Jump Manual - 41 years old - Week 11 Results

Week 11 of my Jump Manual training went better than last week.

I took my sister-in-law's advice to incorporate some additional 1 leg exercises into my workouts such as lunges (stopped doing these a while ago), bulgarian squats (new exercise for me), single leg glute bridges (have done these off and on), and reverse hyperextensions (new exercise for me). It felt really good.

I have already been doing pistol squats (1 leg squats) fairly regularly and will continue doing them. I think pistol squats might be the single best exercise out there for improving your vertical as well as preventing injuries. When I finish this round of training, I am considering going to an extremely simple routine that would heavily focus on pistol squats and other mostly bodyweight exercises and plyometrics. In about 2 weeks, I will start training with my 13 year old son everyday and so time for my own personal training will be very limited. I'm actually excited about it because I think I can still make some really nice gains while actually training less. More details on that later. My son and I will also be making videos to track his progress and so that will also be fun.

Speaking of my son's training, he's at a camp this week with Micah Lancaster, who is one of the top basketball trainers out there. So wish I had access to this caliber of training growing up. Things have changed so much. When I was growing up, many coaches and trainers discouraged basketball players from lifting weights. "It will mess up your shot!" This partly explains why I weighed in at a hefty 140 lbs as a 5'11" senior.

If you don't strength train now, you simply won't be able to compete in today's game. The level of strength and athleticism is just unreal. A few weeks ago, my son played in a basketball tournament that featured some of the best 6th, 7th, and 8th grade basketball teams in the country. I'm not kidding when I tell you there were 7th grade teams that looked like high school varsity teams in skill, strength, size, athletic ability, and talent. They even had a dunk contest. Absolutely blew my mind. Doubt I could even touch the net when I was in 7th grade! Last year's dunk contest at this same tourney might have been even better.

Going to finish this last week really strong! Eating right, stretching, and getting after it for all my workouts. I'm planning to get a dunk video posted this week and then a video next week hopefully featuring a two hand dunk!

Happy "Spring"!

Jump Manual at 40 years old - Week 2 Results

Week 2 of this round of vertical jump training using the Jump Manual didn't go so well. I missed 4 workouts out of 6!

And so here comes the excuses! I was out of town for the most of the week. Sleeping in another bed, being on a different time zone, working extra long hours, etc. is training kryptonite for me. For whatever reason, I seem to leave all my discipline and motivation at home when I travel. So, either I've got to stop traveling or I got to be more committed!

Today, I tested my no-step vertical using the Just Jump System that I recently purchased. I didn't have high expectations based on how the week went. But, I did improve from last week's best jump of 27.6 to 28.1 this week. If I could get a half-inch every week for the next 10 weeks, I would gain approximately 5 inches which is exactly where I would like to be (33" for no-step vertical). Gains are typically fast at first and then slow down over time but I'm hoping to beat the odds!

Here's the video from today showing my 28.1 no-step vertical test:

About six months ago, I know my no-step vertical was around 30 or 31 inches. It's a bit frustrating that I'm down from where I was. But, I looked over the NBA combine results and that made me feel much better. For example, John Wall's no-step vertical was only 30" when he tested during the combine (his running vert was 39").

Check out the NBA Combine results from the past several years. If you haven't seen them before, I bet you will be surprised to see that not a single player tested had over a 40" no-step vertical. Guys with a running vertical over 40" is also very rare. In fact, only 48 out of 988 players tested had a running vertical of 40" or more. That is less than 5%!

NBA Combine Results

That's all for now! Hoping to see 29" next week!