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Performance Area => Article & Video Discussion => Topic started by: Dreyth on March 02, 2012, 04:42:30 pm
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This is part 2 of this article:
http://www.adarq.org/forum/article-video-discussion/new-kelly-bagget-article/
Today I leave you with the next 6 "Modern tricks for higher jumps." One thing I forgot to mention last week is these things are pretty much all IMMEDIATE things you can do to improve your jumps, as in days - so they aren't really "training" related. You'll have to wait around for VJ Bible 2.0 for that. Some of these next 6 will be a review for regular readers of my articles, but you'll likely find 1 or 2 new things. Enjoy!
Trick #7: Optimize Your Intracellular Leverage
Huh? What does intracellular leverage mean? Leverage is basically the ability to create a mechanical advantage. Imagine doing a bicep curl. How much force can you create, or how much can you lift? Now imagine doing a bicep curl with a thick wrap wrapped around your elbow. Now how much can you lift? Significantly more. Unfortunately you can’t do this in the Vertical Jump – Well you could put wraps around your knees, hips, and ankles but this negatively affects sp eed and your movement efficiency. You could also increase joint leverage by increasing your body-fat but that would negatively affect speed and relative force as well.
Fortunately, there is a way you can increase the intracellular spaces INSIDE your muscles without having any detriments on speed and quality of movement. You increase the “support” around your muscles and this enables you to develop more force. There are supplements you can take that increase intracellular muscular hydration, or the watery space surrounding muscle cells, and THIS can be a positive thing for vertical jump - at least in some people. How do you do that? Unless you’ve been living under a rock for years you’ve no doubt heard of creatine. Creatine monohydrate is mainly beneficial for increasing anaerobic endurance. However, it also increases cellular hydration and can help increase leverage in the muscles. It's the same way a belt helps your squat or deadlift - it thickens up your waist and lower back and increases leverage. Creatine sorta creates the same effect in your muscles via intracellular water retention. This leverage allows you to create more force in most movements. Unfortunately, not everyone benefits from creatine from a vertical jump perspective. The people that are gonna benefit most in my experience are fairly long limbed and/or skinny ectomorphs at under 10% body-fat, who can really use extra tissue leverage. If you're not an ectomorph and are over 10% body-fat creatine might not help your VJ. Personally, I've always received an extra inch or 2 of vert anytime I've started a creatine cycle, but I naturally fit all the pre-requisities, an ectomorphic physique at low body-fat. Your mileage may vary but it's probably worth an experiment. If you do use creatine you can either use regular ol creatine monohydrate at a teaspoon or 2 per day taken with a meal or you can take one of the advanced formulations such as cell-tech or NO explode - they're more expensive but come with lots of sugar which helps the creatine get into your muscles.
Trick #8: Stay Off The Concrete
Don't waste your time trying to dunk on courts that have crappy traction. If you're a bilateral 2 foot jumper the traction of a court can make a HUGE impact on your jumps because the traction has a bigtime influence on how much speed you can carry into your run-up. This means you should stay away from most outdoor courts as well as old indoor wooden courts. Their traction sux and will cost you inches on your dunk attempts. Concrete doesn't have any flex to it and won't give you any energy back, which is why most people tend to jump slightly higher on a good wooden court. Ideally your jumps should be on relatively new and regularly maintained wooden courts with superior traction. One thing you can also do to temporarily improve your traction is spit on the floor and rub your shoes in it a few times bef ore you jump. As the spit dries your shoes will temporarily have more "grab". Play around with it and see.
Trick #9: Master Your Approach (jump stop vs 1, 2 step)
On running jumps too many people lose inches because they screw up some aspect of their approach and take-off. I like to have people separate their entire approach up and work on each aspect of it. A. The Approach:
First, just work on your approach. Run up to the basket just like you're going to jump but STOP right at your takeoff point. Come to a complete stop in your "ready to jump" position, but don't jump. See what kind of position you're in. Are you off balance? Did it take you forever to come to a stop? Is most of the weight forward up on the balls of your feet or back on your heels? Next, try to "tighten up" the length of time it takes you to stop and get in your ready to jump position out of your run-up. You want as little wasted motion as possible and ideally want to be accelerating the last couple of steps into your stop. Once you feel somewhat comfortable try to add some more speed to your approach. On an ideal approach you might not be able to completely stop yourself as your forward momentum will want to carry you forward, but you should still be in the perfect position to jump a split second before that happens. The basic idea is the faster you can come in while still efficiently gathering your forward momentum the higher your subsequent jump will be.
