Plyometric training sucks for tricksters

Tricksters should not do plyometric training exercises. Because tricks are plyometric exercises (fancy and technical plyometric exercises). Plyometric training has an end goal of speed or power. Tricking accomplishes this end goal directly. Why bother trying to get your box jump or vertical jump higher when you can focus on getting your backflip or butterfly twist higher? Why bother with barrier hops when you can work on swing throughs or successive front flips? The time and energy wasted on plyometrics could be put towards actual tricks! Here is an old video of me in 2005 playing around with box jumps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWXLwPOsq9U

I got this jumping height from strength training and tricking, not from box jumping. Obviously my box jump might be higher if I specifically trained it for years instead of only piddling around with it occasionally, but then that would leave me with a high box jump instead of high tricks.

So really, why should anyone do plyometrics? They're so dorky. People who use them merely for personal fitness could be learning a few basic tricks instead. And people who want to get into tricking with no foundation could play with basic martial arts and tumbling exercises (spin kicks, jump kicks, handstands, cartwheels, rolls). If you can't do these things you shouldn't be doing plyometrics anyway. I bet in many circumstances, athletes who need to jump higher or move faster could substitute plyometrics with plyometricks. Think about it.



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