squat jumps?

[Dude-Man]

How do you guys feel about them? I'm thinking about tossing them in as a once a month shocker for when my knee is healed up.

[Testify]

Why not? As long as your knee is structurally sound and strong, you should have no problems with squat jumps. What are you hoping to see from them, though? If you want to increase your explosion power and vertical leap, they are excellent. If you want mass, this will not work. As a shocker, I guess they would be fine. But I would not use them as a core exercise. Use them as an alternate exercise to squats - while still doing leg extensions & curls (before or after - or in a superset), and other exercises. Shocking the muscle does not require that you do something completely different. Its little things like footangle, foot placement, speed and numer of reps, order of exercise, etc. Change it up, but don't forget what got you to where you are. Squat jumps should be a good variation to introduce into your routine.

[Dude-Man]

Excellent post, thanks for all the info. Speed and vertical leap are indeed my goals as well as building mass and strength. I'm thinking that the once a month routine will be..

squats
hipsled/squat jump supersets
quad extension
ham curls
lunges.

[solidj55]

Well if you are truely wanting to increase vertical and explosion you will have to do jumps more than once per month.

[xxxl83]

I agree with solidj,

That being said at 21 you could probably handle doing jump squats. However as you get older and, or deal with injuries you learn to stick with the basic low risk movements that yeild high gains. You have to question whether the gains are worth the risk of injury esspecialy when dealing with recovering from a knee operation.

Plyometrics are a great training technique but there's also a high risk of injury. Be sure you're ready for them before you start and go into them slowly.

xxxl83

[solidj55]

I agree with solidj,

That being said at 21 you could probably handle doing jump squats. However as you get older and, or deal with injuries you learn to stick with the basic low risk movements that yeild high gains. You have to question whether the gains are worth the risk of injury esspecialy when dealing with recovering from a knee operation.

Plyometrics are a great training technique but there's also a high risk of injury. Be sure you're ready for them before you start and go into them slowly.

xxxl83

BINGO!