Vert/Speed Training Thread

Training
1001

[quote]gregron wrote:

Thanks man. I feel a little more explosive now. My hip is feeling better it’d just this weird lower back thing going on now. Yeah I wish I had one. I was thinking I’d like to try one yesterday but my gym doesn’t have either of those. I actually think I might have a volleyball somewhere I’d just have to find it… Hmmmmm. If I can find it I’ll bring it with me and try to throw it down later at the gym[/quote]

See if you can. You can definitely dunk a tennis ball or baseball but that just doesn’t feel the same. I remember my progression was baseball, nerf football, volleyball and then basketball (couldn’t palm it though). I was never able to get dunks off alley-oops or lobs like these guys here. I always found that was harder so I’m not taking anything away from them.

1002

I tried doing some jumps with a knee brace that the surgeon had me fitted for. Shit costs my insurance company $1,200. Insane. I had a nice floor to jump off but still can’t get rim. The gym is where a D3 school plays it’s game and where the NJ Nets used to have private practices back in the Jason Kidd days. I walked in on one of them during work.

I figured taking a video would show how far away I am from rim but it came out like shit.

I used to touch rim on my finger rolls pre-surgery. I’d like to do it again.

What’s the best home grown way to measure my vertical? I’d like to chart the progress.

1003

Hey all, a lil background info…

I have been trying to improve my vertical for about 4 years now. I did not come from any organized sport training or any weight training background, so everything I’ve done on my own resarch and experience.

My journey started doing Air Alert, (I know, I fell for the marketing) but I quit it in the middle of the program when I wasn’t getting results. Further research led me to Kelly Baggett’s VJB (which I still own). After reading it, I joined a gym and started trying to squat. Increased from 180# to 250# whilst playing basketball, no plyos. Got a serious bout of knee tendinitis which kept me from doing any squatting and basketball for 5 months. I kept away from weights for a while, afraid of injuring myself doing it.

In June 2008, I started a program called ‘Power to the People’ by Pavel Tsatsouline. The book changed my life forever in terms of strength training. My deadlift went from 270# to 600# from June 2008 to Sept 2010. I started off not being able to press 35# to now being able to military press 70# in each hand.

Despite all that, my vert has not shown much improvement, because I haven’t done much plyos over the time period. I thinking about starting them after I reach 450# in the squat. I have 90# to go again.

My typical training week will look like this:

Mon-Fri: Squats 2 x 5, linear cycle

Mon/Wed/Friday: Presses(60#) & Pullups(50#) Heavy/Light/Medium “ladders”

Mon/Wed/Friday: 105# T-handle swings Heavy/Light/Medium

Tue/Thur: Press walks or waiter walks/carries (3 x 40 yds), rock runs (3 x 40 yds)

Sat & Sun: Rest

However, my SVJ is stuck at around 23" and my 2 step VJ @ 24". Am I doing something wrong as is? Should I do plyos now? Are there other exercises that I should be doing? Feel free to comment, criticize, give advice etc.

If it helps some more info:
Weight: 220#
Squat: 360# max
Deadlift: 600# max

1004

[quote]HS wrote:
Hey all, a lil background info…

I have been trying to improve my vertical for about 4 years now. I did not come from any organized sport training or any weight training background, so everything I’ve done on my own resarch and experience.

My journey started doing Air Alert, (I know, I fell for the marketing) but I quit it in the middle of the program when I wasn’t getting results. Further research led me to Kelly Baggett’s VJB (which I still own). After reading it, I joined a gym and started trying to squat. Increased from 180# to 250# whilst playing basketball, no plyos. Got a serious bout of knee tendinitis which kept me from doing any squatting and basketball for 5 months. I kept away from weights for a while, afraid of injuring myself doing it.

In June 2008, I started a program called ‘Power to the People’ by Pavel Tsatsouline. The book changed my life forever in terms of strength training. My deadlift went from 270# to 600# from June 2008 to Sept 2010. I started off not being able to press 35# to now being able to military press 70# in each hand.

Despite all that, my vert has not shown much improvement, because I haven’t done much plyos over the time period. I thinking about starting them after I reach 450# in the squat. I have 90# to go again.

My typical training week will look like this:

Mon-Fri: Squats 2 x 5, linear cycle

Mon/Wed/Friday: Presses(60#) & Pullups(50#) Heavy/Light/Medium “ladders”

Mon/Wed/Friday: 105# T-handle swings Heavy/Light/Medium

Tue/Thur: Press walks or waiter walks/carries (3 x 40 yds), rock runs (3 x 40 yds)

Sat & Sun: Rest

However, my SVJ is stuck at around 23" and my 2 step VJ @ 24". Am I doing something wrong as is? Should I do plyos now? Are there other exercises that I should be doing? Feel free to comment, criticize, give advice etc.

