Find out how you can improve your movement efficiency and train for explosive power in HYROX Singapore with plyometric exercises, resistance bands and sprint drills
Looking to improve the ways you train your explosiveness or increase your strength and power for performance at HYROX Singapore?
Find out how you can improve your movement efficiency and train for explosive power in HYROX with plyometric exercises, resistance bands and sprint drills with former national sprinter, speed and strength specialist and 100PLUS athlete Lim Yao Peng.
And don't forget while training for HYROX that recovery is important too, and there is no better way to recover than with 100PLUS PRO, a choice recovery drink by high performance athletes with added protein and BCAAs to speed up your recovery post training.
Today we look at how you can incorporate plyometrics, resistance bands and sprint drills to improve your power and explosiveness at HYROX stations such as the sled push, SkiErgs, Wall Balls and Burpee Broad Jump.
Understand Your Training Objective
To be effective with training, you must first understand your objective as that in turn determines your aim - are you training for vertical strength or horizontal strength?
Placing the resistance band at different angles and body parts changes and activates different muscle groups. If you are training hip flexor work, you can put it at your lower leg as an example.
How can any participant ensure proper form and technique while performing plyometric exercises to prevent injury?
To ensure proper technique, you need to be with someone who knows how to execute it correctly to be with you. That is my best advice. Rather than you try on your own, then because of the intensity and form, and volume that is wrong it leads to injury.
Are there any specific progressions or variations of plyometric exercises that would be better for beginners?
To be safe, I would always recommend that you understand intensity. Start with low intensity first, playing with pogo hops on softer surfaces, using the rebound elastic effect, then progressively you get into a bigger range of motion etc, a higher height or apply more force. It is really a spectrum, and you need to know your background before defining what is beginner. But intensity needs to be kept low at the start.
What role do resistance bands workout play in improving explosiveness, and how can people integrate them effectively into their workouts?
Resistance band is a great tool for explosiveness. In terms of how you can use it well, you really need to know what you want to work on in terms of the action and where the force is being produced. For example if you put the resistance band at your hip, is the band being pulled backwards? Or is it more downwards? It affects the way you project yourself depending on where it is.
Different angles change and activate different muscle groups. If you are training hip flexor work, you can put it at your lower leg for example.
Could you suggest any specific sprint drills that target explosiveness, that complement sled stations and running in HYROX?
I always recommend two drills, first is to basically know how to do high knees properly.
Your arm swing, the way you move your legs. The way you apply force through the action is critical. The other drill would be straight leg bounding, which I personally call scissors, as it trains a lot of your posterior chain - your hamstrings, your glutes and your calves. This is done in order to learn how to be stiff and apply force.
To be specific for HYROX, as the event involves a bit more endurance and not just a sprint - these two drills are good but I would also recommend using high knees to improve your technique and couple it with running up slopes or stairs as part of your training regime.
Recovery exercises and mobility exercises to complement explosive training?
Most basic one would be your stretches, you are looking at lower body - your legs, glutes, hamstrings and calves. Upper body would be your shoulder area and back. Having a good and religious stretching routine - from there you can add on foam rolling to assist you to loosen up the muscles, maybe some mobility exercises to keep the joints mobile.
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