Jumping & Dunking

Training Powerlifting
41

[quote]nbutka wrote:
i have no idea where you guys measured your vertical but anyone claiming a true 30-32 inch vert is full of it…with that type of vert, youd be dunking no problem…32 inches is a freak of nature vert.

vert should be measured by a short dip in one place and touch to the higest marker you can hit on a the vert stand. then height and reach come into play. thats how it is measured, this running start stuff is nonsense.

i know of someone who has a 185 kilo clean (407lbs) and is very lean, who only measures 34 inches. this kid is an absolute genetic freak.

most 40 inch verticals you hear of, aren’t measured properly. i measure teen athletes often on this and most average 25-26, a few will actually hit 28-29 but those are exceptional athletes. [/quote]

That kid needs work on his jump then!
I can only powerclean 60% of what he does, and with well over 15% bodyfat at 205lbs, but can definitely jump over 30inches from a dead stand. Even with a 5sec pause at the bottom…
Then again I don’t think cleans have much to do with vertical jumping IMO.

This is just from eyeballing how high I pop up the loose ceiling panel with my head at my gym, which is I figure is more accurate than a reach and jump anyday.

Most people are just too weak relative to their bodyweight to jump high from a stand, and the strong people are too slow.

42

I’m 5’10 with a 7’9 standing reach, fully extended with one arm while still flatfooted. My true standing vert is 35" my vert off of 3 steps is 42". I had it measured by a guy who used to work for the Miami heat and was told the highest true vert he had ever seen was 36 1/2" by a greek triple jumper.

A true 40" vert is absurd. There aren’t too many people with those kind of hops, but my goal is to be one of 'em.

Airness, you should be able to get it if you’re hittin 30". That’d put your runnin a good 4-6" higher. Maybe it’s your approach .

Since you’re a 1-footed jumper go up like you’re gonna roll it in and as you reach your peak, turn it over and punch it.If you wanna catch it with 2, perfect the initial approach, then when you’re comfortable with 1 hand go up to punch and as you reach your peak add the second hand to the ball and get it. Iverson used to do this alot.

43

[quote]nbutka wrote:
********While I agree that 30-32" is a GOOD vertical, I wouldn’t call it world-class by any means. There are definitly some who are in the 40" range legitamately. I would say that 35" is an “Elite” level vertical leap. At my school, the vertical leap record is (I believe) 35", which I plan on breaking by the time I get back to school next fall! Right now my vertical is 33" and I can tell you it is definitly legit.

At 6’3" my standing reach is 8’.5" (96.5") and my vertical touch with just a countermovement is 10’9.5" (129.5"). I can dunk a basketball just standing with no steps. Most people measure their verts from an approach, which in that case I could claim I havea 40" vert because my touch from a 2-foot approach is about 11’4". *********

if your using an approach to measure your vert, you should be shot. again i measure athletes alot in this so i know what type of vertical is not out there.

unless you had somebody measure you on a vertec, getting your proper reach measurements, then don’t attempt to guess your vert because your probably far off.

im not trying to attack anyone here, just saying most vertical measurements are wayyyyy off.

34-36inch verts are very very uncommon…[/quote]

Please see the part where I note “At 6’3” my standing reach is 8’.5" (96.5") and my vertical touch with just a countermovement is 10’9.5" (129.5")."

Since I’m a math major I can tell you that is 33" with JUST A COUNTERMOVEMENT. Please read somebody’s post before you attack them. I agree that 34-36" are very very uncommon in high school. When it comes to high-level college athletics, I do not think they are nearly as uncommon as you think.

My touch is good, but not incredible. At the junior national team tryouts I personally saw 2 players touch 12’ (366cm)! Of course, they were both also in the 6’8" range.

BTW springs, do you ever do any work with the Scottish national team? Their coach (Thomas Dowens) runs camps here at our school.

44

Wow. Last time I checked, the replies count was around 21 lol and that was yesterday. I was a really fat boy when I was in primary school (Year 6), I was 5’2" and 165lbs… (scary… lol) I never thought I would be able to dunk let alone touch the rim.

I picked up basketball in Secondary school (Year 8). I was still pretty fat then but I lost a lot of weight through exercising a lot more and I tried to starve myself, which is not a good idea. I dropped my weight from 165lbs to 140lbs whilst growing from 5’2" to 5’7".

I then took up weight lifting but then was constantly on and off due to being lazy (I regret so much, if I had worked harder, I would be dunking it easily now…) I just jumped a whole lot whilst playing basketball.