If it helps some more info:
Weight: 220#
Squat: 360# max
Deadlift: 600# max[/quote]

well props on your persistence, but your relative strength needs improving in order to get that jump up… at 220 lb and 360 squat max, that’s very low “horse power” as kelly B puts it. What’s your body composition at 220 lb? If you’re not around 12% bodyfat or less, i’d focus on getting to that body fat level while maintaining as much strength as possible, then starting over from there…

i wouldn’t look into “plyos”, i’d just work on overall fitness… short sprints, longer submax tempo sprints, jump rope, relaxed rebounding exercises (halftuck jumps, pogos, etc), and just jumping… don’t go crazy with the plyo stuff until you’re quite a bit stronger AND your body composition is in order, which i assume it isn’t… i’m assuming you have a decent amount of fat on you from your bodyweight and squat…

very nice work on deadlift, but deadlift has MUCH LESS transfer to vert so that’s why you’re not seeing major increases there…

your training routine sounds fine, just find more time to fit in that fitness work i talked about… if you can’t jump rope/sprint/jump before lifting etc, that’s a major “fitness issue”… got to get your work capacity up so that kind of impact-work doesn’t effect you much at all… eventually that kind of work prior to lifting actually can be quite stimulatory.

as for achieving your highest VJ, you need to be quite lean (10% or less), very fit/conditioned + getting in maximal effort jumping at least 2x/week, and have a deep squat of 2.5xBW or half squat of 3xBW.

peace hope that helps.

1005

Last time I checked, my bf% was around 14%. Not anything special but not way out of order

1006

1952×3264 826 KB

Here’s an easly lob reverse-

Attempted 5 or 6 of these in about 90 seconds so I was pretty tired by the time the camera man got this one. Wish he woulda got my first one 'cause I was pretty high up there. Went on a date last night and ended up staying out 'til damn near 3 am so I’ve been pretty hungover all day.

If you notice my limp walking towards the camera it’s 'cause my shin directly below my left patella is killing me. Had it diagnosed as Osgood Schlatters which I guess is just a fancy way of saying stress fracture of the shins. Anyway, here’s a pic. If anyone knows how to keep the pain down please feel free to chime in. It’s not constent, but when it comes it sucks and just simple walking even hurts.

1007

[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:

[/quote]

Damn, you made that look effortless. Are you back to the point where you could dunk in pickup games?

1008

^^^ Thanks Sam. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m close. I actually had a missed dunk in traffic the other day. If I had a clear breakaway I could put down a 2-hander, but that’s not the same thing. One of my goals is to be able to dunk off the dribble in games again. Just gotta be patient so I don’t kill myself, haha. It’s weird: I feel like my hops are coming back fairly quickly, but my timing and rhythm are all jacked up.

1009

damn WF that was an easy lookin reverse. Good shit! I would be so pumped if I had just done that lol

1010

Looks like I need to get a vid of some jams…I haven’t played ball for a while, but been lifting and doing some plyos so my vert should still be ok. As a bonus, I’m 6’8" so I don’t need a ridiculous vert to throw down.

I used to be able to 360, tomahawk etc. when I was still playing all the time.

1011

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:
What’s the best home grown way to measure my vertical? I’d like to chart the progress.
[/quote]

Stand beside a wall and reach as high as you can with the preferred reaching arm. Record length. Easy if you just get a tape measure and tape it to the wall. Jump with a piece of tape around your finger and jump as high as you can.

Height reached - standing height reached = vertical jump.

1012

[quote]gregron wrote:
damn WF that was an easy lookin reverse. Good shit! I would be so pumped if I had just done that lol[/quote]

Thanks Greg. Wish I had gotten the 1st reverse on camera. Obviously couldn’t see myself so not sure how it looked, but I really had to go get the ball and was from much further out when I caught it. Outside of my homo injuries I’m getting more and more confident that I can get my old hops back. Next vid will be an easy 2-hand dunk off of a drop step, and maybe some more tricks off the lob, off the glass, bouncing to myself, etc… Barring injuries I’d like to get down a lob 360 sometime this summer.

1013

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:

[quote]sam_sneed wrote:
What’s the best home grown way to measure my vertical? I’d like to chart the progress.
[/quote]

Stand beside a wall and reach as high as you can with the preferred reaching arm. Record length. Easy if you just get a tape measure and tape it to the wall. Jump with a piece of tape around your finger and jump as high as you can.

