Shocking news! Elite jumpers are not FAT!

For those of you following my blog (thank you!) and my apologies for the lack of posts. Things have been extra busy lately but I am ready to get back to posting updates and videos of my vertical jump training.

My last post talked about how I'm WAY TOO FAT! My bodyfat as of a few weeks ago was 17.9% at a bodyweight of 173 lbs which equates to 31 lbs of fat. As a comparison, I looked up the bodyfat % from the NBA combine for each player with at least a 38" max vertical. This includes 46 athletes over the last several years. I decided to crunch the numbers and figure out the average bodyfat % for these athletes. Not surprising, the average is very low -- only 6.33%! In addition, there were only 2 of the 46 athletes who had a bodyfat % over 10%.

So I'm absolutely going to get much leaner and stronger. My goal is to be 8% by August 5th. To help achieve this, I started Intermittent Fasting (IF) a few days ago. I first heard about IF from Jacob Hiller (creator of Jump Manual). He was posting before and after pictures on his facebook page and I was amazed at the results he was getting.

For those of you not familiar with Intermittent Fasting, it is pretty simple. You eat during a 8 hour window each day and the rest of time you don't eat (water is ok). My eating window will be from noon to 8:00 pm. It is also recommended to take BCAA (branch chained amino acids) as a supplement before, during, and after your workouts. I didn't think I had taken this supplement before but it is included in many protein powders including the one I take (Optimum Nutrition). But, I have not taken BCAA all by itself before. I got watermelon flavor by Scivation. You just add it to water and it actually tastes really good. 

I won't go into all the reasons why Intermittent Fasting seems to be an effective way to get very lean and strong but read up on it if you are interested. It actually contradicts everything I and most people believe about nutrition (eat every 2-3 hours). But, I have an open mind and am willing to give it a shot. I will be sure to post updates on how it's going.

To wrap up this post, I want to leave you with this amazing video I saw yesterday. This is a high jump competition in Kenya with some high school athletes who are absolutely unreal. I hope these guys get access to some better resources and a shot at the Olympics. They absolutely deserve it. BTW, I bet these guys bodyfat % is also just a little lower than 17.9%! :-)

On my next post, I will let you know what tweaks I've made to my training. My vert has increased a little over the past few weeks and will share what I've been doing different.

Happy Summer!

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!

How high do you need to jump to be in the NBA?

I just checked out last year's NBA Combine Athletic test results and was shocked!

These are the best players leaving college trying to make it to the next level and you would think there would be tons of guys with 40"+ verticals. Not even close!

Out of 52 NBA hopefuls, just one player had a 40" inch vert (Terrico White). The average max vertical jump among these athletes was just 32.94".

So maybe 2010 was a bad year? I pulled up the 2009 NBA Combine Athletic Results. There were 23 players including a now very famous dunker -- Blake Griffen. But, only 1 guy with a 40" inch vert. No, it wasn't Blake. It was Jonny Flynn from Syracuse. Blake's vertical was just 35.5".

What about 2008? There were 72 players in the combine with 6 players who had a 40" vert or higher including some big names like Derrick Rose (40") and OJ Mayo (41").

If I can increase my max vertical by just 4", I will be an "average" NBA prospect in terms of jumping ability based on 2010's results. That's kind of cool! Now if I was only a foot taller and had better skills. I might just have a chance...