Video - Upper Body Plyo - 180 Degree Pushups

[Jay Cook]

My younger brother and aspiring MMA fighter training hard mid-conditioning circuit doing some back to front pushups

[YOUTUBE]27I1asDTGWw[/YOUTUBE]

[SAHD]

Never seen that before, quite interesting, very explosive.

[Jay Cook]

yeah the goal there is obviously explosiveness in the whole body and kinetic control in the core, shoulders, and hips

[lhart6272]

thanks for this. hope there is more of this type of stuff coming

[riverhawk23]

Jay I got a question, for this past year I've done 5/3/1 but want to increase explosiveness.
I don't have access to med balls for throws and was wondering where you would start for exercises to increase upper body explosiveness and how you would progress.
For lower body I will be jumping rope, box jumping, and jumps for distances, just not all at the same time, anything else I should add?

[Jay Cook]

Jay I got a question, for this past year I've done 5/3/1 but want to increase explosiveness.
I don't have access to med balls for throws and was wondering where you would start for exercises to increase upper body explosiveness and how you would progress.
For lower body I will be jumping rope, box jumping, and jumps for distances, just not all at the same time, anything else I should add?

To increase your vertical jump I would put in power cleans, as well as some single leg exercises like bulgarian split squat jumps, cycling split squat jumps, single leg box jumps as well as weighted jumps like trap bar jumps, dumbbell jumps, etc.

for upper body you can work in some sledgehammering if you can - sledges are cheap at the hardware store and you can get free tires from any tire shop...

Plyo Pushups will be your key without med balls...mix in hands leaving the ground pushups, clap pushups, hands up/onto items pushups (hands on floor, push up hands leave floor and land on 25lb plates, do another pushup, and hands back onto floor).

Do you have access to any jumpstretch bands?

[riverhawk23]

Yeah I have a light and average bands from Elitefts.

I really have never done a power clean, any good videos you recommend I watch, to see good form.

[Zoroaster]

I know I'm not the expert here, but I did have to learn this exercise on my own. Tips for power cleans; make sure you get the proper wrist flexibility before doing them. It won't take long, and it is ESSENTIAL for good form to rack the bar correctly. The best stretches were the ones I learned during my time i the martial arts, if you don't know any, PM me and I'll try to find you a link or describe them to you. The average person should have the required flexibilty within a week of doing these for about a minute or two every day.

Also, start with just the bar, holding it at the same height as if it had 2 45's on the ends. As you add weight, for low back safety, pull from blocks or multiple pads to make sure it's at this same height (assuming you don't have bumper pads).

while BB.com doesn't have a Pwr Clean video, it is this same movement as the Clean

http://www.bodybuilding.com/exercises/detail/view/name/clean

the only difference is that you will not let your knees bend below parallel. This means you will use less weight than you could for a Clean (just keep this in mind while watching) which will allow the bar to travel higher, which will allow you to get under the bar with your leg angle above parallel. The reason I chose this video is that it shoots from multiple angles. Your next step is to cross reference with almost any Youtube Power Clean vid and spot the differences, of which there are few.

[Zoroaster]

Also, question for Mr. Cook here, a plyo Bulgarian Squat... how does that work in relation to the foot on the bench? seems like there's quite a potential to miss if you're switching legs and having the top of the foot land on the bench. Any tips for how to do these correctly and safely?