Front Squats for Vertical Jump Training?

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerlifting & Strength Sports
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[quote]DGC13 wrote:
How much weekly gains do people typically see when they are maxing strength? I know the more experience one has the less gains they will see, but i am a beginner/novice (training seriously for ~5 months). Like I said i am in the 3-5 rep range and try to beat either my weight or reps from the previous week. My off-training habits (sleep, etc) are perfect. I’m thinking 10lbs weekly? Thanks![/quote]

5 lbs weekly is very good progress…if all you care about is vert you will need to get strong shot putters and oly lifters have the best VJ because there strong…what strength training are you doing …what is your routine look like…if its not too hard throw in a few jumps before lifting weights like maybe vertical jumps 4x2 or other drills to keep movement efficiency

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Every week i try to beat my previous week’s weight or reps. I am currently training on Tuesday lower body, Wednesday Push Upper, Friday Pull Upper+Deadlifts. I play bball on sunday so cant train monday. I am doing 2 money sets of back squats, 2 sets walking DB lunges, 1 set glute ham raise, 2 set calf.

Sometimes i feel overworked so i dont know about throwing in plyos. I want to but think i’m close to overtraining.

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don’t forget to foamroll and do release work, otherwise Jumper’s Knee is gonna come and smack you around

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I’ve always been curious about this huge debate that single leg strength doesnt carry over to double leg stuff. Actually at the moment I am doing a 4 month experiment on single leg strength to bilateral strength and single leg strength and improvement in sprint/jumping. My single leg strength was very good to start with (much better in comparison to the squat) so if in 4 months I can improve significantly in the squat and vj by single leg squating I think it will be an interesting start to do more experiments (if people are willing).

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Think it would transfer, as long as the gains in the single leg stuff is muscle size and not neural gains or just becoming more effecient at the movement. Like you see with beginners they start squatting and increase their squat by like 50lb in a month, its mostly neural gains, and getting more effeceint at the movement.

If you dont squat in 4 months its also likely to go down since you would lose your “groove” for squatting, however given a couple of week you should be back at it and stronger in your squat… thats my opinion lol :slight_smile:

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We’ll see for what happens, thats why its an experiment :). If people are interested I’ll post my results in the winter.

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sure I’m interested :slight_smile:

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I’ve also been doing mostly rackpulls from knee cap level and low bar goodmornings, plus calf raises - rest paused style training like Max Stim and Myo-Reps. Getting a lot bigger and stronger from them. Glutes and erectors all the way up the back and calves have blown up big time - think Doggcrapp type results :slight_smile:

Zero squats, but leg size has remained fairly big
Will be interesting to see what it does my hops when I return back to jumping

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[quote]Typhoon wrote:
We’ll see for what happens, thats why its an experiment :). If people are interested I’ll post my results in the winter. [/quote]

Would be good to hear!

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[quote]Typhoon wrote:
I’ve always been curious about this huge debate that single leg strength doesnt carry over to double leg stuff. Actually at the moment I am doing a 4 month experiment on single leg strength to bilateral strength and single leg strength and improvement in sprint/jumping. My single leg strength was very good to start with (much better in comparison to the squat) so if in 4 months I can improve significantly in the squat and vj by single leg squating I think it will be an interesting start to do more experiments (if people are willing). [/quote]

awesome that you’re experimenting like that… if i had to bet money, i would say it will not work for increasing VJ and squat… it would work for improving sprinting, as long as you’re sprinting.

how often are you doing vertical jumps? you will definitely need to be doing them ~3x/week… i mean, if you plan on just doing singe leg stuff for 4 months then test your vert, you’d waste four months of motor pattern/nervous system development, which is pretty crucial, especially when trying to tie in a less specific strength exercise to improve vert performance.

tho not doing vj’s would definitely prove single leg strength works if it improves your vert…

squat is more specific to vert & allows for more total motor unit activation than a single leg exercise will…

the loading of the single leg exercise will not even come close to the bilateral loading of the squat, so i dont see how it will improve it much if you’re not doing some kin of squat maintenance… the body isn’t going to enjoy going deep bilaterally with all of that weight that it is not used to moving.

single leg exercises are definitely nice for glute/hamstring development… but i don’t think you’re going to get near the needed quad development you need for increasing vert…

peace

91

Why do people say single leg loading can’t be even close to bilateral loading? When I do walking lunges, I do it with 185 lbs on a barbell for 10 steps (5x per leading leg). If we pretend only one leg is doing the work, that would correspond to a 370 lb squat for 5 reps. Hell, that’s ignoring body weight, since I was really using one leg for bodyweight + 185 lbs. For two legs I should do 2x bodyweight + 370 - lower-leg-weight = something in the 500’s. However, my 1RM isn’t even 370 lbs (working on it, sorry).

