Hi again, hope you're well! I've been curious about plyometrics, but find that my pulse spikes quite easily, especially on migraine days, and so I end up feeling unwell. Was wondering if you know of any ways to minimise the strain?
So let me just start by saying that we need more research on plyometrics for the general population and especially for disabled populations, because most of the research out there is on athletes.
And there's a really good reason for that. Professional athletes really need to prepare their joints for explosive forces, so training plyometrics might be important for them.
I am however less convinced of its importance for the rest of us. But that of course comes with a caveat: everyone can benefit from preparing our joints for explosive forces because we might fall, or have to sprint in an emergency, or get into a car crash. Lots of things outside of our control can happen that it's good for our bodies to be prepared for just in case. But regular strength training already helps prepare them for that.
So, I'm still not convinced that we need plyometrics to prepare us or that it's contributing meaningful benefits more than regular resistance training already does.
I think the risks of plyometric seem to outweigh the benefits for the general population.
As someone with POTS I avoid plyometrics almost entirely. Explosive movements just aren't good for me. However, some of the plyo methodology is still useful to me, but I just dial down the intensity.
So as to your actual question. Yes and no.
I don't think there's anyway to make plyos accommodating to your needs, by there's some similar stuff you might try instead:
For example, instead of squat jumps, I go down into about half my squat depth then rise rapidly onto my toes into a calf raise. So a fast movement, but no actual jump or explosive force. You could argue that it's no longer plyometrics at that point, but I'm concerned with the body mechanics not the language semantics here. It's useful to help my body to practice a rapid range of motion. It's not useful for my body to actually jump.
I do occasionally practice jumping, but again, with less intensity. I do wall pogos with my hands against a wall doing very small, controlled little hops. Sometimes not even full hops. Just rapidly rising on to my toes but without the squat portion I mentioned before.
If you really want to incorporate plyometrics, either in their full iteration or the modifications I mentioned, I would personally recommend doing it at the end of a training session, while your muscles are warm and your joints are prepped for movement. And I would do extremely long rests between sets, or perhaps only doing a single set as a finisher to your routine and then immediately going into your cool down to bring your heart rate back down.
But if plyo is provoking symptoms, migraines or otherwise, my sincerest recommendation is to just not do them. I am not convinced these are truly safe movement practice for non athletes to be doing, especially not in a home setting where you may be exercising alone.
Truthfully I'm not even fully convinced that plyo is something professional athletes really need to be doing. There's not a lot of evidence demonstrating that plyos are necessarily better than just a good strength training program
