Many of you reading this and are probably thinking I am going to do bodyweight squats, your wasting your time. Actually no, I am going to get under a bar with weights every day 5 to 6 days a week and squat, progressively adding weight every day until I plateau. Once I plateau I will do some back cycles to move forward.
Squatting every day for the vertical jump? This is a case study that will have me squatting every day to help increase my strength twice my body weight, there are many studies that suggest increasing strength in a full squat increase vertical and is the training base to help produce power for the vertical jump. Squatting every day will involve heavyweights with sets of 3 repetitions.
The overall goal is to increase my vertical, but not specifically with the weight I gained from squats alone. I just want to build my base strength first, then jump a lot on a low rim and use power exercises like the hang clean or jump squat to help me increase my vertical jump further.
Think about it
If you can train once every 5 days over the course of a year, that is 70 workouts. If you train 5 days a week over the course of the year that’s 260 workouts in a year. That is 4 years of workouts in one year. I know it sounds much better and easier on paper, but think of the potential gains here.
- In Kelly Baggett’s Vertical Jump Bible 2.0, he talks about high-frequency training, his guidelines are as follows:
- Keep your workouts short 1 to 2 exercises.
- Your heavy lifts no more than 10 reps.
- Use Back Cycles
- 100 x 1
- 105 x 1
- 110 x 1
- 105 x 1
- 110 x 1
- 115 x 1
- 110 x 1
5. Recovery – Eat and Sleep Well.
So how does apply to myself, Well I started to think that for my case study of squatting every day for my vertical leap I will start with lighter weight and progress. So 3 sets of 5 should be sufficient until I reach 80 percent plus loads of my 1 rep max. Then I would switch to a sets of 3 with 3 reps. Every day I would attempt to put 5 lbs on the bar until I plateau.
If and when I plateau I will use the back cycles. I could even extend the back cycles further like this:
- 100 x 1
- 105 x 1
- 110 x 1
- 100 x 1
- 105x 1
- 110x 1
- 115 x 1
- 105 x 1
- 110 x 1
- 115 x 1
- 120 x 1
So maybe instead of 6 workouts of increments of 5 pounds, I would need 7 workouts. If I didn’t feel that was working well I could change up the rep scheme or allow my body more rest.
My biggest concern is my knees and sleep. In the past when I squat and played ball I would develop sore knees. So I am hoping working on my technique and icing knees will help a lot.
In regards to sleep, I am a family man I call this Journal Dunk Dad, I wake up all times of the night because of my little one, so I am really going to have to dial in and go to sleep early and get my sleep. Kids are kids they wake up all times of the night and I am a light sleeper when it comes to my kid, if I hear them I get up to make sure they are ok, I am programmed now.
Strength as my base to start
As far as I can remember when I was younger trying to increase my vertical jump, my strength was always the issue. Whenever I got strong I was flying on the court, as soon as I stopped working out then I would lose my vert increases, rinse, and repeat. My biggest enemy was myself I would stop working out for months at a time. I couldn’t understand why? I did play a lot of basketball which was a whole other issue.
Once I can build this strength up I will switch over to a power phase where I can add jump squats, speed squats, hang cleans, and hang snatch. These in the past all worked well for me. In the past plyos never really worked that well but jumping rope did weird, I know.
I will be doing a lot of adjustable rim dunking and I can’t wait for this phase, I plan on using progression with different size balls to try and dunk at different heights that are easy and difficult for me to challenge me. That is the great thing about adjustable hoop dunking no matter what height you are dunking on you are jumping your highest and working on your jumping all while having fun at the same time.
I may Fail
Life is crazy especially for a 37-year-old man with a family and two jobs, I may fail at this but I need to at least try, my motivation is to get throughout the fall and winter and make it spring so I can start dunking with my new found strong man legs. The failure may come with too much squatting, it may come with an injury whatever it maybe I will give it a fair shot.
If I somehow manage to get this to work in my favor I could see this being a trend for those who are looking for the magic formula to increasing their vertical jump.
My goal is to simply get strong enough and be able to dunk 9.5 feet outside at the end of the summer. A couple of years ago I went to a gym and there was a hoop that was 8 feet 6 inches and I could not dunk it, just wow… I was ashamed…I do not want to make any comment about that….
So at least I am working out and I have a goal because it has been way too long that I haven’t worked out as I needed something to set my mind to besides trying to look good with a shirt off when I only take off my shirt 5 times a year when I go to the beach, Yippie. That was definitely not the motivation that I had, who am I trying to impress. I live for my family now and want to be healthy for my kids that’s the most important part and that should be my ultimate goal.
I forgot to mention I hate working out, so let’s begin….