Mike's Journey to a 40 Inch Standing Vert

i kinda do what chambers does on his squats in the 2nd vid here

www.elitetrack.com/forums/viewthread/8070/

let my knees bend like that instead of bending at the hips

good luck mike, I am going for 36" myself.

thanks man, good luck to u to

let me know how the gains are coming

did the depth jump landings a few days ago, used a box that was about 24-26 inches high. It was really my first time seriously doing them. Not sure how you are suppossed to feel the day after doing them i had this strange feeling everytime i took a step, not sure how u are supposed to feel.

Can anyone say how they usually feel after doing the depth jump landings and how ur suppossed to feel?

NOt sure, thinking maybe i did them from too high since it was the first time.


up to wk 8 day 4

feeling overtrained still
abs tired like always
shins aching

here’s a vid from wk 7, still no recognizable gain in vert

wk 8 workout 4 today

felt pretty weak

was barely getting up on plyos, the volume is lower but it’s still too much for me. the sitting jumps i wasn’t getting up.
Almost fell over backwards while doing the push jerk, just wasn’t in syn today. I think i was bringing my entire torso back and screwing up my balance because i awnted to squat the weight up when doing the push jerk. Wasn’t working out.

This phase really isn’t turning into much of a speed/explosive phase for me, i still feel like the volume is way too high. 16 sitting jumps is a lot.

wk 9 wk 1 finished

decided to dec. the volume a little

so instead of 37 total sets including the psrints, lifting, and core, did 27 total sets

took off about a set from each exercise

think i’ll d something like that for each workout

slight knee pain during sprints and squats today

better than previously though, realized that in terms of lower body lifting i probably wasn’t ready to start the program, since before this i hadn’t lifted legs seriously for a few months.

makes sense now that my bench has improved well but my lower body and vert are still waiting

are realized that the overtraining i’m feelign is mostly cns fatigue

190 on the squat today felt real heavy, but felt good to be squatting and have some weight on the bar

Here are some good lifts for explosive react that you need for a good vertical. I did these all the time when i trained for football to get ready for college.

Speed squats with bands and weight(typically with the squat rack band pegs)

Bulgarian single leg split squat(work with the isolation with one leg- helps build it up)

Or plyos with jumping off the box making sure that right when you hit the ground land on the ball of your foot so you get instant reaction to jump right when you make contact with the floor) Usually do it with shoes off on a padded floor. Have a obstacle to jump over right when you jump off the first box and to make sure you bring your knees up to your chest when clearing.

I got something for the shins aching cause of all the pounding they take on the hardwood. Tilt back on your heels while standing make sure your feet are up, lock your legs then walk without bending your legs and without putting your feet down to. It will build up your shins i do this all the time and my shins are pretty thick and do not hurt anymore.

And here are some good drills to get you use to landing on the ball of your feet and to build your reacting time when your hit the floor. There called pogo jumps you stand straight and when your jump land on the balls of your foot without bending the knees. Do quick one then work your way up to jumping high and quick with less time on the ground.

[quote]stick-44 wrote:
And here are some good drills to get you use to landing on the ball of your feet and to build your reacting time when your hit the floor. There called pogo jumps you stand straight and when your jump land on the balls of your foot without bending the knees. Do quick one then work your way up to jumping high and quick with less time on the ground.[/quote]

hey man thanks for the tips

yeh the toe raises help, and i’m doing the pogo jumps

i’m following the vertfreak jump program

on wk 9 now so 3 more wks

the bulgarian squat and reactive squat are real good too

once i finsih the program i am planning on doing a detox, for 1-2 wks where maybe i do some exercising during it, not sure how that works or what type of detox to do yet. Then after i’ll probably get back to pushing up that squat using the exercises u mentioned and others

wk 9 wk 3 today

there was 25 sets, cut off 7 so did total 18

starting to feel a bit more energetic , the bench press sets with 70 lbs felt like child’s play, was able to make the bar fly which felt really good cause usally even with light weight it doesn’t feel that easy