I actually started basketball later than everyone in my team but people thought I was improving so quickly that they thought I hired a personal trainer lol. I touched the rim when I was in year 9, when I was around 14. I touched it 1/5 times when I took a run from HALF COURT.

My standing vertical was crap, I could only touch the box that was kind of part of the rim if you get me… What I used to do then was a lot of squats and squat jumps and just lots of basketball. My vertical would improve by an average of 2" every month or so, but it really stopped after I started touching the rim.

As for why the rims are 10’2" (I had to measure something for my maths lessons at school when I was year 8, so we measured the rims…)in my school, lol, I don’t know why, Hong Kong has strange courts… There could be a 9’6" rim on one side of the court and the other rim on the other side of the court can be way past 10’.

I started touching this 10’2" goal at school when I was in year 10, again off one foot but then the NEXT day after I touched that rim, I sprained my ankles badly and that took me 5-6 weeks of rest. When I did recover, I could still touch it but I refrained from jumping off one foot because I had sprained my left ankle and was scared that I would sprain it again.

I constantly wore an ankle brace for the next year until I finally decided to take it off because it was restricting my movement a lot. That’s when I decided it was time to increase my vertical again. Although I really am kind of disappointed by my slow gains but that’s because I was still kind of on and off training with weights then…

Now, I’m on Skinny Bastards and hope to increase my muscle mass, strength and vertical even more. However, I also know that skills don’t come along with weight training so I spend a lot of time working on my basketball skills too.

I am now regarded by many people to be the best basketball player in a school of 1600 people, I don’t mean to sound arrogant but then I don’t think it’s anything to be proud of since lots of basketball players in Hong Kong are not serious and play only to show off to girls lol.

I’m also the only person to be able to dunk in my school, there are guys who are 6’6" and they can’t haha so I guess it’s quite an accomplishment in my life (I’m pretty happy but not sastified.)

As for my STANDING vertical being 30", my reach is 7’8" and I can JUST touch a 10’2" goal off the stand. That picture I posted was off a running start so it doesn’t really count if it’s testing true vertical, but how many times in a game do you jump from a stand still? I don’t think the coach really cares if you have a 30" or a 40" (or maybe he does lol), at the end of the day, I guess it’s what you’re able to do with that 30" or that 40" of yours. :slight_smile: I will try and get a video of me making a clean dunk when I am able to do it.

There is this really strange problem with me though, I can never seem to jump high enough on this 10’ goal I play on at the park… but when I am at school playing on this 10’2" goal, I can grab it easily whilst I can only NIP the 10’ goal at the park.

However, maybe it’s because I’m not very active at weekends and when I go to the park, I’m a bit tired and on the other hand, I’m always active at school so that could be a factor or maybe it could be the floor…

What I’m planning to do now is stay on Skinny Bastards but do the lower body vertical jump program by Coach DeFranco. Hopefully in a month or two, I’ll be dunking it two handed (Anything is possible!). Sorry for the long post!

45

Most of your vertical jump is in your postieror chain and I think deadlifts help a ton with your vertical leap. I watched a guy put on almost 40 pounds of muscle and still added 10" to his vertical from specializing on the deadlift. If I had to pick between the deadlift and the squat for your vertical I would go with the deadlift. just my 2 cents. . .

46

Jstrinsey, that’s 28.5" not 33" unless I read it wrong. My standing reach is 7’9" and I hit 10’8" from a standstill [vertec]

47

Haha I think perhaps you are reading it wrong. My standing touch is 8’.5", that’s 8 feet and a half inch, not 8 feet five inches.

Airness,
The westside program really is a great program, I can’t reccomend it enough. I’ve added 2" to an already good vertical in less than 6 months. I would reccommend using that to really push up your strength numbers for a while, and then sometime in the late summer doing a 4 week block of plyos to capitalize on your strength gains.

48

BTW Whiteflash,

That seems like a FREAKISHLY high standing touch for a guy who is only 5’10". You must have some orangutang arms man!

49

Wow, I thought my arms were short for a guy who was 5’10". My reach is around 7’8" (an inch shorter than WhiteFlash’s) but there are guys who have longer arms than me at a shorter height. There’s this guy at school who’s 5’11" but has a 8’2" reach!

50

Im 6’1" with a 7’8" reach. I thought that was good. I hate imperial bastards. Take the hint from the rest of the world and GO METRIC!!!

