Plyometrics for Women: The Missing Link for Bone Health, Power & Longevity with Matt McInnes Watson

Matt McInnes Watson (0:00)

Ultimately, you need to drip-feed this stuff in. It's like, less is more, and the more frequent, the better. Like I said, if you can do this four times a week, and you can start out with five minutes of this stuff, that's where you want to start.

Hailey (0:14)

Hi, everyone, my name is Hailey.

Laura (0:15)

And this is Laura.

Hailey (0:16)

And welcome to The Body Pod. All right, Matt, welcome to The Body Pod.

Matt McInnes Watson (0:24)

Thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate you guys kind of reaching out to me. And, yeah, and wanting to learn more in the realms of what I nerd out on on a day to day basis.

Hailey (0:36)

Well, I was super impressed because obviously I found you this one weekend and I went down, as I told you, a massive rabbit hole, bought your, I don't know, one course I haven't even opened yet. And then the flyos on the app. And I was just like diving into it.

And then when we asked you to be on The Body Pod, I was like, oh, you're getting your PhD in plyometrics. Like, oh, perfect.

So you live and breathe this stuff, which is so great. And I want to really open this discussion for all of the women listening here. A lot might think that this might not apply to them, but as I have been working with midlife women, that's the only area that age group that we work, that are listening right now, and planning programs for them, we are hearing the message. And as I had mentioned to you in a private conversation, women are getting the message about strength training and bone health and plyometrics and speed and power. But a lot of these terms, I don't even know if we all know the correct definitions. So when I think of plyometrics, I'm thinking of box jumps, but then also more of what maybe professional athletes are doing on the regular basis. I mean, as I've mentioned on your Instagram, I see you do the jumps and then I do them and I'm like, I don't look like that at all.

SPEAKER_4 (2:10)

No, I feel like you float or something. You have grace when you're doing it.

Matt McInnes Watson (2:16)

Well, that's the leading part of our conversation, right?

Is that component right there? Is giving everyone the...

It's almost like quiet violence. It's like, I talk about ballet dancers being gracefully violent and what they do. Behind that gracefulness is a violent, aggressive movement. And I think that speaks hugely to females in general. We have, when we look at world-class athletes and having coached some pretty high-class and field female athletes, they're quietly aggressive in a way that I'm like... Especially when they line up with the men, I'm like, you guys need to watch yourself because she's going to do something that's going to surprise you. So it goes from the psyche of how certain women may be, and also into the truly what is athletic movement. So to kind of start that conversation of what a plyometric is, and I think the realistically to just a general population of people that want to move better, feel better, and continue to provide longevity to the kind of life that they want to live, not just years on a calendar. It is looking at how well we can stimulate our tissue, but also stimulate our minds and how we move. And ultimately, it comes down to the first kind of breadth of it in the history of plyometrics, and that is looking at it as a form of a shock method of training. It was initially classed as the shock method. It was to stimulate the body more than what we could with barbells or just being able to jump on the spot. So like if you take it all the way back to Yuri Verkuchansky's work in the 60s, and it bled before that as well in some of the Russian systems, but it was falling from exponential heights almost as high as head height, and stimulating the body as much as we can when we land. Now, I see that all the way down to coaching my mother who's in her mid-60s, to how can I shock your body in a way that obviously you're ready for right now. And in my opinion, it doesn't need to be, quote unquote, plyometrics.

You will have, you know, I work with many performance coaches that get a little hurt when you say, oh, this is a plyometrics. Like, I don't care. Ultimately, all I want to do is achieve an adaptation that we're looking for. So if you are a female in whatever middle-age is kind of class, that's whether you're, whether it's from mid thirties to sixties, even, I think that you have to look at what you want to achieve with it. Now, my thinking over the last five years has very much been aligned with, obviously, we need to improve tissue health, and that's critical.