GC plants just like me; he digs his left heel into the ground, etc.

ya, except his pushoff is different.. he pushes off in a nearly half-squat position while on the ball of his foot, it's pretty insane how strong he is in his ankles.. sometimes his heel barely touches tho on his plant. i'm going to post another one tomorrow, i think it's even more extreme.

i need to relook at some of your jumps.

peace

Ya, he covers SOOO much distance with his strides, and it's so aggressive.

His ankles are probably the strongest ive ever seen in any jumper. That is a perfect example of "great ankle stiffness", ie insane strength.


Ya, he's basically jumping from a half squat position, WHILE being on his toes.. most people's feet are flat in that position. Hell, most people's feet are basically flat until their legs are about to lock out, then they triple extend.

Having strength like that in the ankles, he's able to store alot more energy in the tendons & get alot more out of his calfs.


Yea, that probably helps him stay off his heels initially.. Most people can't jump like that, they'd look like jello.

someone said that GC only plants one of his heels down, and then adarq you said it looks like a half squat position; I think I can explain that with the epiphany I made a while ago: that two footed RVJ is easier to think of as a single legged motion, in which both legs are involved differently, using different muscle groups, rather than a double legged motion - in MOST cases. Some people do jump using the same exact patterns of motor recruitment in both legs (powerlifters), but dunkers jump more, for lack of a better word, unsymmetrically, unidirectionally, TDUB is dominant on the right leg, GOlden child on the left.

The plant leg, GC's left leg, absorbs a great deal of force in da pchain to start of the motion, so you land on your heel then the second leg comes in turned inwards almost (depends on your tendency to pronate, or flatfootedness, bowed-leggedness..) and the achilles + quads, + inner thighs bring the rest of the body up, while the first leg then pushes off with quads as well and achilles.

Realize though how I said the inner thighs; they are literally pushing the body up and forward during the RVJ of only ONE leg, the 'non-dominant' leg as I like to think about it.

Therefore, my favorite lift, of which I will have a video of shortly (@theAktor) is a deadlift with the barbell in b/w the legs.

What do you think adarqui? and others? Main point - one leg is pchain dominant in the 2ft RVJ, other is quad/achilles.





And to respond to why GC's back is bent - helps him absorb more force in the pchain, it's the SSC to the RVJ, abdominals are workin it, that's what I think

here is a great vid demonstrating that - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I23FCaCsxkA&playnext_from=TL&videos=yHsaxZ0_c2c

wait what is vmo?

I think though that the second leg uses more quad because there seems to be more knee flexion. Not just quad, but more achilles as well; I know this is true for me the way I jump because I feel the soreness the following day. And it makes the most sense if you think about doing a 360, dunk, or 720, whatever. The quads of the second leg plays the role of diverting the body in the desired direction, i'm sure someone has done an in depth analysis or something, wish I had it in my hands, haha

OH yeah, the VMO, yeah yeah. Hm that's interesting for you, I really don't know everyone's different. But it's still very interesting if we can figure out how to train each leg individually to train the ways they work during an RVJ. WHich is what I'm trying to do atm, kinda stopped squats in general. Used to love front squats and my SVJ was going up but I'd rather train speed involved in the RVJ. I wonder what these ppls SVJs are. I know Troy McCray has a lot of strength, but these TDub and GC take high speed run ups

That's crazy, if Tdub's SVJ was that low, but would make sense; he could dunk since he was a boy. I think people like him, who simply practice jumping during puberty, develop extremely reactive tendons, due to the extra hormones floating around in their blood during that time, have you seen Ben WIlliams? He started triple jumping when young and now has very stiff tendons, and doesn't seem to weight train much.

Brings up the question are theese people jsut genetic freaks or have they really started to train at the optimal time? And if you think about it, it should be much easier, metabolically to synthesize lots of collagen, rather than muscle, and be easier to improve tendon stiffness/tendon size, than muscle when those hormones are so high, since buildig muscle is a much more intensive process. Vitamin C + some lysine or proline = collagen basically, but it's not that simple of course