Height reached - standing height reached = vertical jump.[/quote]

While this does work, chances are you’re gonna lose a couple of inches at the least 'cause you’re more worried about the wall than the jump.

1014

If you can touch backboard, you can estimate within a few inches. Standard rim is 10’ (the one in your gym SHOULD be 10’) so slap the board as high as possible and have someone look at where you get to.

1015

as for osgood schlotters or however you spell it, i had it growing up, i have that bump also but a little smaller… only thing that helped was icing after every type of training… lots and lots of icing.

some crap from yesterday, ive been dunking a ton lately so, lots of vids, but here’s a few as of recent:

the first portion of this vid are some nice jumps too, even though basically everything is a miss… love that warmup two hander tho got up good submax:

probably gonna go apeshit tonight indoor, because i just couldn’t find an open court today and i feel pretty good… so about to ingest a ton of caffeine and eat a bunch of eggs, should feel epic tonight.

peace

1016

What do you guys are the most important lifts for improving speed and vert?

So far I have added hang cleans, hangs, push press (probably does not help), and kettle bell swings. I do have a separate day that I am adding sprints and plyometic specifc lower body exercises that I feel comfortable with the ones I have choosen. But here they are anyways;

Sprints
1 Legged Speed Hops
Two Legged Hops
3 Step Approach Jump (Volleyball)
Vertical Jump Depth
1 Legged Drops

Thanks,
Fuzz

1017

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:
What do you guys are the most important lifts for improving speed and vert?

So far I have added hang cleans, hangs, push press (probably does not help), and kettle bell swings. I do have a separate day that I am adding sprints and plyometic specifc lower body exercises that I feel comfortable with the ones I have choosen. But here they are anyways;

Sprints
1 Legged Speed Hops
Two Legged Hops
3 Step Approach Jump (Volleyball)
Vertical Jump Depth
1 Legged Drops

Thanks,
Fuzz[/quote]

Man, for me before I had the major knee injuries I liked traditional back squats, cleans and just playing ball/dunking. I never did any plyos or dedicated jumping, but I was also dunking at a pretty early age so I’m probably naturally inclined to jump. Since my knee surgeries I really like box squats, single leg accessory stuff and just playing/dunking. Some here may have more helpful advice.

1018

[quote]Fuzzyapple wrote:
What do you guys are the most important lifts for improving speed and vert?

So far I have added hang cleans, hangs, push press (probably does not help), and kettle bell swings. I do have a separate day that I am adding sprints and plyometic specifc lower body exercises that I feel comfortable with the ones I have choosen. But here they are anyways;

Sprints
1 Legged Speed Hops
Two Legged Hops
3 Step Approach Jump (Volleyball)
Vertical Jump Depth
1 Legged Drops

Thanks,
Fuzz[/quote]

well, there’s a bunch of aspects to vert so you’re going to have different “favorite exercises” for those aspects…

arm swing = plate swings, hang/jump snatch etc… some kind of heavy swing
knee/hip drive = some kind of squat, front squat, back squat (half or deep), whatever, as long as it is improving hip/quad power
calve strength = calve raises, double leg barbell toes on block for increased rom
rebounding exercises = all types of lower level hopping etc, MR halftucks/pogos/stiff leg ankle hops/jump rope
overloaded rebounding exercises = bounds (single or double leg), depth jumps etc
general upper body strength = pullups/dips/whatever
sprinting = accels (10-40m sprints), no need to really go past that, most of the work should be in the 10-20m range, just working on maximal rfd
jumping = obvious… working on different plants etc, just getting better overall and more well rounded… working on jumps from vert, 1-step, 2-step, 3-step, full run up, etc.

that’s my advice on it… gotta get stronger/more efficient in everything above, gains will surely come… and have to keep body composition decent.

peace

1019

Strength is not the most important thing - it’s rate of force development. You need to build EXPLOSIVE power. The way you lift is crucial. Everything should be done at maximum power. If you find yourself grinding, you’re doing it wrong.

Olympic lifts, in particular, are awesome. Oly lifters have some of the biggest verticals of any sport. Considering it’s a by-product of training, that’s pretty impressive.

Plyos with lifting work well. Depth jumps and box jumps are great. You can also overload with a med ball when you get further along.

1020

Okay cool. Ya I never had direct training with plyos before. I’m about 5’9 and can grab rim pretty easy. I was just looking for something else to help with my vert. I’m not playing volleyball anymore and or basketball. Looking more to get my speed back and to slam dunk as a goal.