I thought about posting this in the exercise forum, but since it's not about weight loss, I figured that I'd just post here, seeing as how you're probably the only other person here who'd either A) Care or B) Know enough about sports training to comment on it.
I'm looking to train up the explosiveness in my legs. Even after all the knee/muscle injuries, I have brought my leg strength back up to a semi-respectable level, doing 500 x 8 today (yes, I was a fruit, and tagged the ends with 2.5's to get the flat 500), and I want to start working explosiveness into the mix, and focus less on big numbers (but not give 'em up).
So, after leaving the beloved squat rack (I left legs after squats, long-base lunges, RDLs, ham curls, and leg extensions), I went to go find my favorite explosion tool, the sandbag. No dice. At this point, I figure on explaining what I'm talking about, as NONE of the staff at Golds had any clue what I was talking about, or why I would even want one. I'm used to a big 'ol rubber tube of sand filled up to different weights (I was looking for 100lbs) which you sling over the top of your shoulders, and do WHATEVER with.
So, deprived of that, I go in search of a place to push a board/weight... there is no surface at the Golds (and none at my house) where I can push a weight across the floor without them shitting a brick.
So... I decide to try something out, and met with partial success. I went back to the squat rack and weighted it at 135. I shouldered it, and went in a slow and controlled manner down to a full squatting position (maybe 5 count down). I paused at the bottom for a split second, and then exploded back up as fast as possible. The first couple, I was clearing 6+ inches with my feet, and I got a sorta good explosive feel. The problem was that with the weight spread out everywhere, it was much harder to control through the explosion, and then I was too worried about the bar flying around to focus on not locking my legs out, and landing softly, etc etc etc. So... I got a pretty good workout there, but I don't think I'd do it again 'cause of risk of injury.
In the end, I ended up going and doing unweighted box jumps to finish everything out, but that still wasn't what I wanted.
So, after reading that whole book, the question I have for you is: Do you have any thoughts about an easier way to train weighted leg explosion with the regular crap in the gym? I spent a good 5 minutes walking around without finding anything that I felt would deliver any real benefit, and getting more and more pissed as I saw the expensive gimmick flashy shit used to lure in the housewives, when they could have gotten better use out of a cheap rubber tube and a couple of bags of sand.
