chances of doing a serious injury.  

[Worrier]

Yeah football pitch! thats my sport, the problem is that the snow will stay until march or april... right now I do a different kind of sprint out in the snow.

I wanna get faster than all the competition, and I need to be able to win headers better. btw how many reps of those are you at?

10 reps. normally rep out on the pressups etc at rep 8

[soccerplaya]

Holy shit, do you live in or around Princeton, NJ?!

lol...

[soccerplaya]

bump this to see if anyone else has ideas.

[snugs]

Deadlifts and squats are awesome. FYI: the leg press is not a replacement for squats.

[soccerplaya]

yeah I just found that out.... wasted alot of time on the leg press.

can you describe dead lifts for me please? and on what parts of the body should you be feeling the effects of squats?

[Bakajin]

soccerplaya, check the link that I posted earlier in the thread.  Its a site that has quite a few videos and slide shows as to how to perform many lifts, including deadlifts and squats.  Deadlifts are one of the best allround strength gaining exercises but primarily hit the back and legs.

Using proper form is extremely important when doing exercises that involve the lower back (squats, deadlifts, etc). As you are already doing leg presses I'm guessing that you are a member of a gym and I suggest that you ask some of the staff there as how to perform the exercises correctly.  Bending your lower back while doing squats/deadlifts is pretty much the number one cause of injuries especially among newer lifters so its really good to have someone who can monitor and correct your lifting form.