So Whiteflash what was your vertical when you were dunking, what dunks were you doing, and what did you do to increase your vertical leap?
[quote]Brian14 wrote:
So I’ve focused on strength through out my weightlifting career, but the other day my friend and I were talking about how cool it would be if we could dunk. I can squat 315 for 7 reps low bar and below parallel. I can deadlift 360 for 3 reps. I’m 17, weigh 180, and I’m 6’2". My standing vert was tested on a digital platform a few months ago and it was 33". I have pretty short arms so I can only touch about a cm over the rim. Ive never done any sort of plyometric or jump training. Im wondering if there is some sort of “tried and true” basic program that I could follow to increase my vert. If there no specific program, could someone at least list some staple exercises and a set/rep scheme to follow? Thanks for all the help guys
Strength will still be my priority, but I figure I could do the jump training 2/3 times a week.
Current Weight Program:
Monday: Horizantal Push and Pull
Tuesday: Squat
Thursday: Vertical Push and Pull
Saturday:Deadlift[/quote]
Your strength base is more than enough. focus on plyometrics and hang power snatches or cleans. Snatches are generally better because you can’t “muscle” it like you could a clean.
[quote]godfrey3 wrote:
So Whiteflash what was your vertical when you were dunking, what dunks were you doing, and what did you do to increase your vertical leap? [/quote]
I’m still dunking. My standing reach in shoes is 7’6", and at my peak I could touch 11’2 and change, so 44-ish. In games mostly basic 2-handers,back door lobs, if I got out on the break maybe a reverse or 2-hand cockback. Threw it off the glass to myself a couple of times in pickup and rec-league games. In contests I could do some pretty good dunks, but they were all with 2 hands 'cause I can barely palm a ball and I’d lose it in the air. My 2 favorite contest dunks were a self lob pump reverse, and I’d toss the ball off the glass on the left side, catch it mid spin and 360 it. Probably more like a 270, but I’ll take it.
Caught my first dunk at 5’7" with zero training so was naturally pretty athletic, but what put me over the top was getting stronger. I know that sounds really basic, but if you’re naturally springy, it works. You gotta continue to play/practice jumping a couple of times a week too.
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I’m still dunking. My standing reach in shoes is 7’6", and at my peak I could touch 11’2 and change, so 44-ish. In games mostly basic 2-handers,back door lobs, if I got out on the break maybe a reverse or 2-hand cockback. Threw it off the glass to myself a couple of times in pickup and rec-league games. In contests I could do some pretty good dunks, but they were all with 2 hands 'cause I can barely palm a ball and I’d lose it in the air. My 2 favorite contest dunks were a self lob pump reverse, and I’d toss the ball off the glass on the left side, catch it mid spin and 360 it. Probably more like a 270, but I’ll take it.
Caught my first dunk at 5’7" with zero training so was naturally pretty athletic, but what put me over the top was getting stronger. I know that sounds really basic, but if you’re naturally springy, it works. You gotta continue to play/practice jumping a couple of times a week too.[/quote]
Do you have any vids of you dunking? Also right now im getting one on one training with kelly baggett and he helped me get my squat from 155-290 in about 4 months. Is the rumors true about kelly vertical and him dunking?
Just do 3-5 sets of 3-5 jumps before you squat or deadlift.
Box jumps, hurdle jumps, vertical jumps, and seated box jumps should be enough variety to start off with. No need to get complicated
[quote]godfrey3 wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
I’m still dunking. My standing reach in shoes is 7’6", and at my peak I could touch 11’2 and change, so 44-ish. In games mostly basic 2-handers,back door lobs, if I got out on the break maybe a reverse or 2-hand cockback. Threw it off the glass to myself a couple of times in pickup and rec-league games. In contests I could do some pretty good dunks, but they were all with 2 hands 'cause I can barely palm a ball and I’d lose it in the air. My 2 favorite contest dunks were a self lob pump reverse, and I’d toss the ball off the glass on the left side, catch it mid spin and 360 it. Probably more like a 270, but I’ll take it.
Caught my first dunk at 5’7" with zero training so was naturally pretty athletic, but what put me over the top was getting stronger. I know that sounds really basic, but if you’re naturally springy, it works. You gotta continue to play/practice jumping a couple of times a week too.[/quote]
Do you have any vids of you dunking? Also right now im getting one on one training with kelly baggett and he helped me get my squat from 155-290 in about 4 months. Is the rumors true about kelly vertical and him dunking?[/quote]
Yeah, several. Unfortunately they’re all after I blew both knees out so the dunks are pretty basic. I’ve never seen any vids of Baggett, only still photo’s. Photo’s are easily doctored, but all the stuff I’ve read from him sounds legit, and he’s apparently helped a ton of people. Props on the squat. Has your vert increased with the squat gain?