Reach: 234cm
Block Jump: 328cm
Vert Jump: 94cm

In Imperial(sigh)
Reach: 7’8"
Block: 10’10"
Vert: 38"

A guy on my volleyball team got a 42inch standing. He crazy. And fucking lazy too!

51

*****That kid needs work on his jump then!
I can only powerclean 60% of what he does, and with well over 15% bodyfat at 205lbs, but can definitely jump over 30inches from a dead stand. Even with a 5sec pause at the bottom…
Then again I don’t think cleans have much to do with vertical jumping IMO. *****

cleans have alot to do with the vertical jump…various studies have been done which show how much cleans help the vertical jump. if you have a weak clean you still may have a strong vertical because technique is a factor but if you have a huge clean its impossible for you to have a weak vertical. even shane hamman whos damn near 400 pounds has ridiculous hops…he can do a standing backflip

******I’m 5’10 with a 7’9 standing reach, fully extended with one arm while still flatfooted. My true standing vert is 35" my vert off of 3 steps is 42". I had it measured by a guy who used to work for the Miami heat and was told the highest true vert he had ever seen was 36 1/2" by a greek triple jumper.

A true 40" vert is absurd. There aren’t too many people with those kind of hops, but my goal is to be one of 'em.

Airness, you should be able to get it if you’re hittin 30". That’d put your runnin a good 4-6" higher. Maybe it’s your approach . *********

i agree with everything you just said…again i just dont think people here are measuring them correctly, thats all…dont mean to attack anyone here just my experience that for the most part, they arent done properly

52

I also agree that westside/conjugate is the best system to train no matter what type of athlete you are. All you have to do is slightly modify it to fit your sport. For explosive athletes i’d add in a few olympic lifts and maybe some ballistic lifts, plyometrics and your set. It can even be modified to bodybuilding and i actually think alot of bodybuilders would benefit from it.

53

Sorry about that Jstrinsey. You know, I’ve always thought I had shorter arms. When my arm is fully extended the crook of my elbow is in line with the top of my head. I guess I’ve got an absurdly long neck. Damn ricketts.

54

[quote]nbutka wrote:
i have no idea where you guys measured your vertical but anyone claiming a true 30-32 inch vert is full of it…with that type of vert, youd be dunking no problem…32 inches is a freak of nature vert.

vert should be measured by a short dip in one place and touch to the higest marker you can hit on a the vert stand. then height and reach come into play. thats how it is measured, this running start stuff is nonsense.

i know of someone who has a 185 kilo clean (407lbs) and is very lean, who only measures 34 inches. this kid is an absolute genetic freak.

most 40 inch verticals you hear of, aren’t measured properly. i measure teen athletes often on this and most average 25-26, a few will actually hit 28-29 but those are exceptional athletes. [/quote]

You’re not entirely correct; In 91, I went the free agent try-out route for the LA summer pro league. They tested vert. The athletic guys that could jump out of the gym all tested around 30-32; 6 or so of us tested higher. I was 38 and two or 3 were 40 with one guy going 42 or so. There is more than one way to test a vert and the most common, in my opinion, is allowing for a jab step as this, in my opinion, most mimicks what occurs in a game. Rarely do you jump in a game (any game/sport) from a purely static two foot stance. So, while you are correct that 32 or so is well ahead of the bell curve - i don’t think all these guys are full of it…not everyone here is claiming a 30 vert.

55

[quote]nbutka wrote:
********While I agree that 30-32" is a GOOD vertical, I wouldn’t call it world-class by any means. There are definitly some who are in the 40" range legitamately. I would say that 35" is an “Elite” level vertical leap. At my school, the vertical leap record is (I believe) 35", which I plan on breaking by the time I get back to school next fall! Right now my vertical is 33" and I can tell you it is definitly legit.

At 6’3" my standing reach is 8’.5" (96.5") and my vertical touch with just a countermovement is 10’9.5" (129.5"). I can dunk a basketball just standing with no steps. Most people measure their verts from an approach, which in that case I could claim I havea 40" vert because my touch from a 2-foot approach is about 11’4". *********

if your using an approach to measure your vert, you should be shot. again i measure athletes alot in this so i know what type of vertical is not out there.

unless you had somebody measure you on a vertec, getting your proper reach measurements, then don’t attempt to guess your vert because your probably far off.

im not trying to attack anyone here, just saying most vertical measurements are wayyyyy off.