stretched all day yesterday, think pulled left hammy a tiny bit

when benching 175x4 today was able to get butt off bench, which i know isn’t good but that was something i couldn’t even do before caues of flexiblity so happy about that

gonna just do the workouts and try to stretch all day whenver i’m free

was annoying me that i can’t get a stretch for my quads, all the stretches either hurt or i can’t relax during them cause i have to hold my body in a certain position. Trying to think of one where i can relax and just let like gravity stretch it out

finished wk 9 today, feeling pretty tired again, cns especially

wk 10 wk 1

strange ady

felt mad tired cause didn’t get a lot of sleep before

made a vid to check out and see hwo my squat form is now, cause getting some knee pain while squatting. Can’t believe how far i am from parallel, it’s actually embarrassing.

i did the vid then went to the gym and tried a couple of jumps, wasn’t getting up high. Then i did most of the workout and then started shooting a 15lb medball from the free throw line. I felt pretty fried, but after i dropped it and picke dup the regular ball and started to shoot. i jumped off two foot nonchanantly with the ball to lay the ball up as how as i could and i basically got to the top of the rim, so i was like what th ehell i should def. be able to dunk. So i started trying and with almost no run up i was getting like what happened to me in the vid from before i would get up, not high enough i guess and lose the ball as i brought it over the rim and tried to dunk it. Anyway i tried a few more times, couldn’t get a solid run up into it and didn’t get it but i wasn’t too far. I’m sure with a solid run up i could get it.

I need to work on that, so hopefuly the wk 11 and 12 practicing the run ups of 2 and 1 foot will help me a lot

finshed wk 10

feeling ok , decided to really attack flexibility doing dynamic warmup, foam rolling and some stretching every single day. figure a little each day will go a long way, but i’ll see stretching is something i usually don’t fully commit to so i’ll say after a few weeks when i am still doingit the results and everything

got 15 wide grip pull ups yesterday going about 4/5 of the way down not bad

got bball 3 on 3 tourney coming up soon

that’s about it fucking 25 lb plate fell on my dick after just doing a set of weighted pull ups with the weight belt for the hell of it to see how i could with the 25. i was near a box about hip height and when i took it off it just fucking landed on it kinda. Take care of yur shit!!

one more day then finished with wk 11, 1 wk left

no sign of vert improvement still

working on jump technique

will get a vid up soon of it, actually looks pretty ugly cause my mind is telling me to jump a certain way and my body is so used to jumping a different way

also, i’m starting to understand the penultimate step, but having a lot of trouble of using it then after taking 2 real quick steps. my 2 steps following tend to be slower instead of faster

realized why guys like golden child, t-dub when they jump if u look at right before they take off they kinda lean back and shift almost all their weight on their back leg. It’s to be able to use all that energy/force to go up instead of horizontal, by doing that they are able to stay vertical which is very important in jumping and transfer all the energy so they don’t go forward like a lot of people do when they try to run and jump.

Also when they do the 2 footed jumps, they are extremely powerful so their last 2 steps are far apart, again this is so they can take all that force and transfer it into vertical

finishing vertfreak program tomorrow

it’s the testing day tomorrow so i’ll try to basically do the same thing as i did before i started the program to see how much i improved

had the 3 on 3 tourny today, got rocked

i’m planning on doing a detox for like 2 weeks starting in a few days just not sure whcih one to do there seems to be so many different types

i think i’ll rest most of those 2 weeks, maybe some light workouts or something but maybe after some real rest i’ll see some improvements

and after that back to training vert

from wk 11 working on form, have no idea what i’m doing

can’t figure out this penultimate step

trying to figure out why there is such a big disparity between my bench max and military
bench 205, probably more now
military about 105

video showing vertfreak results

really didn’t gain any vert, probably shouldn’t have started program as my i couldn’t do leg exercises well cause of flexiblity and had knee pain throughout