Think this is the most recent vid I have-
so basically do squats first or do jump exercises first?
Wow, great stuff Flash!
My reach is 7’9" at 6’1" and I could grab rim with a 3 step start and touch slightly over the rim from dead stop. I’m guessing that’s about 28" standing and 31" with the start. It seems like my reactivity is fairly poor? I can squat 2.3x bw low-bar, so I think the strength is there, I just need to work on jumping skill.
I’ve read some of Baggett’s stuff and I’m convinced that my problem is with my reactivity and ankle strength. So right now I’m doing a 4 day upper lower split, with either squat or deadlift on lower body days. Before the heavy lifting, I would practice grabbing rim and also do some depth jumps and ankle jumps. Just started this for a few weeks and I think I’m jumping about 1 inch higher now than when I started. Hopefully this will go well.
Assuming most of us here are lifters, we probably have the strength, we just need to work more on translating that strength to jumps, so I’d jump before lifting, since that’s when you’re most fresh. My lifting strength has suffered by maybe 5%, but I’m ok with that for now.
[quote]cct wrote:
Wow, great stuff Flash!
My reach is 7’9" at 6’1" and I could grab rim with a 3 step start and touch slightly over the rim from dead stop. I’m guessing that’s about 28" standing and 31" with the start. It seems like my reactivity is fairly poor? I can squat 2.3x bw low-bar, so I think the strength is there, I just need to work on jumping skill.
I’ve read some of Baggett’s stuff and I’m convinced that my problem is with my reactivity and ankle strength. So right now I’m doing a 4 day upper lower split, with either squat or deadlift on lower body days. Before the heavy lifting, I would practice grabbing rim and also do some depth jumps and ankle jumps. Just started this for a few weeks and I think I’m jumping about 1 inch higher now than when I started. Hopefully this will go well.
Assuming most of us here are lifters, we probably have the strength, we just need to work more on translating that strength to jumps, so I’d jump before lifting, since that’s when you’re most fresh. My lifting strength has suffered by maybe 5%, but I’m ok with that for now.[/quote]
Thanks bud. Have you looked at Baggetts site? Not sure I’m allowed to post a link, but when you get there checkout his articles and go to “the ultimate split”. Haven’t done it, but it looks perfect for someone trying to increase strength and explosiveness.
Dunked a baseball a few times after deadlifts today. Felt good. I’ll try to move up to volleyballs, footballs, and soccer balls as I progress.
[quote]patrick4588 wrote:
speed squats, box jumps, and just try dunking over and over. im 5’11 and ive hit my head on the rim multiple occassions. I can 2 hand dunk on vertical. Windmill off backboard and i’m working on a 360. Before i started lifting, i could grab the rim, but that was it. My vert went up 15" in 6 months doing deep squats, box squats, and speed squats.[/quote]
Do u have any pics of yourself dunking cause alot of people on these forum claim they could dunk wit no proof
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Yeah, several. Unfortunately they’re all after I blew both knees out so the dunks are pretty basic. I’ve never seen any vids of Baggett, only still photo’s. Photo’s are easily doctored, but all the stuff I’ve read from him sounds legit, and he’s apparently helped a ton of people. Props on the squat. Has your vert increased with the squat gain?[/quote]
Yeah my vert increased wit the squat gain. I would say about 4-5 inches. Wat an ideal squat range to have a 40 inch vertical
[quote]godfrey3 wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Yeah, several. Unfortunately they’re all after I blew both knees out so the dunks are pretty basic. I’ve never seen any vids of Baggett, only still photo’s. Photo’s are easily doctored, but all the stuff I’ve read from him sounds legit, and he’s apparently helped a ton of people. Props on the squat. Has your vert increased with the squat gain?[/quote]
Yeah my vert increased wit the squat gain. I would say about 4-5 inches. Wat an ideal squat range to have a 40 inch vertical[/quote]
Are you asking what an ideal squat range for a 40" vert is?
I love these. I really think they build explosiveness in the bottom of a squat
you can also try to go as high as you can like a vertical or as far forward as you can like a broad jump.