Now, one obvious conclusion is that I’m using both legs to some extent during walking lunges, and this is certainly true. Still, one leg does more of the work (actually, after a certain point, the back leg lifts off the ground, so the lead really is doing all the work then), so we inevitably conclude that this unilateral load is a significant portion of my bilateral loading.

Not trying to claim the squat isn’t king, but not everyone doing lunges is doing it with 5 lb dumbbells (just most everyone at my gym). So, am I missing something, or is there more to the unilateral load << bilateral load thing?

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[quote]BFGarrett wrote:
Why do people say single leg loading can’t be even close to bilateral loading? When I do walking lunges, I do it with 185 lbs on a barbell for 10 steps (5x per leading leg). If we pretend only one leg is doing the work, that would correspond to a 370 lb squat for 5 reps. Hell, that’s ignoring body weight, since I was really using one leg for bodyweight + 185 lbs. For two legs I should do 2x bodyweight + 370 - lower-leg-weight = something in the 500’s. However, my 1RM isn’t even 370 lbs (working on it, sorry).

Now, one obvious conclusion is that I’m using both legs to some extent during walking lunges, and this is certainly true. Still, one leg does more of the work (actually, after a certain point, the back leg lifts off the ground, so the lead really is doing all the work then), so we inevitably conclude that this unilateral load is a significant portion of my bilateral loading.

Not trying to claim the squat isn’t king, but not everyone doing lunges is doing it with 5 lb dumbbells (just most everyone at my gym). So, am I missing something, or is there more to the unilateral load << bilateral load thing?[/quote]

The leverage with a lunge is different from that of a squat, you can’t compare them. Oh yeah, and you have factored in bw for the squat either…

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[quote]Bloobird wrote:
The leverage with a lunge is different from that of a squat, you can’t compare them. Oh yeah, and you have factored in bw for the squat either…[/quote]

Of course it’s different, which is why you can’t equate them, but you can still compare them. The leverages between squat and deadlift are very different, but we can still compare them. Comparing does not equal equaling.

And actually, I did factor bw in the squat in, I just may not have written it very well in my pseudo-equation. My bw is about 208 lbs, call it 200 and ignore the fact that I’m not lifting my legs the same amount as the bar. Unilateral load = 200 + 185 = 385 lbs. Bilateral load thus = 400 + 370 = 770 lbs. Now subtract my bw to get the weight I need to put on the bar, 770 - 200 = 570. Remove some fudge factor for the difficulties of leg weight and you’re in the 500s as I originally said.

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[quote]BFGarrett wrote:
Why do people say single leg loading can’t be even close to bilateral loading? When I do walking lunges, I do it with 185 lbs on a barbell for 10 steps (5x per leading leg). If we pretend only one leg is doing the work, that would correspond to a 370 lb squat for 5 reps. Hell, that’s ignoring body weight, since I was really using one leg for bodyweight + 185 lbs. For two legs I should do 2x bodyweight + 370 - lower-leg-weight = something in the 500’s. However, my 1RM isn’t even 370 lbs (working on it, sorry).

Now, one obvious conclusion is that I’m using both legs to some extent during walking lunges, and this is certainly true. Still, one leg does more of the work (actually, after a certain point, the back leg lifts off the ground, so the lead really is doing all the work then), so we inevitably conclude that this unilateral load is a significant portion of my bilateral loading.

