Physical Preparation Podcast · Mike Robertson

Eamonn Flanagan on Building Fast, Explosive and Robust Athletes with Plyometric Training

·1 hr 16 min·5 clips

Eamon separates jumps from plyometrics by contraction time, ground impact, and different strength qualities.

Mike Robertson opens the episode with a deep dive into jump training and explosive development. Eamon Flanagan joins as the lead strength and conditioning consultant with the Sport Ireland Institute, where he leads the physical preparation of Ireland's Olympic and Paralympic athletes. He has also been the head of performance support across a number of Olympic and Paralympic sports over the past three Olympic cycles. The conversation centers on assessing, coaching, and programming plyometrics in training sessions. Eamon starts with cyclical drills such as pogo hops, maximal skipping, and bounding. He makes the case that reps in a set should not be too small because athletes need enough contacts to build feel for the movement. From there, he frames plyometrics as part of a long-term plan in which movement competencies and strength qualities layer and build over time. He breaks the work into phases, including a foundation phase that may feature extensive and intensive plyometrics, or even waltzing, marching, and skipping before more obvious jump work appears. Those drills let the coach observe foot angle, calf ability, ground tracking, and posture, while also teaching the athlete how to create stiffness and springiness and bounce off the ground. Eamon connects that approach to the realities of Irish sport, where field athletes often train on soft, spongy, wet surfaces in winter and compete on harder surfaces in summer. That contrast makes basic stiffness and landing control especially important. The episode keeps returning to the same practical thread: good posture at contact matters, a long-term plan matters, and coaches need to build the pieces in the right order.

As heard by us

A practical guide to plyometric progression and long-term planning.

Eamonn Flanagan treats plyometric training as a progression rather than a grab bag of jump drills. The discussion stays concrete, moving through foot angle, calf capacity, ground contact, and posture while building stiffness, springiness, and bounce.

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Why you'd press play

You want a deep dive into assessing, coaching, and programming plyometrics without treating jump work as random reps.

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