34-36inch verts are very very uncommon…[/quote]

I DO agree with the last statement - they are uncommon - no matter how many guys you claim to know in any sport that have them - I can easily find 50 of his peers in the same sport for that doesn’t. They do seem to be more frequent these days with improved training techniques - but still uncommon nonetheless.

56

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I’m 5’10 with a 7’9 standing reach, fully extended with one arm while still flatfooted. My true standing vert is 35" my vert off of 3 steps is 42". I had it measured by a guy who used to work for the Miami heat and was told the highest true vert he had ever seen was 36 1/2" by a greek triple jumper.

A true 40" vert is absurd. There aren’t too many people with those kind of hops, but my goal is to be one of 'em.

Airness, you should be able to get it if you’re hittin 30". That’d put your runnin a good 4-6" higher. Maybe it’s your approach .

Since you’re a 1-footed jumper go up like you’re gonna roll it in and as you reach your peak, turn it over and punch it.If you wanna catch it with 2, perfect the initial approach, then when you’re comfortable with 1 hand go up to punch and as you reach your peak add the second hand to the ball and get it. Iverson used to do this alot.[/quote]

I chuckle at the above bro; not because I doubt you but b/c I wonder if you can actually PLAY. If I had a buck for every guy I knew that could jump out of the gym but couldn’t really PLAY - and another buck or two for all the young guys coming up that fit the exact same mode - I’d be rich.

You see, when you can really really PLAY, you are not obsessed with your vert. You usually spend your time playing or working on your skills. Jumping is not a skill in basketball - b/c jumping alone has never amounted ot anything except the ocassional highlight…and the ocassional highlight won’t get you to the league and won’t get you paid…it usually won’t even get you a scholarship anywhere decent.

So, I’m just wondering…why all the obsession with your vert?

57

I’d really like to get a jump pad. I think that is the only TRUE way to test vert. It’s tough to judge what your reach really is, if I just put my arm up to it’s full length it’s about 8 foot, but if I really stretch and squirm, it’s probably 4 inches higher. Who’s to really say what is more accurate because I don’t think you can really stretch your arm out like that while in the air. I think this summer I might have access to a jump pad, so then I’ll be able to get a “true” test.

In any case, as long as you are testing it the same way every time and it is going up… you are doing something right. Let’s face it, vertical leap doesn’t really matter. It’s kind of the same as the bench press, it’s just a measure and as long as it’s going up, your training is probably doing the right things. That’s just the way I see things.

58

I would think you would need at least 6-9" above the rim to be able to dunk.

By the way, I’m in the 5th week of Christian Thibeadau’s Get Ups vertical leap training program. I gotta say that the leg days are brutal!! Holding a parallel front leg in the Bulgarian Split Squat for 7 seconds for reps of 5 SUCKS! However, in the 5 weeks my vert has gone up about 3 inches!

Nick

59

[quote]nbutka wrote:

cleans have alot to do with the vertical jump…various studies have been done which show how much cleans help the vertical jump. if you have a weak clean you still may have a strong vertical because technique is a factor but if you have a huge clean its impossible for you to have a weak vertical. even shane hamman whos damn near 400 pounds has ridiculous hops…he can do a standing backflip

[/quote]

well a clean has more to do with strength than speed. A vertical jump is quite a bit faster. But then again the heavier you are, the slower you will jump so when your 300lbs the clean may help there :slight_smile:

Powersnatch with minimal leg bend to catch has more correlation. But I don’t think any of these lifts develop VJ, they are just barometers IMO.
And they would most likely ingrain bad jumping motor patterns, too much muscling in the jump etc instead of being relaxed and reflexive

I’d put my money on fullsquats with a pause at the bottom, depth jumps and jumpsquats with 10% of bodyweight, plus lots of jumping.

60

I agree, off the top of my head I’d say some specific exercises and why…

Heavy Deadlifts- improve starting strength, force production and overall posterior chain development

ISO RDL’s- improve posterior chain strength in the stretch which should correlate to improved power absorbtion

Heavy Squats or Heavy Squat Eccentrics- improve force absorbtion

Dynamic Squats with bands- improve power absorbtion and probably helps with power production as well (although some people would contest it hurts power production at toe-off, that might only come into play as you get more advanced)

Jump Squats- improve power production

ISO Calf Raises- improves plantar flexion strength (more power translated at toe-off)

GHR’s- maybe more applicable for sprinting than jumping, but probably one of the best for overall hamstring development

Depth Drops- improve power absorption

Depth Jumps- improve power production

And obviously… jumping, because there’s a lot of technique involved.