Dear Marco Pignone,
as in other answers or articles concerning the issue of Shock Method I have to point out that my Shock method exercises are different from the exercises usually named plyometric, proposed by different authors, that include also different types of Depth Jump.
So, I will talk only about the Shock Method exercises.
The Shock Method Depth Jump should be performed with the aim “to lend springy and to jump in aloft as high as possible” after dropping from 0.75 – 1.10 m height:
- 0.75 m height, for the explosive and reactive capacity improvement;
- 1.10 m height, for the strength increasing.
In a single training session, a well prepared athlete should execute not more than 4 series of 10 repetitions with 1-2 minutes of rest between each repetition and 10 - 15 minutes between the series.
This “training séance” (work out) could be used concurrently with speed - strength exercises (sprint exercises, bounces and high speed jumps) in the same training session or in different training sessions (in the same day or in different days).
I don’t think that the use of the Shock Method Dept jumps in the same training session with the explosive strength overload exercises (Barbell squat jumps or Russian Kettlebell jumps) is a good idea, because all these three kind of jumps have the same finalization but they have different level of training stimuli or training potential (the possibility to obtain the increase of explosive strength).
If these exercises are used in low dosage, sometime it’s possible to use them together, but in my pinion it’s better that the athlete is focused only to one type of these exercises: the choose of which of them depend from the training experience and the level of athlete.
The Shock Method Depth jump is, in the “hierarchy” of the explosive strength training means, the most powerful. In the training process it should be used only as the last step of the training stimulus increasing: maximal effort jumps without overload – Barbell jumps – Russian Kettlebell jumps – Shock method Depth jumps.
For the high level athletes, who already reached this last step, and need to increase more the training stimulus, I proposed a Super Method for the explosive strength improvement that consists in the use of Depth jump and Barbell squat in the same training session: execute the Shock Method Depth jumps after the Barbell Squats (see my article in SSTM).
Now, about your specific needs.
If you are “not elite” athlete and you need to “reach a higher level of performance in basketball and soccer, both of which I play recreationally”, you should not use the training methods elaborated specifically for “elite” athletes, also if you have good results in control tests. Usually, the high level athletes have not only an high level of special physical preparedness, but they have also an high level of organism adaptation to high volume and intensity of work loads, that is incomparable with the level of a not elite athlete.
I suggest you to not use the Super Methods, but to start using correctly, step by step, all the explosive strength exercises in their training stimulus hierarchy. These exercises should be used in different training sessions with the overload exercises, finalized to the maximal strength increasing (and, for you, it’s better in different days).
To increase the level of performance in basketball and soccer you could use the programs of Manual for coaches (for basketball players, for tennis players, for start acceleration speed improvement).
Yuri Verkhoshansky