Some people like to get really into analyzing their final footwork on their approach. Basically there are 2 styles of 2 foot approach jumps: A step close method and a hop, or bounce method. On a step close method you'll come in and your final steps will consist of the planting of one foot, than placing the other foot next to the first foot, followed by a jump. On a bounce method you'll come in and both feet will plant simultaneously, then you'll jump.
Here is a video o f the hop method:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAznRTj4sQM&feature=related
Note the simultaneous plant that occurs with both feet after the jump stop.
Here is a video of the step-close method
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOi4DT1er_4
Note the 1,2 plant that occurs. One leg absorbs force, followed by a brief touchdown of the other foot, followed by a powerful drive off and up. A few studies have been done comparing the 2 styles and one hasn't been found to be superior to the other, although there are slight differences. My opinion is relatively untrained athletes and people with extremely powerful lower legs may get better results from the hop method, as it allows them shorter ground contact times and inherently tends to lessen the degree of knee and hip bend they use, which improves reactive force contribution in beginners, whose coordination usually isn't optimal. Beginners typically have trouble getting much reactive force contr ibution from their run-ups. The hop method does require more force to decelerate and most of the best dunkers use the step close method, or the 1,2 plant. The step close method is advantageous because it's smoother, requires less deceleration, and seems to favor faster approaches, but it also keeps your initial plant leg on the ground a bit longer. It also requires more coordination to fully optimize.
You might experiment a bit with each style to see which one you favor, just don't get in the habit of overanalyzing your steps to the point you turn into a robot. As you become more advanced and work on your approach you will likely naturally gravitate toward a step-close style of approach, but plenty of people have succeeded with either style and when put to the test neither style has proven superior. If you make a point to come in faster and smoother your body will inherently use the style most favorable for your unique physiological characteristics. B. The Jump: Back to optimizing your approach, next, go ahead and add the "jump" to your newly improved approach, but make a conscious effort to come in as smooth and quiet as possible. Execute a few run-ups where you come in and try to make as little sound as possible. Next, go ahead and jump normally but attempt to drive off the balls of your feet as hard as you can as you leave the ground. After you've done that a few times now make a conscious effort to jump with a little bit less knee bend. When people jump with the ball they usually tend to "drop down" and bend their knees a bit more than normal. In my observations this usually hurts the jump. The conversion of horizontal momentum into vertical force is pretty much universally helped by shorter ground contact times. Exchanging knee bend for ankle drive tends to shorten your ground contact times and inherently leads to a better combo of vertical and horizontal force development, giving you a better chance at having a run-up that he lps your dunk, particularly the more you practice it, and particularly when you’re trying to jump with a ball in your hand. In my experience VERY few people ever actively work on their approach and even fewer then that break it up into segments and work on each part individually. I would get about 8-10 quality reps each of each of the above 3 drills for at least a few sessions over the course of a couple of weeks. It shouldn't take you longer than 15 minutes or so but that is your practice.
To review, here are the steps you should take to optimize your approach.
1. Identify whether you're a "step-close" or "hop" jumper 2. Work on just your approach without the jump. Work on coming in fast and accelerating your last couple of steps
3. Add a jump, but attempt to be as quiet and smooth as possible during your last few steps, almost like your dancing
4. Remain smooth and go ahead and do a regular jump, but make a point to really drive off the balls of your feet
5. Now try to make a point to drop down a little less than normal.
That's it!
Trick #10: Optimize Your Take-Off Angles
Beginning dunkers have a habit of taking off too close to the rim. They go pretty much straight up and this means you have to get the ball up AND OVER the rim. If you approach the rim a bit more horizontally you have more margin for error. It's just like the arch on a shot. A shot from 5 feet away requires less arch than one from a foot away. So, how do you get more horizontal? Simple, take off a little further back than you normally do! Try it and see. You don't need to take off at the free throw line but just try taking off a foot or 2 back further than you normally would.
