Getting Leaner & Jumping Higher

Sorry for the long delay on updates. I've been traveling alot during the last month and had a crazy schedule.

But, I'm still training hard and seeing some progress. I mentioned about a month or so ago that I had started Intermittent Fasting (IF) and it is working. My jeans and dress pants are getting pretty baggy! Which is great but who wants to buy more pants!

When I started IF at the end of May, I weighed 173 lbs and my waist was 34". This morning I weighed 167 lbs and my waist was 33". Most of the weight has fallen off though in the last 2 weeks when I've been more disciplined in my eating. I have 2 weeks until I get my bodyfat tested again so I'm going to be even more strict.

I really like IF. Its actually pretty easy and I feel really good. I definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to get leaner.

I will get some new videos posted soon. I've been playing a ton of basketball and not filming much but will start uploading again. I am still determined to get the two hand dunk and although the progress is slower than I want it to be, I am gonna get there!

I will leave you with this very interesting article I came across the other day about the well known urban legend about guys taking quarters off the top of the backboard and making change.

Give it a read and let me know what you think!

James White vs a Jumping Myth
http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/4307/james-white-vs-a-jumping-myth

I lost the dunking bet for Nike Elites!

Last summer, I felt like I had kind of hit a plateau in both my vertical jump training and my motivation so posted on my blog asking  if anyone wanted to have a little friendly wager to help me (and maybe others) push a little harder to reach our dunking goals.

I think 4-5 guys took me up on the offer and today I found out that I lost that wager! Dang!

Congrats to Aaron Perry who beat me to the two-hand dunk!

Check out his vid! I will be sending him a new pair of Nike Elite's.

If you want to jump high -- you better be lean!

Just a quick update today. In my last post, I talked about the athletes tested in the NBA combine during the last several years who have a max vertical of at least 38" (a total of 46 athletes). Their average bodfat % is only 6.33%.

This made me wonder about the athletes who have participated in the NBA combine who had the highest bodyfat %. Would these guys have a significantly lower max vertical?

So I crunched some more numbers to find out! The 20 "fattest" athletes to participate in the NBA combine so far (who also tested their vertical jump) have an average bodyfat percentage of 12.4%! So twice as high as the best jumpers! And guess what the average max vertical is for these guys? A very measly 31.8"! Wow!

It boggles my mind with what we know today in terms of training and nutrition that any athlete -- let alone someone with a legitimate shot at the NBA could have a max vertical jump of only 31.8".

So I was already convinced that I've got to get really lean. But, this my friends sealed the deal.

New videos coming soon! I'm making some nice gains right now!

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!

I'm Too Fat!

Whoa! It's been a month since my last post. I think that is my longest hiatus since I started jumpmanual training just over 2 years ago. It was nice to have a break but it's time to get back on this!

Last Thursday, I got my body fat tested again using a bod pod which is supposed to be the most accurate test out there. If you have been following this blog for a while, you may recall I also did this in January 2012 and was shocked to find out I was 18% body fat (was expecting to be around 12%). Well, nearly 18 months has passed since my last bodyfat test on the bodpod. And I thought for sure with all my training that surely I would be down in the 12% range this time. Nope! I was able to drop a HUGE .1% in bodyfat. My test came in at a disappointing 17.9%.

So, it is painfully clear that I've got to drop some bodyfat. I currently weigh 173 lbs and 31 of those lbs are fat! That is just way too much! My best jumping days were when I was 29 years old and was in probably the best shape of my life. I weighed 169 lbs and was just 7% bodyfat which means I had only 12 lbs of fat. Today, the scale says I weigh only 4 lbs more than I did 12 years ago but I'm carrying 19 more lbs of fat. It also means I have 15 lbs less muscle. That is a pretty substantial difference in the wrong direction.

So the bad news is I am too fat! At least in terms of maximizing my vertical jump. Of course, I'm not saying I'm obese or anything like that. But, I'm too fat to be an elite jumper. And I want to be an elite jumper!

The good news is I am jumping really well right now. I actually had of my best dunks and best misses ever last week. And, if I lose 20 lbs of fat that should surely help me jump a few inches higher which would be two hand tomahawks all day long.

Today, I started another 12 weeks of training. I have made some changes to my workout and diet that I will tell you guys more about in a future post as this one is already quite long and unlikely many people are still reading this. :-)

Have a great summer! Keep workin hard!

And...if you haven't had your bodyfat tested recently, get it done. Maybe you are like me and need to drop some lbs.

Jump Manual - 41 years old - 12 week results

I have completed another 12 weeks of Jump Manual training!

I was really hoping to have a video of me dunking 2 hands this week but I'm not quite there. But, I am getting closer. I am back to where I was in the Fall of 2011 and might even be jumping a little higher. What's even more encouraging to me is I have seen some gains in the last 2 weeks as I've started focusing more on single leg work and being explosive with lighter weights rather than always lifting super heavy.

I actually think if I rest for a few days (like I was supposed to do this week) that I can get a two hand dunk off a lob or maybe even the dribble. I intended to take it easy this week so that on Thursday I would be fully rested but instead I played basketball six times this week and also worked out 4 times.

Tomorrow, I go out of town until Thursday and so it will be much easier for me to take a bit of a break. The trick will be eating right and stretching. If I do that, I fully expect to get a two hand dunk on Thu or Fri of next week.

Regardless, some really good things happened during this phase of training.

1. Bench pressed 225 lbs for the second time in my life. Started having issues with my right shoulder so I stopped benching. Not sure if I will go back to it or not.

2. Got a new PR for my no-step vertical jump of 31.1 (see video below). My previous best was 30.8. I am going to test again on Thu or Fri of next week and fully expect to get 32" or better after having some actual rest/recovery.

3. Feel like I've figured out some better ways to train. I've become a big believer in single leg exercises and has me feeling really confident in my training.

Below are a couple of videos from this week. Stay tuned for a blog post and hopefully awesome dunk video next week! Also, I will give an update on what I'm doing for my next phase of training...no, I'm not stopping! :-)

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"!