Plyometrics and Ballistics Pt 2: Smarter Program Design
Explosive training shouldn't be reserved for competitive athletes or complicated Olympic lifts. With the right progressions, plyometrics and ballistics can help clients practice speed, coordination, and force transfer in ways standard strength work may miss.
In this Behind the Design session, OPEX coaches Brandon Gallagher and Daniel Persson discuss programming explosive work, then answer a common coaching question: how many days should a client train?
Coaching Improves Through Conversation
Behind the Design is built around open discussion. Viewers can send questions during the live session, while Brandon and Daniel use real program-design decisions to explain how they think through a client's training.
The July OPEX Method cohort was in its fourth week during this episode, with active Slack discussions, lab sessions, breakout rooms, and ambassadors joining the learning environment. The OPEX Method Mentorship gives coaches a setting to revisit core principles while sharing ideas with other professionals.
For Persson, returning to the method as a longtime coach and ambassador offers useful reminders. A process may be familiar, yet it can still expose a system that needs attention behind the scenes. Better systems save time and help the client experience a clearer program.
Coaching development is ongoing. The right conversation can make an old lesson useful in a new way.
Gallagher also described the value of being around other coaches after spending time traveling and working with less day-to-day coaching interaction. Rewatching a good movie reveals details missed the first time. Revisiting principles, gyms, and conversations can do the same for a coach.
Start Training Frequency With the Client
The number of training days isn't a fixed prescription. First, learn what time the client has, how often they want to train, what they currently do, and what may prevent consistency.
Persson begins with the client's calendar and preferences. That creates a practical boundary for design, although a client asking for seven sessions doesn't automatically need seven hard training days. Recovery, training age, lifestyle, and goals still guide the prescription.
Gallagher prefers to begin with the smallest schedule that can produce success. Adding a fourth day after a client builds consistency is often easier than starting with five days and pulling work away when recovery or adherence drops.
A client already training five days per week has a different starting point than someone moving from no exercise to a gym routine. For a newer client, two well-executed resistance sessions can create a major change. Moving from two to three sessions can also build momentum without turning training into an overwhelming obligation.
Let the Split Match the Available Days
Fewer weekly sessions call for broader training days. More available days allow a coach to narrow the focus.
Weekly resistance sessionsUseful starting structureTwo daysFull-body sessions that cover major patternsThree daysUpper-body focus, lower-body focus, then full bodyFour or five daysMore room for push, pull, squat, hinge, muscle-group, or output-focused work
With two sessions, a coach may need squatting, hinging, pushing, pulling, trunk work, and carries spread across both days. Three sessions create more room to prioritize patterns without losing full-body exposure.
An upper-body-focused session can still include lower-body work. The focus simply affects what appears earlier in the workout and receives the most attention. For clients who want five weekly training days, Gallagher may use three resistance sessions and two aerobic or conditioning days rather than adding more heavy lifting.
Persson often designs around movement patterns rather than forcing an upper-lower template. If pressing is a priority, he first decides how often the client should practice pressing, then balances that need with squatting, hinging, pulling, and other work.
For clients with unpredictable schedules, such as high-performing CEOs, full-body sessions can create useful flexibility. If two sessions happen back to back, the program can still work. Rhythm remains helpful, but a plan should fit real life.
Plyometrics Build the Lower-Body Foundation
The previous discussion focused on plyometrics: hops, skips, box jumps, bounds, and drops. These movements teach the body to accept force, respond quickly, and create force in return.
Gallagher often includes lower-body plyometric work on an upper-body-focused day. Low-level drills may include banded pogos, single-leg pogos, and butt kicks. They introduce repeated contacts, rhythm, and ankle stiffness before more demanding jump variations.
On another day, A-skip and dribble progressions can build sprint-style mechanics. Ankle dribbles lead into knee dribbles, high knees, and skipping patterns, which bring the ankles, knees, hips, arms, and feet into a coordinated rhythm.
These drills aren't intended to turn every client into a track athlete. They expose people to speed, quickness, and change-of-direction demands that don't often appear in slower strength exercises.
Ballistics Give the Upper Body a Chance to Explode
Ballistics shift the emphasis toward throwing an object through space. Chest passes, rotational throws, reverse throws, overhead slams, and reactive catches ask the hips, spine, and arms to work together at speed.
Gallagher considers throws among the most underused tools in fitness. Many people understand how to jump, yet rotation and throwing reveal gaps in timing and coordination. Medicine-ball work can teach clients to create force through the lower body, transfer it through the trunk, and finish through the arms.
This is where speed plus skill matters. Ballistic exercises require intent and coordination, but they are often easier to teach than highly technical barbell lifts. A client can practice a broad, powerful movement without also managing a loaded barbell on the return.
Build the Chest Pass Before Chasing Speed
A simple chest-pass progression can teach force transfer in manageable steps:
Start with a standing chest pass using the arms only.
Add a small hip hinge, then stand tall and throw with the hips and arms.
Progress to a jumping chest pass, using lower-body extension to drive a faster throw.
The jumping chest pass teaches a sequence similar to other explosive movements: load the hips, extend through the ankles, knees, and hips, then transfer momentum into the arms. The delayed finish of the throw matters. Clients should feel the legs drive the action before the arms release the ball.
Rotational throws add another challenge. The hips should help drive the throw while the trunk rotates, rather than the athlete simply turning their whole body and swinging the arms. That separation helps clients practice rhythm between the hips and spine.
Overhead slams and reverse throws also create positions that are difficult to load with conventional resistance exercises. A reverse throw can resemble the extension phase of a clean or snatch, while a medicine ball gives the athlete freedom to release the object safely in an open space.
Use Throws for Reaction, Sport Practice, and Fun
Reactive throws add a change-of-direction element. A coach can toss a medicine ball toward or above an athlete, who catches it, organizes their position, and redirects it into a slam or throw. The upper body must absorb and redirect force quickly, similar to how a depth drop teaches a lower body to accept force before jumping.
Persson has also used tall-kneeling overhead throws to train the explosive intent needed for bar muscle-ups. The exercise doesn't replace skill practice, yet it can isolate the speed component without requiring the full complexity of gymnastics.
Throws may fit fighting, weightlifting, gymnastics, or general fitness. They can work as a focused accessory, a primer before strength work, or a standalone conditioning stimulus. They also offer a different way to train for people with years of barbell experience and strong expectations around previous numbers.
Coaches who want to organize movement libraries and add exercise videos to individual programs can explore the CoachRx free trial. OPEX also provides fitness coaching education and certifications for coaches building a more individualized design process.
Browse Brandon’s throw exercise playlist.
Build a Program Clients Can Repeat
The most useful training plan is one a client can perform consistently. Start with the available schedule, choose broad or narrow session focuses based on the number of days, and progress workload at a pace the client can recover from.
Plyometrics and medicine-ball throws add options beyond standard resistance work. Used with clear progressions, they give clients a practical way to train speed, intent, and coordination while keeping the program engaging.
For the full pathway into this kind of program design, look at the OPEX Method Mentorship.
Connect with the coaches
Brandon Gallagher:Brandon’s Instagram (@bgperform_)
Daniel Persson:Daniel’s Instagram (@danielcapersson)
Join us live on Tuesdays mornings 11:30am EST on the OPEX YouTube Channel
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