In the Beginning
Jumping was a passion of mine when I was really young, I can remember jumping all the time trying to reach the ceiling, jumping over things, and especially dunking on low rims.
I could remember now how high I could jump, but at that time I didn’t think it was that high. I would compare myself to other kids in my grade when track and field came around measuring myself in long jump and tripple jump and never place in the top 5. So I didn’t think that I had a high vertical.
I was always a one-foot jumper until I switched to two feet before high school and saw that doing the long jump or triple jump now felt really awkward jumping off one. But for volleyball felt great, too bad I was terrible at it, with some practice I did eventually get better and increased my vertical in the process just jumping.
I played basketball and was obsessed with the game, unfortunately, after high school, I didn’t get recruited to any college or university. So I set out to increase my vertical thinking that will be the end of my problems and coaches will have no choice but to recruit me. Boy was I wrong and did I make mistakes.
For one, in the early 2000s Vertical jump knowledge was limited to strength shoes air alert, and some other gimmick crap. It was terrible, I had a part-time job and bought all sorts of programs that promised 12 inches of vertical. I think I even have those programs still at my mother’s house. I even still have and use the sky king calf isolator. Maybe I’ll do a review on that….
Anyhow, playing college didn’t work out, but I continued to play and I discovered actual vertical jump training around 2004 that did work. So I worked out with heavyweights and Olympic lifts and I saw some gains but it took a while and for some reason, I always stopped. I played a ton of basketball in the process and could never recover properly. Working out my legs while playing was too difficult to keep my legs fresh and play in senior men’s leagues, Oh well I guess.
The highest I was jumping was 31 inches standing, I always had trouble with my stranding vertical. It felt pathetic compared to my running high 30s. Jumping up at 5’9 with a reach of 7’4 t-rex arms and grabbing the rim with two-hands felt like a dunk for me. It felt so high to get up there and it was an amazing feeling.
The goal
Now years later at almost 38 years of age, I have decided to give it a go again, the goal is to dunk by 40 years old. Sound crazy maybe…I always loved dunking and stopped over 10 years ago trying to, I think it is possible at my age I see a lot of people still trying and are dunking at an older age. To be honest if I was able to grab the rim with two hands I think I would be pretty content.
Obstacles
Weight, kids, motivation.
Yup! keep the weight down, kids take up a lot of time which is great just not for this goal and I lack motivation from time to time.
Because the pandemic is in the way and I gained a little weight I needed to force myself to workout and it worked, who knew setting a goal worked, kidding…
Another obstacle could be my age, I don’t know how my body will react, I am not proud of it but in my 30s I have not played a whole lot of basketball or sports in general. I have slowed down considerably which sucks. I have a hard time motivating myself to workout.
Now I have kids and want to be healthy for them so hopefully, this will give me a kick in the ass and tell me to get yourself in shape.
The Plan
I plan on trying to get my squat up to 2 times my body weight. Studies have suggested and I have done a lot of research on the topic just fail to know how to use scientific terms, that athletes who are strong in the squat below parallel jump high. No surprise there.
I am doing something that is completely insane, I will be squatting every day in fact I already started.
5 days a week warm with some stretches and some jump rope and I get under the bar. Every day I add 5 pounds.
LBS/Sets/Reps
Sunday-135×3 x5
Monday-140x3x5
Tuesday-145x3x5
Wednesday-150x3x5
Thursday-155x3x5
Friday/Saturday are rest days.
Once I get to 200lbs I will be changing the reps and sets to 3×3.
I plan on doing a ton of adjustable rim dunking and hopefully, I can practice a lot doing that and improve just by jumping after I get strong. Right now it’s the winter so I have about 6 months to get my squat up really high.
I will be adding power lifts such as speed squats, jump squats, hang cleans, and hang snatch if someone can teach me it. I know someone who can its just that a pandemic is going on right now.
I think this will be interesting to document and see where I could get, I am taking an unorthodox approach to building my strength.
If your wondering where I am working out it’s in my basement, I have a squat rack and around 365 lbs in weights. Hopefully, I have to buy some more. The overall goal is 190lbs 380 deep squat. That would be insane.
Lonely Road
There really is no easy way to do this, everything is closed right now due to COVID and I can’t really measure my vert. I found I umped the highest after I played a few games of pick-up basketball. This is where I would go and try to grab the rim and or attempt to dunk which wasn’t often. Working out for 6 months and not knowing how high you are jumping or if you even progressed could be damaging once you discover that your results are not what you expect.
Well, I have till 40 which is roughly 2 years to dunk a basketball is what I am telling myself…so make sure you check in every so often to see how I am doing.