[quote]godfrey3 wrote:
[quote]WhiteFlash wrote:
Yeah, several. Unfortunately they’re all after I blew both knees out so the dunks are pretty basic. I’ve never seen any vids of Baggett, only still photo’s. Photo’s are easily doctored, but all the stuff I’ve read from him sounds legit, and he’s apparently helped a ton of people. Props on the squat. Has your vert increased with the squat gain?[/quote]
Yeah my vert increased wit the squat gain. I would say about 4-5 inches. Wat an ideal squat range to have a 40 inch vertical[/quote]
My vert also increase by about that much just from squatting, but I notices that it made no difference how strong my squat was after that point. I jumped no higher when I maxed out at 2.3x bw over a month ago than when I did 1.5x bw x5 a few months into the start of my training.
I think Kelly Baggett says that once you squat more than 2x bw, you have the strength, you just need more work on your explosiveness and jumping technique.
a nice calculator from kelly baggett’s site, it says you need about a 2.4x bodyweight full olympic squat to have enough strength for a 40" standing vertical jump
[quote]smallmike wrote:
a nice calculator from kelly baggett’s site, it says you need about a 2.4x bodyweight full olympic squat to have enough strength for a 40" standing vertical jump[/quote]
I think that could be useful as a general guide, but that’s in no way even reasonably accurate. At my peak, I was mid bar squatting between 385-405 (at about 175) for a single, and I was probably a couple of inches shy of parallel. Honestly (and I might catch shit for this) I think unless you’re a competitive pl’er or you’re just naturally built for it, squatting just a bit high is optimal for quad contribution and vert gains. I also feel that,while the p-chain is important for health, strength and athletic performance, its values are greatly exaggerated.
The calculator fits my stats pretty well–at my peak in the past I had a 335 max full squat at 155 pounds and I could jump 35", which is about what the calculator says.
I think Brett Contreras posted a study that showed that deeper squats improved vertical jump more than more shallow squats…I’ll try to find it.
*Here it is:
J Strength Cond Res. 2012 Dec;26(12):3243-61. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e31824ede62.
Influence of squatting depth on jumping performance.
Hartmann H, Wirth K, Klusemann M, Dalic J, Matuschek C, Schmidtbleicher D.
Source
Department of Human Movement Science & Athletic Training, Institute of Sports Sciences, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany. hagen-hartmann@online.de
Abstract
It is unclear if increases in 1 repetition maximum (1RM) in quarter squats result in higher gains compared with full depth squats in isometric force production and vertical jump performance. The aim of the research projects was to compare the effects of different squat variants on the development of 1RM and their transfer effects to Countermovement jump (CMJ) and squat jump (SJ) height, maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), and maximal rate of force development (MRFD). Twenty-three women and 36 men (mean age: 24.11 ± 2.88 years) were parallelized into 3 groups based on their CMJ height: deep front squats (FSQ, n = 20), deep back squats (BSQ, n = 20), and quarter back squats (BSQ¼, n = 19). In addition, a control group (C, n = 16) existed (mean age: 24.38 ± 0.50 years). Experimental groups trained 2 d·wk for 10 weeks with a strength-power block periodization, which produced significant (p � 0.05) gains of the specific squat 1RM. The FSQ and BSQ attained significant (p � 0.05) elevations in SJ and CMJ without any interaction effects between both groups (p � 0.05). The BSQ¼ and C did not reveal any significant changes of SJ and CMJ. The FSQ and BSQ had significantly higher SJ scores over C (p � 0.05). The BSQ did not feature any significant group difference to BSQ¼ (p = 0.116) in SJ, whereas FSQ showed a trend toward higher SJ heights over BSQ¼ (p = 0.052). The FSQ and BSQ presented significantly (p � 0.05) higher CMJ heights over BSQ¼ and C. Posttest in MVC and MRFD demonstrated no significant changes for BSQ. Significant declines in MRFD for FSQ in the right leg (p � 0.05) without any interaction effects for MVC and MRFD between both FSQ and BSQ were found. Training of BSQ¼ resulted in significantly (p � 0.05) lower MRFD and MVC values in contrast to FSQ and BSQ. Quarter squat training elicited significant (p � 0.05) transfer losses into the isometric maximal and explosive strength behavior. These findings therefore contest the concept of superior angle-specific transfer effects. Deep front and back squats guarantee performance-enhancing transfer effects of dynamic maximal strength to dynamic speed-strength capacity of hip and knee extensors compared with quarter squats.
I didn’t say quarter squats, I said squats a couple of inches high of parallel. I mean that as literally as possible. I also believe thou should have a narrow stance and should try to keep your torso as upright as possible throughout. These are just things I’ve come to believe over years of experimentation and observation. If you can squat parallel or lower with no issues, knock yourself out.