In the early 1970's, plyometrics was first introduced to the American athletes. Originally used by the Soviets to train their athletes for strength and speed, American coaches and the rest of the world later caught on to it's valuable uses. Unfortunately, plyometrics have not always been used in the correct manner such as the Russians had first used it. They cycled it through their other training methods to prevent it from being overused but it did give them excellent results.
Shock training is another name for plyometrics. What it does is make use of the stretch shortening cycle, which is the active stretch of a muscle followed by a immediate shortening. These are of great benefit to the lower body for explosive power training.
Before beginning any plyometric or shock training you should already have a good base of strength already developed. You should be able to squat at least 1.5 times your body weight. Landing on your feet when doing shock training is stressful to your legs and having enough strength will help prevent injury. If you want to try doing any plyometrics before you reach the 1.5 times body weight squat, keep the jumps from boxes at a very low level. Maybe no higher than your current jump height.
The drop jump and depth jump are two of the more popular exercises. The height of the box to use for depth jumps should be low enough to allow for a good high jump immediately after stepping to the ground. Jump out away from the box about the same distance as the box is high. For a drop jump you just want to stop where you land, do not jump again. Landing with knees bent will absorb the shock.
5 to 8 reps per set and 3 to 5 sets is about what you should do. Rest up to 30 seconds between reps and up to 10 minutes between sets. It would be best to jump onto a soft surface such as grass or some kind of rubber pad.
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