Hey,

since I like this forum and adarqui inspired me with his article on MSEM, I am going to post my progress here as well as on TVS. Let's see how that program I cooked up works and if it is going to be fine, others might want to give it a try.

Some training history: I am a volleyball player. I began to train for vertical specifically in April 2009. I improved my drop step vertical from 27" to 36", the latter being achieved in February/March 2010. I did that with a bastardized version of Rippetoe's Starting Strength program, which got my squat up well, but due to my incompliance with the original program other lifts did not improve as fast. I stopped doing the program due to volleyball season, but did some maintenance work and stuff for power and reactivity. This got to where I was 11 months after starting to train seriously and I wanted to make the next steps. In the following 14 weeks I decided to give the original SS program a try and got my squat up to 408 lbs x 5 and my powerclean to 209 lbs x 1. Linear progression ended there and now it's time for me to convert the gained strength and power into vertical jump height. I will record my progress towards that goal and beyond in this journal. For more details about my progress with SS, feel free to check out my journal over at TVS:
http://www.theverticalsummit.com/viewtopic.php?t=5244&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Some additional info about myself:

Height: 5'10
Reach in shoes: 7'7
Bodyweight: ~200 lbs +/-

Training related long-term goal:
- getting my drop step vertical to 40"

Squat:
- 397 lbs x 2
- 408 lbs x 2
- 419 lbs x 2
- 408 lbs x 2
- 419 lbs x 2
- 441 lbs x 1
Press:
- 138 lbs x 3 x 3
Chin-ups:
- 1 set [5]

Bodyweight: 204 lbs

Commentary: The paused reps (doubles) are performed like this: Unrack the weight, squat, rack the weight, rest for 30 seconds, unrack the weight, squat, rack the weight. That would be one set of two reps. I got 419 lbs x 2 twice that way. Fifth set was pretty hard, a real grinder. After that I was a little more liberal with my rest times between sets and made a huge PR of 441 lbs x 1 after around 15 minutes rest.
Not much to say about press and chin-ups, just going light, trying not to fatigue the CNS too much.

Hey man,

thanks for the input! Would the additional jumping volume mainly be incorporated to help maintain/improve technique and form? Would it therefore be reasonable to jump sub maximally and for example concentrate on quick take off? If that would serve the purpose well, I could easily get some more jump volume with low intensity in, even at the rest days (particularly day 7 and maybe day 9).
I will make sure to incorporate 6-10 max SVJ's at day 6 for warm-ups/potentiation. That will get more regular jumping in, but I don't want to practice RVJs in my gym and also not with weightlifting shoes on.

Thanks!

I guess you are right! If I understand what you say correctly doing SVJs at day 6 is good for jump specific force production. So I guess that this is okay, but there needs to be at least one other training day for more jump practice. What do you think would be the best day for that? I guess you would prefer it at day 8 but that is hard to realize (see below). Do you think day 9 or day 2 would be okay for that if I do submax drop step jumps LR and RL? Which day would be better and how high would the volume need to be for it to be beneficial?


Sure, it would not be a big deal to bring another pair and I did that in the past. But I still can't do RVJs in my gym as a result of space limitations. I did it in the past, but I can only do so when the gym is essentially empty. But unfortunately I cannot rely on that .

Curious to know what you think about the "jumping modifications".

Thanks,
s-m

Thanks man, it's appreciated! I modified the routine like you suggested.

sucks about the drop step jumps..

hopefully those movement efficiency gains happen very quickly!


hope so..

It's mostly due to movement efficiency imo.. your body just doesn't know what to do when you are overloading it harder with an more intense eccentric, due to all of the squatting which is a nice slow eccentric. That brief impact is not being handled well, probably due to how much your body has adapted to squatting, to let you PR. The adaptations usually results in a temporarily decrease in RFD also, which depends on how long you've been squatting/making gains. Naturally explosive individuals can get away with it, because, the amount of strength they gain in squat coupled with the RFD decrease, is still enough time for them to produce considerable force before take off.. People who are on the slower/less explosive spectrum don't respond well to starting strength/RFD decreasing.

The good thing is, RFD comes back after you start deloading or switch up the protocol to include squat singles instead of consecutive reps.. Consecutive rep lifting, heavy, causes a slower production of starting strength in regards to athletic movement over time, that's why during our GPP/strength blocks we still need lots of dynamic/explosive movement if we want to transition optimally into the peaking block.

I wouldn't add in more depth jumps just yet, because the majority of the issue, is simply the act of 1-step or multi-step jumping. The timing of absorbtion of force & production of force is just way off. Your muscles aren't even relaxing fast after contraction too, that will also impede performance as it results in less recovery between strides. This can be seen GREATLY in something like top speed sprinting, people just turn into jello because everything is off.

It's funny though, most people who are really searching for squat PR's usually end up neglecting the explosive/reactive/dynamic training on a significant level.. I honestly think, that since the body "adapts to everything", that even this is an adaptation to improving max strength on a rapid level. Basically, people are being signaled to do as little as possible, to conserve resources for the act of improving squat/recovering for squat, so why would playing basketball/volleyball or doing dj's/sprints be "favorable" to the subconscious mind, when any additional energy expenditure is seen as impeding recovery for the main goal of 1RM improvement.

That's why I like a slower approach to squat with more focus on dynamic movement to stay as athletic/fit as possible.. but 1RM still has to increase over time

ok peace man!

ya that is tough to define in general terms, it is very individual and very much related to the volume/intensity of work.


ya man, you definitely can maintain most of your strength in-season.. the best way i've seen to do that, is to throw in volume days when you can (1-3x8-10, no extended rest between reps, stay 1-2 reps shy of true 8RM) and focus on msem 1x/week (variant 1 or some custom variant, pushing it when you feel good). Getting the volume in at a lower percentage of 1RM is effective, and it doesn't drain you as much mentally/physiologically as <= 5RM's etc. So you help maintain the muscle mass stimulus with the volume day, without pushing your cns to the max, then on your MSEM day you hit a few heavy singles and get out the gym, works real good. If you can maintain purely on singles, 1x/week, that'd be even more ideal. If that's the case, you just throw in a volume day once every 2 weeks or so instead of every week.

peace man