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How strong do you have to be to dunk? | Dunk Dad

 

History is repeating itself when it comes to the vertical jump market. I am actually puzzled, we have gotten away with building a strong base in our squat and deadlift to 1.5 or 2 times our body weight. I am not a professional when it comes to the vertical jump, I don’t train anyone or think I know it all but I do see a lot of complaints when it comes to basketball players complaining about why they are not seeing any gains with a program that does not improve their vertical jump.

Want to know if a vertical jump program will work for you, ask yourself this question…What are my weaknesses? Does this program work on your weaknesses.

I feel bad for many people that buy these programs and jump ship to another program when they realize it won’t work. Wasted money, time, and effort went out the window. I was in this position when I was younger, all these grantees by these companies that never could back up their claims.

Simple formula

Get Strong…if you’re not squatting ass to grass one and a half times your bodyweight drop everything you’re doing and start squatting.

I am Already strong….Great! Power work and plyos….while maintaining your strength.

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How Strong do you need to be to dunk?

Unless you are gifted with good genetics, 7 feet tall or go gadget arms, your last resort is to get your weight room numbers up. I am willing to bet if you have never squatted before you will see some quick gains in your vertical jump within two months. This is of course is if you have been practicing jumping a lot, and have the technique down. This will go a long way in transitioning your weight room numbers to jumping higher.

So how strong? What do the studies suggest….

The impact of increasing your squat strength improved test subjects squat jump and counter jump by as much as 12 percent…Click Here for the study!

I am sure you knew that already, your not that gifted athlete that can jump out of the gym by doing a couple of stretches and using your god-given beautiful genetics…..

So again how strong do I need to be….Well, another study suggested that there is a strong correlation between the maximal squat strength with sprint performance and vertical jump. You can find that study by clicking here…

It is important to keep in mind that you still have to maintain your movement efficiency in your jumps which means practicing jumping. Although the study was on soccer players it would be no different when it comes to basketball also.

From experience this isn’t surprising, every time I have increased my full squat I would start to see my vertical jump increase also. Again my goal is 2 times my body weight and if I fail to get there and I am squatting 350 I would be more than happy.

Squatting one and a half times your body weight will be a great goal, then you can use a more balanced approach of strength and power exercises after.

 

Vertical Jump calculator

I remember this being very accurate for me, basically, this is a calculator that works based on your weight room numbers in the squat or snatch. You can also put the desired vertical you would like and see how strong you need to be…

The basic idea is that for a given squat and bodyweight you SHOULD be able to jump a given height AS LONG AS your movement efficiency in the jump is up to par. If your current squat gives you a vertical jump forecast that is above your actual current jump height you know you need to work on transferring your squat strength into jump explosiveness better, thus you need more actual jump training and perhaps more explosive oriented training. If your VJ is even, or above, the forecasted VJ, you know your jumping efficiency is good, you’re transferring your strength into explosiveness well, and should continue driving up your squat.

Note: The calculator works best if you’re between 5’6 and 6’0 tall. Shorter folks tend to require slightly heavier squats for a given VJ and taller folks tend to require slightly less.

 

So when I was at the prime of my jumping I remember being 1 inch away from touching the rim from a standstill vertical jump no running or approach at the height of 5 feet 9 inches with a 7’5 reach with shoes on.

Standing Vertical Jump: 30 inches

Bodyweight: 190 lbs

Full Olympic Squat: 340

I actually could not squat that much, I was squatting 295, 3 sets of 3  which gives me a one-rep max of 315. This tells me any strength gains that I would further make would translate into vertical jump gains. It is too bad I didn’t keep going…

You can find the vertical jump calculator here!

My running vertical jump was 6 to 8 inches higher than my standing vertical jump, it was a huge difference if that matters.

Till next time….