vertical leap

Hey i took a look at the previous post concerning vertical leap training and i pretty much incorporate those training method im 6’1 190 and i can hang on to the basketball rim but i still cant dunk… Id like to know if any of you have had success with a specific program what about air alert… did one of you guys tried it

I was in your same position three years ago. I started a program that was outlined in an old MM2K. It was basically a program that emphasized training the posterior chain. I went from hanging on the rim to placing second in the school slam dunk contest. I also gained a good bit of weight.

Air alert incorporates lots of volume jumping which is ok if your weakness is jumping technique and/or possibly stretch shortening cycle but won’t do a thing for you if your weakness is max strength. Also I think the volume of the program is a bit high working more on strength/explosive endurance while neglecting intensity. I worked with several college basketball players who used the air alert program with some success but they got much better success when incorporating a more periodized strength/plyometric training approach. A surefire method to boosting your vertical is to drive up your max strength through squat and other max strength exercises while at the same time increasing your rate of force development by increasing snatch, power clean, jump squats, speed and plyometric performance etc. A simple test you can do to determine which area you need more work in is the explosive strength deficit testing method (taken from Mel Siff’s and Yuri Verkhoshansky’s book Supertraining). Perform a vertical jump from a static knees bent position with no prior movement (this measure will give you an idea of how much muscle and starting strength is contributing to the jump). Make note of this # and then perform the vertical jump with a countermovement dip. (this will give you an idea of how much plyometric action is contributing). If the difference between your 2 jumps is small (<20%) than you will benefit most from plyometrics and max explosiveness stretch shortening cycle type exercises. If the difference between the 2 jumps is greater than 20% then you will benefit more from max strength training with heavy weights. Hope this helps.

If you have a high level of maximal strenth then I would try weighted plyometrics for a while. I got some really impresive results from using relatively low rep (4-8) wave loaded and drop set plyometrics.

Just search the previous issues, there was an article written that was all about training for vertical leap/dunking.

To Kelly - What you say makes sense intuitively but if you re-read the passage regarding the strength deficit and the link below you will see that plyos are recommended when the difference is LARGE and strength/hypertrophy methods when the difference between jumps is small. I hope this helps.

www.intensitymagazine.com/ 01-15-02/erick_colbert.html

Zatsiorsky explains how substantial improvements in vertical jump can occur by improving squat poundage. However, once you can squat twice your bodyweight, increasing squat strength will not improve vertical and plyometric is needed as it will improve the rate of force development…

Actually Reggie this topic has caused some confusion. There was a misprint in supertraining on one of the paragraphs regarding this topic. Some people had unfortunately taken the wrong approach. Mel Siff addressed this on his supertraining forum and did say the correct method is small difference= more plyometrics
large difference=more strength training. This is for explosive strength deficit but when talking about maximal strength deficit (as in a bench press etc.) a large difference between eccentric and concentric strength can be improved either through maximal weight training or dynamic methods. A small difference can be improved through hypertrophy training or the use of eccentrics.

That makes sense from an intuitive perspective. Can you supply me a link to that Supertraining discussion? It’s funny that the error gets repeated because I’ve seen that repeated numerous times as well as the link I posted.

thanks guys for the help ill keep you posted and when ill pull my first dunk il let yall know

Here you go Reggie. http://groups.yahoo.com/ group/Supertraining/message/16304

Thanks for the link. Finally, the strength deficit makes sense.