Are you looking to add inches to your vertical jump? The age-old debate between plyometric training and Olympic lifting continues to spark discussion among strength coaches worldwide. Every semester we split our interns into two teams and have a great debate. They are living in bizarro world and are only allowed to choose one method for developing power in their athletes. Team one is pro-plyometrics, while team two is all about the Olympic lifts.
Now there are some clear benefits for both methods.
What Are Plyometrics?
Plyometric exercises are explosive movements that utilise the stretch-shortening cycle of muscles to generate maximum force in minimal time. Common plyometric exercises include:
- Jumping Variations
- Box jumps (focused on height)
- Depth jumps (dropping from height)
- Counter-movement jumps
- Split jumps and scissor jumps
- Bounding Exercises
- Single-leg bounds
- Multiple horizontal bounds
- Alternate-leg bounding
- Box-to-box jumps
- Medicine Ball Work
- Explosive throws
- Reactive catches
- Rotational movements
- Wall balls
Benefits of Plyometric Training for Vertical Jump Development
Plyometrics covers a wide range of movements including sprinting, jumping and cutting/change of direction movements
Plyometric training has emerged as a cornerstone of vertical jump development, particularly in sports like basketball and volleyball. Here's why many coaches swear by this method:
Key Benefits of Plyometric Training
- Multi-Directional Power Development
- Enables training in both sagittal and frontal planes
- Creates sport-specific movement patterns
- Enhances overall athletic versatility
- Sport-Specific Adaptation
- Vertical jumping for basketball and volleyball players
- Horizontal bounding for sprinters and cricket fast bowlers
- Custom movement patterns for specific athletic demands
- Enhanced Elastic Energy Utilization
- Improves stretch-shortening cycle efficiency
- Develops reactive strength
- Optimizes muscle-tendon unit performance
What are the different olympic lifts?
Olympic lifts are explosive weightlifting movements that form the core of competitive weightlifting. These technically demanding exercises include:
- The Snatch
- A single explosive movement lifting a barbell from the ground to overhead
- Requires exceptional coordination, speed, and power
- Considered the most technical Olympic lift
- The Clean and Jerk
- A two-part lift: first pulling the weight to the shoulders (clean)
- Then pressing it overhead (jerk)
- Allows for heavier weights than the snatch
- Common Variations for Athletes
- Hang cleans (starting from knee height)
- Power cleans (receiving the bar in a quarter squat)
- Dumbbell variations for beginners
- Block pulls and high pulls
Olympic Lifting for Vertical Leap: A Key Ingredient in Power Development
Olympic lifting offers its own unique advantages in developing explosive power, particularly for athletes seeking to enhance their vertical jump performance.
Advantages of Olympic Lifting
- Concentric Power Development
- Masters explosive power from a dead start
- Builds foundational strength
- Develops coordinated power output
- Progressive Loading Options
- Suitable for athletes at all strength levels
- Allows technique mastery with lighter loads
- Provides clear progression pathways
- Force-Velocity Curve Training
- Enables comprehensive power development
- Allows targeted training across the entire force-velocity spectrum
- Facilitates precise load manipulation
Tracking Bar Speed: Measuring Power Output when Weightlifting
When it comes to Olympic lifting for power development, we've traditionally focused on how heavy the barbell is.
However, modern technology has revolutionised our approach to power training. Rather than simply chasing heavier weights, we can now precisely measure and optimise our power output using velocity-based training apps like MetricVBT and taking advantage of velocity-based training (VBT) methods.
Using MetricVBT to track bar speed
MetricVBT allows you to measure power output in watts, giving you precise feedback on exactly how much power you're generating in each lift.
This is a game-changer – instead of focusing solely on bar speed or load, you can identify the sweet spot where you're producing maximum power output.
Start your session as normal tracking the power output on each rep. As you gradually add weight, you'll notice your power output (watts) increasing to a point, then beginning to decrease as the load gets heavier. This peak – your point of maximum power output – is your training target. For most athletes, this occurs somewhere between 60-75% of their one-rep max, though it varies individually.
Here's where the magic happens: once you've identified your optimal power zone, you'll likely find it's likely lighter than you'd expect. Many athletes discover they can generate more power with 65% of their max than with 85%. This is crucial information for vertical jump development, where power output matters more than the weight on the bar.