Not trying to claim the squat isn’t king, but not everyone doing lunges is doing it with 5 lb dumbbells (just most everyone at my gym). So, am I missing something, or is there more to the unilateral load << bilateral load thing?[/quote]

a vertical jump is bilateral…

a lunge is unilateral…

specific transfer of a unilateral lift to a bilateral explosive movement is less than bilateral lift transfer to bilateral explosive movement… all this means is that the motor program for vert is more easily integrated with the motor program of squat… optimizing motor programs is very important in performance training…

you can’t imagine that 185 on one leg is 370 on two legs… because it isn’t… 185 on one leg is 185… if your max on barbell lunge is 225, and your max squat is 325, the 325 squat will require more muscle mass to be recruited, since there are two limbs now receiving maximal impulses, because of course the load is higher…

there exists a bilateral strength deficit, the ability to reduce this bilateral strength deficit will in itself help improve vert… why? because you’re improving the amount of force you can produce bilaterally, which is specific to a VJ… it’s easier to stream a shitload of impulses to one limb in less trained individuals… people with high levels of experience with weight training bilaterally will shatter that though.

barbell lunges and barbell stepups are great for sprinting and single leg verts etc though…

peace

95

Wow, this is really good info. Where can I find more about the Vertical Jump Bible? This is the first that I have heard about it.

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[quote]Wimsey wrote:
Wow, this is really good info. Where can I find more about the Vertical Jump Bible? This is the first that I have heard about it.[/quote]

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I have a couple of ideas.

Can you do it “old-school” and dig a hole somewhere and then squat while standing in the whole. You shouldn’t need a rack if you do this.

Also, I remember reading somewhere that deadlifts may be better for vertical leap than squats. Other ideas that might not completely relate to vetical jump, but may help and can be done at home are: Sled pulls, and some kind of toss, like keg toss or DB toss. Work on mobility as well, because the lower you can go (as long as you get strong at that ROM) the higher you potentially can jump.

I have a side question for anyone that understands biomechanics and force/velocity. If you were to break down a jump into sections like: Bottom portion of squat, top portion of squat, and plantar flexion, would the following be correct?

At the bottom of the squat you need the most starting strength, isometric strength, and max strength. At the top of the squat you need a good amount of speed strength and max strength (more intermediate), and then the plantar flexion really needs to just be super quick?

If this is true, then it could help with determining training paramters.

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[quote]dankid wrote:

I have a side question for anyone that understands biomechanics and force/velocity. If you were to break down a jump into sections like: Bottom portion of squat, top portion of squat, and plantar flexion, would the following be correct?

At the bottom of the squat you need the most starting strength, isometric strength, and max strength. At the top of the squat you need a good amount of speed strength and max strength (more intermediate), and then the plantar flexion really needs to just be super quick?

If this is true, then it could help with determining training paramters.[/quote]

Strength and neuromuscular power are essential in the initial phases of a jump. This is a combination of the countermovement then concentric contraction to provide the initial vertical impulse.

Co-ordination of the segmental sequencing of muscle groups and joint motion is required for optimizing the skill of jumping.

Try not to think about needing strength at the later stages of the jump, most things are already in motion by then and its more about the skill/coordination of movement.

Important training aspects for vertical jumping are lower leg strength and power. Plyometric training that emphasizes the stretch-shortening cycle are essential, and especially in the movement plane you want to move in. No point during horizontal work (sled pulling) to maximize a vertical jump. The key to plyo’s is that they need to be explosive, with as little ground contact as possible. People often mess these up by making them complicated and slowing them down too much to be of benefit.

Squat jumps, calf jumps, box jumps, depth jumps, single and double leg hurdle work are all staples of vertical jump plyometrics. This is also where jump snatches/power-cleans start to come into their own for training.

99

[quote]Typhoon wrote:
I’ve always been curious about this huge debate that single leg strength doesnt carry over to double leg stuff. Actually at the moment I am doing a 4 month experiment on single leg strength to bilateral strength and single leg strength and improvement in sprint/jumping. My single leg strength was very good to start with (much better in comparison to the squat) so if in 4 months I can improve significantly in the squat and vj by single leg squating I think it will be an interesting start to do more experiments (if people are willing). [/quote]

why not have a bilateral day on Mon:Squat good morning RDL etc… unilateral day on Thurs:bulgarian split squat lunge step up…why do a 4 month experiment when you may not see results

100

I guess I could try this out…

This is interesting to me because I could grab the rim at 250 when i was 50lbs heavier than I am now…and my front squat is approaching 1.5xbw…it’s about 20lbs away…

I guess I could try to dunk after I hit the 315 front squat…or fail lol