Strength shoes are a type of training device that some advocates believe will improve your speed and vertical jump height with regular use. They have a raised platform underneath the front of the shoe to lift your heel off the ground while you train. This design causes your calf muscles to support more of your body weight, and manufacturers claim you will make substantial strength gains that lead to improved performance.
Warmup and Cool Down
Like any workout, you should warm up the muscles you intend to train before using a strength shoe workout. Strength shoe manufacturer Jump USA recommends you jog 1/4 mile or jump rope for two minutes with the shoes on before you begin more intense training. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that some preemptive heavy weight strength training may be useful in the weeks before engaging in an explosive movement routine like strength shoe workouts.
Exercises
The type of exercises you perform in strength shoes depends on what your fitness goals are. If you want to increase your vertical jump, exercises like bounding and box jumps in the shoes will increase your explosive power. To increase your running speed, sprinting and lunges may be more appropriate. Only use two or three exercises per session when you first begin training with strength shoes until you build a sufficient strength base. Train one or two sets per exercise with 10 repetitions or 25-yard distances to keep the focus on the training on explosive power rather than endurance.
Rest Intervals
Resting between sets is critically important to explosive movement workouts. According to sports physiologist Phil Davies, you need to rest long enough that you almost completely recover. If you are performing low resistance exercises like hopping in place, you may only need a couple of minutes between sets. Intense exercises like depth jumps require a 1-to-10 ratio of rest, meaning that you need to rest 10 times as long as it takes to complete a single set.
Attention to Form
In his study of strength shoes, Fred Hatfield, associate strength and conditioning coach at James Madison University, found that they tend to produce a higher injury rate than training with regular gym shoes. One possible reason for this is that strength training shoes place the ankle and Achilles tendon in less stable positions. Therefore, you must ensure that you never perform strength shoe workouts when your muscles are tired and you are more likely to use improper form.
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