concrete

[Ian Legrow]

I have heard over and over that you want to stay away from doing to many jumping exersices (or anything really) on the concrete. In texas, becasue of the heat, the ground is always very dry and hard and usually feels like concrete to me anyway. I have never had negative affects from doing things on concrete, but will stop if someone can explain to me why it is rough on joints and such. thank you

[Larry Roseman]

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. When you land since you are not moving any concrete downwards

to speak of, the force moves in the opposite direction - back up in a wave - while your body is still moving downwards.

This creates sudden shear and compressive force on your muscles and and your joints. Besides stressing the body,

this reduces stability and agility, just at a time when you need it, raising the risk of a related accident.

A softer surface will reduce the force the body has to absorb since the surface absorbs some of it.

Although, if you cushion the landing with your muscles some of the force will be absorbed by them, which have some give.

And if you are running, some of it will be captured by your foot and achilles tendon and be used to rebound you.

But in general the harder you land, the more force your muscles and joints (and everything else) need to absorb.

You may be a very resiliant person. It may never effect your well-being. I suppose that in general the advice for most people

is to play on softer surfaces when possible, as damage can acculmulate over time.

If you have an option to choose, you may want to consider a softer surface.

If you have no choice, then certainly try to land as softly as possible.

[Joshua Naterman]

You just have to be aware that the forces your body experiences are much higher on concrete, but if you are landing on the balls of your feet the forces everywhere except the landing site itself really aren't ridiculously different. This does become less true the higher the jumps become, but for simple bounding and whatnot it doesn't matter unless you are heel striking. THAT is a huge issue.

You will also have to take a more conservative approach to how and when you scale up your plyometric program if you are doing it on a very hard surface, for the same reasons.