374: Chris Scott on Pushing Plyometric Limits and Understanding Adaptability in Explosive Training

Today’s podcast features strength and parkour coach, Chris Scott. Chris has a degree in Sports Therapy and works at “Jump” gym in the UK. Chris is an accomplished athlete in the parkour and acrobatics realm, who also holds a high level of bodyweight strength, doing single-arm pullups, and deadlifting in the realm of 3x bodyweight. Parkour, as a sport, is one that not only highlights adaptability to one’s environment but is also remarkably “plyometric” in nature. The leaps that parkour athletes make resemble long and triple jumps in track and field but in a highly variable fashion. The learning that comes out of variability, makes parkour a sport whose plyometric component can be highly transferrable, or a “donor sport” to other more traditional athletic endeavors. Chris’s skill as a parkour athlete has allowed him to train and perform extremely high depth drops and depth jumps, dropping from over 8 feet in the air, into a landing. Chris has used the recent winter to explore an emphasis on the high-intensity drop training variable, to see how it transfers into other aspects of his reactivity, athleticism, and strength. Training drops have played a large part in the preparation of other athletes, such as Adam Archuleta, owner of one of the NFL Combine performances of all time. On today’s podcast, Chris talks about the results of his high drop training and has it has impacted his athleticism. We also go into single-leg drop training compared to double-leg drop training, and the related implications. We also discuss the impacts of drop training in general, seasonal training aspects, experiential aspects of parkour-type training, variability in jumping, “impulse” training, and more. Today’s episode is brought to you by Lost Empire Herbs, TeamBuildr, and the Plyomat For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for free (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com. The Plyomat is a functional, intuitive, and affordable contact mat for jump and plyometric training and testing. Check out the Plyomat at www.plyomat.net TeamBuildr is an online software for coaches and trainers. I’ve continued to hear great things about the Teambuildr platform, and whether you are looking for an in-house training portal or an online training hub, be sure to check out Teambuildr training software. View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:43 – Chris’s athletic background in parkour, and how it has influenced his current perspective on movement, training, and coaching 6:43 – Chris’s experimentation with very high-depth drops, and how it impacted his dynamic jumping ability and strength levels 17:43 – Thoughts on the possibility of a high volume of altitude drops segmenting the way an athlete performs a jump dynamically 26:42 – Discussing single-leg altitude hops and hurdle hops in athletic performance 34:42 – How Chris was able to maintain his strength levels while doing a depth drop-oriented training phase with less emphasis on weightlifting (with 1x day a week doing eccentric oriented flywheel squats) 38:42 – Seasonal training aspects, featuring parkour outdoors, and larger box drops indoors in the winter 42:11 – “Combo” movements, such as a series of jumps, coupled with a precision landing in parkour, and the subsequent training effectiveness 48:41 – The experiential, play-based nature of parkour, and fun plyometric-oriented training movements 52:41 – Infusing variability into common plyometric training methods 1:01:40 – When to use time frames, vs. more standard set/rep schemes in plyometrics 1:08:40 – Impulse straps, tendinopathy, and training the bone end of the tendon Chris Scott Quotes “It felt better to rebound out of (an 8-foot drop) than to stick” “A year later (after training with high drops) I was smashing my old hurdle hop heights by 10cm, 12cm; my high hurdle hops, I was 15cm higher” “Not all jumps are going to be as beneficial as other jumps, for all athletes” “I had a really hard time with the single leg drops” “Does a single leg drop reflect athletic capability? Callum Powell is (better than me at single leg depth drops) and that much better than me at jumping in parkour” “(With the depth drop phase and limited strength training) there was no decrease to my strength, but there was an increase in my jumping” “I used to do the 5x5 or 3x10 of jumping or whatever, and these days (with the jump variations, and time as a constraint vs. reps) I notice such greater improvement” “I really enjoy using hurdle jump combinations, and it’s not for the contact times, or the elasticity, it’s for a hard-to-measure thing, the coordination” “The hurdle variations that are quite similar but different enough, I get different heights. For example, a crescendo where each one is going higher, I end up at a lower height than where it’s going low, high, low, high” “I’ll often shake my hands or vibrate before doing hurdle hops” “I don’t even bench press, but I think of Louie Simmons in the bench press, on the dynamic days, he would get them to change their hand position on every rep” “I became objectively far more powerful and reactive through the upper body through doing (impulse training)” Show Notes “Impulse Training” https://www.instagram.com/p/Cwc7Trxo94B/ About Chris Scott Chris is a strength and parkour coach, who works at “Jump”, one of the longest-running parkour organizations in the UK. Chris has a degree in Sports Therapy and works professionally in strength and conditioning. Athletic development and injury rehabilitation are enormous passions for Chris and they shine through in his teaching. Chris is a very humble practitioner and though he wouldn’t say it himself he has a very high level of technical skill as well as excellent mobility and strength. His knowledge and passion for what he teaches shows in his sessions where he will happily share high-level tips and advice for those who are willing to make use of it. Chris began training around 2009 in Coventry and initially had a very acrobatic approach to his training, this focus shifted when he discovered the challenge-oriented approach to Parkour which widened his practice to include more training methods. When he isn’t training Parkour, he’s often increasing his knowledge base, or standing on his hands!