It’s something that trainers get all the time, and I think a lot of people are encountering the same type of question. It has to do with training your quickness and your reactive ability. A lot of people start a really good training regime—it’s going to include very high intensity events with low repetition; and we’re not talking weight training here, we’re talking plyometrics and quickness training.

What happens is, people do this training, and they have the right amount of volume, the right amount of repetitions, the right amount of intensity during each repetition. But because they don’t feel the burn, or the next day, they don’t feel extremely sore, they wonder if it’s doing them any good. And that’s a really, really great concern, because you don’t want to be putting in a lot of work like that and not be getting the results you’re expecting. So, sometimes it feels nice to feel the burn or the next day, to feel very sore, because it lets you know that you’ve worked hard.

Well, here’s the big difference between strength training and quickness training: strength training is also very important for building a solid vertical; but when it comes to strength training, you’re putting a whole lot more tension on each muscle fiber, which results in micro-tears, which are a good thing, and are going to result in increased strength. That is what causes what’s called DOMS, which is delayed onset muscle soreness. And that’s when you wake up the next morning, and you’re sore, or the next couple of days you’re pretty sore.

Doing this type of training, you should expect that you’re going to be sore—there are ways to minimize that and get a better recovery, but it’s very common to be sore, and usually that’s not a problem. With strength training, due to the tension you put on the muscle which creates micro-tears that recover and build strength—that is going to make you sore. And that’s going to hurt while you’re doing it, and it’s going to hurt the next day; and that’s fine.

What you need to realize is when you’re doing quickness training and plyometrics training, it’s not going to put on the same amount of tension that strength training does—although there will be, from a good plyometrics activity, a lot of tension on the muscle. There’s not going to be near as much tension or time under tension with a good strength training program.

So, how should it feel when you’re properly training your quickness? I mean, during the actual training, how should it feel? Well, you should feel very good. You should feel warm. You should feel energetic. You should feel that you’re jumping higher than you’ve ever jumped before, and really that’s the whole point of doing a quickness and plyometrics program. Each repetition of a plyometrics should be done at full intensity. You should feel like you’re jumping higher each repetition than you’ve ever jumped before, and that should be your goal each repetition.

I just want to sum it up again for you. If you’re doing a plyometrics and quickness regime, and you have the right volume, and the right intensity, and the right number of sets and reps, don’t expect the next day to be very sore. Although a lot of you, especially if you’re beginners, are going to feel somewhat sore, if you’ve done a lot of training before, if you’re playing a lot of your sport, you may not even feel very sore at all the next day.

And the other thing is, during that training, don’t expect to feel an incredible amount of burn—that’s not the point of a quickness and plyometrics training session. You’re not going to feel the burn. You’re not going to feel the pain. If you are, you’re not training correctly, because this is really about training the muscle at faster speeds, at higher intensity than you’ve ever trained before and increasing your quickness and reactive ability and training your central nervous system to jump higher, and to call upon the muscle fibers in better and more powerful ways.

I hope this helps you realize that strength training is going to hurt the day of and the day after; quickness and plyometrics training is really going to be a lot of fun. You should be jumping higher than you’ve ever jumped before during those training sessions. And the next day, you may not be very sore—some of you may be a little sore, but don’t think that you’re doing it wrong.

The only real way to know if you’re doing the quickness and plyometrics sessions correctly, is if you’re going higher each time, and you’re reaching new heights. It’s best to measure those sessions. And so, if you’re noticing that you’re jumping lower, well, you need to assess what’s going on. But if you’re noticing that each jump is at your peak, then you’re going to be building that each time you do a new session, you’re going to notice incremental increases on that.

So, anyways, I’m really excited to hear about all of the testimonials we’re getting, and I’m also very excited to announce that we’re going to have an update on my vertical jump program that, personally, I believe, represents the most advanced training that vertical jump training has ever seen. And I’ve been doing a lot of research, and a lot of testing, and a lot of reading, as well; and these techniques are going to make your training even better. And I’m really excited to release it. So, I’ll keep you updated on that, and I’ll talk to you soon.