Trick #11: Optimize Your Footwear
Most people wear shoes that are too big, too heavy, and too awkward to jump effectively. I recommend you get a pair of sprinters racing flats, such as Ni ke zoom waffle racers. Most people love the way they feel on their feet and it's not uncommon to add an extra inch to the vertical jump just from this change in footwear. The thing is you don't want to actually play basketball in these shoes - they're strictly training shoes. Alternatively you can also use one of the more modern brands of minimalist footwear such as New Balance Minimus, Vibram 5 fingers, or Nike Frees. Athletic propulsion labs makes a shoe called "Concept 1" with a spring loaded forefoot purported to instantly increase vertical leap by 1-3 inches. In my opinion this concept is the same as using the trampoline or stilts to jump higher - I kinda consider it cheating. But if you have an extra $300 to invest on an extra inch of vert they might be worth experimenting with. Put me in a time machine back to when I was 15 yrs old and I can promise you I woulda been all over those shoes like a bad habit. Just sayin'!
Trick #12 - Give Your Body a Tune-Up
Many people are capable of transmitting a lot more force into the ground than they do, but they leak excessive energy throughout their body. A big reason why some individuals can jump well with no or little training is because they're naturally put together well and inherently get more of their available energy into the ground when they jump - they activate the right muscles, in the right order, at the right time. Sounds easy but many (if not most) athletes have compensation patterns.
A compensation pattern is when an inefficiency in a movement or muscle places additional stress on other movements or muscles. For example, say you do squats and you have a problem with the back of your heels coming off the floor. As you squat your body compensates by transferring more stress from your feet and onto your knees and lower back, creating an overload that can result in injury. Most people have some degree of compensation pattern in the vertical jump. Instea d of getting optimal contribution and timing from their hips, quads, and calves they have too much stress on some muscles/joints and not enough on others. This leads to sub-optimal performance and often some type of injury. What you want to do is re-balance yourself by performing exercises designed to get you back in balance - it doesn't take long to be effective. Last year I put together a 7-day vertical jump cure that many athletes found hugely successful. It's a short 10 minute workout designed to get the body operating at higher efficiency. Some athletes gained as much as 4 inches on their vert doing nothing else but performing this workout on a daily basis. I suggest you perform this workout 3 days per week for 2 weeks. You might notice some fairly significant changes in the way you move, feel, and jump. Remember, the primary focus is tuning up your body so that you can benefit more from the horsepower you already inherently have inside you - like tuning up a car.
The 10-minute Cure
Exercise 1: Leg Raise Progression: Perform 3 sets of 15-20 reps Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xV3mB47Bn0
Exercise 2: Bridge: Do 2 sets of 30 second hold Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOvkwrzJTNA
Exercise 3: Side Bridge Progression: Do 1 set of 30 seconds/side Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHvcQ_rR1lk
Exercise 4: Alternating Glute March: Do 2 sets of 20 reps (10/side) Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsJAGZ4Ufg0
Exercise 5: Seated Hip Flexor: Do 2 sets of 5-10 reps/side with a 3-second hold at top Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxkbqUa28BY
Exercise 6: Standing Hip Flexor/Glute: Do 2 sets of 5-10 reps/side with a 3-second hold at top. Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qND3gHvrjkA
Exercise 7: Prone Leg Lift: Do 50 reps /side Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3AS6gYLEL4
Exercise 8: Bulgarian Split-Squat Hold: Hold for a total of 1 minute per side. Video Demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wkw3H3bNfk
Stretching (these stretches should be done every day)
Broomstick overhead squat 2 x 10 reps Kneeling rectus femoris/quad 2 x 20 second hold http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_hQSJVIN3c
Calf 2 x 20 second hold Wall ankle mobility drill 2 x 15-20/side
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozK7jNFmU8
Hamstring 2 x 20 second hold
Groin 2 x 20 second hold
Hip Flexor 2 x 20 second hold
Put all that stuff together and in my experience you'll have a REAL DIFFICULT time not adding 2-3 inches to your vert in a very short period of time.
Good luck!
Enjoy!
-Kelly
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kellyb, still bringing the knowledge. i got into him with it about race typing and athleticism a while back and we, shall we say, disagreed. but the man knows more about training than i ever will. great article.
also, an alternative on #8: instead of spitting on the floor, i wipe sweat off my face, rub my hands together and then rub the bottoms of my shoes. works like a charm even though the floor of my gym is old and dusty.
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There's also a solution for court grip on eastbay...
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Shoes with sub-optimal traction is a HUGE pet peeve for me.
I need the best of the best. I can't stand slipping even a little bit.
I already have the VJB 1, but I'm curious what new things 2.0 has in store.
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This^^^
If I feel my shoes slip just a little bit I'm shutting down.