Keep your rest periods adequate – typically 2-3 minutes between sets – to ensure you can maintain high power outputs throughout your session. Watch your numbers on the Metric app; when power output starts to drop by more than 10% from your peak, it's time to end the session. Remember, we're training to maximise power production, not to fight through fatigue.
As you become a more advanced lifter you can play around with the loads: by changing the weights, Olympic lifting (and its derivatives) allows you to train the entire force-velocity curve.
Progressions and regressions - the key to great power training
One advantage the two methods share is the ability to be progressed and regressed on a granular level. All exercises live on a continuum from progressions to regressions.
As you improve in the gym we make things harder, more complex, and more intense, moving up the exercise tree into progressions. Have an injury, time off from the gym, struggling with technique or if you're still a rookie you move down through regressions, where the focus is on learning and development as opposed to intensity and complexity.
All along this continuum, you also have what's called a lateralisation. That's where the exercises are from the same movement family (ish), but it's a step to the side. We use lateralisations for individuals whose biomechanics or injury history contraindicates certain movements and patterns.
A perfect example is the Hip Thrust and Corelift: they both develop hip extension and glute strength, just in different ways.
Back to the Plyometrics vs Olympic lifting debate. Which one do you choose? Well, because this is planet earth and not bizarro world, we don't have to choose. The answer is you can use a little bit of both.
For athletes already saturated for plyometric load, doing some skill and technique work for sprinting, landing, and cutting is going to be perfect.
While for more advanced, older athletes, teaching something like a dumbbell snatch or a hang power shrug can be really beneficial for lower body power, or as a primer before heavier strength sets such as squats and Corelifts.
This research article does a great job comparing a hang high pull and a loaded squat jump for improving vertical leap. Hint there isn't much difference between the groups.
Programming Considerations for Olympic Lifting and Plyometrics
Some general points to keep in mind when it comes to programming for power
- Athletic Background Assessment
- Evaluate current plyometric exposure
- Consider strength training history
- Assess movement competency
- Progressive Implementation
- Begin with fundamental movement patterns
- Gradually increase complexity
- Monitor and adjust training intensity
- Individual Customisation
- Account for biomechanical considerations
- Respect injury history
- Adapt exercises using lateralisation when needed
Which one do you actually need? Test and find out
Both methods work, but they do not work equally well for everyone. The quickest way to know where to spend your time is to test your elasticity, and two jumps will tell you.
Do a countermovement jump, where you dip and go in one motion, and a paused squat jump, where you sink, hold for a second, then jump with no dip. Divide your countermovement height by your squat jump height and you have your eccentric utilisation ratio (EUR). It measures how much free height you get from your stretch-shortening cycle, which is the spring-like quality plyometrics are built to develop. Our guide to testing your vertical jump covers the full protocol.
- A ratio near 1.0 means the two jumps are about the same, so you are getting almost nothing from the stretch. Elasticity is your weak link, and plyometrics will pay off most.
- A higher ratio means you are already springy. More plyometrics will give you less, and your limiter becomes how much force you can produce. That is where heavy strength work and the Olympic lifts earn their place.
As a rough guide, a consistently low EUR, under about 1.1, points toward elasticity work, while a strong ratio sitting on a modest squat jump points toward raw strength. Re-test every few weeks and let the number steer your programming instead of a guess.
This is exactly what we built Metric Jump for. It records each jump from your phone, labels the countermovement and squat jumps on its own, and works the ratio out for you, so you can see your elasticity rather than guess at it.
Conclusion: The Best of Both Worlds
In the real world, we're not forced to choose between plyometrics and Olympic lifts. The most effective approach often combines both methodologies, tailored to individual athlete needs, training history, and sport-specific demands. By understanding the benefits and applications of both training methods, coaches can develop comprehensive power development programs that maximise vertical jump performance.
Remember: The key isn't choosing between plyometrics and Olympic lifts – it's understanding how to effectively implement both within a well-designed training program. Power is also only one of the four factors behind a big vertical — our guide to how to jump higher covers the rest, and the best exercises to jump higher shows where both methods fit in a week of training.