Hello All.  Here is a quick background.  Was a decent athlete throughout college.  Sprinted poorly for two years.  Ran sub 11 100m and sub 7 60m but dealt with recurring hamstring injuries.  Sprinting weight was between 175-185 pounds.  Continued to run and train off and on until 2009, ran in some local meets.  Was capable of dunking a basketball cleanly.  Had a bad hamstring and knee injury in late 2008 and quit training completely for approx 2 years.  In Jan of this year (2011) weighed in at 235 pounds and was playing basketball with a friend when I realized I could no longer touch the rim.  Made a bet that I could weigh under 180 again within 1 year as well as dunk a basketball again...

Began training seriously in Jan.  Weights and track 3-4x per week.  Mostly olympic lifts in gym and a mix of speed and tempo on track.   Initially could not even squat or clean two plates.  Got a good percentage of strength back rather quickly.  Hardly had to diet to get down to ~200 by June.  Since then I have stopped losing much weight but continued to gain strength and power on the track.  Haven't spend any time actually trying to dunk a basketball because of fear for my knees at a high bodyweight.  Next week I will begin doing a few dunking drills.  In one week I will scale back weight training to 2x per week and try to add some dunking specific plyos in the gym.  Joined this site for some help designing a routine for jumping practice.  In the meantime I will wing it.  Hope you all can help me!

AGE:  27

HEIGHT:  5'10

WEIGHT:  ~195

SLEEP SCHEDULE:  6 Hours Weeknights, 8 Hours Weekends

BODY TYPE:  Carry too much bodyfat.  Lower Body Dominant.

GOALS:  Increase vertical.  Increase speed.

CURRENT ABILITY:  ~11.5 100m speed.  ~28-35 Inch Vertical.  

INJURY HISTORY:  Many Hamstring Tears, Knee Tendonitis, Ankle Sprains

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF CURRENT DIET:  Clean/Low calorie (cutting weight)

Welcome.  Good lower body strength man, I surely wouldn't bet against you dunking again soon.  I'll be keen to watch your progress.  

I'm not really the one to ask for jumping routines, but I'd think just doing some max jumps is what will bring the movement pattern  back the best.  Perhaps throw in some line hops and consecutive rim touches.

Squat depth certainly looks good to me.  DB push press would benefit from being a bit more aggressive with the drive, and driving from the heels, but that's being picky.

When do you have to dunk by to win your bet?...and what's the wager?

Line hops   

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmjkF9RaVtA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmjkF9RaVtA</a>

Do you have to do it off the dribble or can you travel? 

fwiw, consecutive rim touches don't have to be to a rim; you can pick any object that you can, um, consecutively touch. the bottom of the backboard would work.

You're pulling way too much with your arms in your one-leg cleans in my opinion. Also, there's no real amortization occuring so you're missing on that as well (and it's such an important part).

I'd lighten the load a bit and use more posterior chain power to pull and also focus on proper amortization.

Thanks for the advice on the one-legged cleans.  The dunk attempt was frustrating.  I jump higher with a farther runup but it also stresses my knees more and I am still very cautious about this high bodyweight.  I will with my current program for one more week and then deload and start a new macrocycle.  I never really lift for volume but I will cut back heavy squatting from 3 to 2x per week and cut out most everything except for hang versions of olys, push press, pullups, deadlifts, and squat variations.  I will also reduce the intensity as low as about 75% of max to give myself a break. 

Journaling:

8.25.2001 (Thursday):

AM:  Dynamic Warmup, Bounding Work, 8 sets of 10 hurdle hops (Set a womens high [difficult, felt a good amount of knee pain]). 
PM:  6x200 Tempo, 200m swim* 

*This is added in to hopefully help with weightloss.  Funny enough when I was on the track doing my tempo work a college kid ran up to me when I was about to start a 200.  He asked what sport I play and when I told him I ran track a little track in college he said "Wow, you musta got a lot bigger".  So... yeah... def need to lose some weight. 

8.26.2011 (Friday):

BW: 195 

1) Bar Warmup
2) Hang Power Snatch: 3x135,155,165,170
3) Band Squats: 3x135,225,245,275
4) Quarter Squat Walkouts: 3x315,405,455,495,525
5) Bench Press:  3,2,1x 190,210,230,  3x2x1x 210,230,250

*Overall, I didn't feel very strong.  I was much stronger a week ago.  Decided to skip deadlifts to instead do some basketball jump work but realized that my knees just ached far too bad to do any constructive jumping.  Ankle is about 80% so that's an improvement.  Not surprised my knees are acting up, I did dunk work on Wed, Hurdle hops on a track Tues and Thurs AND I am carrying quite a lot of bodyfat... This is sorta what happens. 

*The positive to take away is that I have lost weight each weigh in.  Obviously if this continues I will be at my goal in no-time.  I estimate my bodyfat at no more than 15% right now, mean that to get below 180 I might have to lose a little muscle.  I guess this means I have added some muscle to my competition frame.

*Basically, I need to use this weekend to A-> Recover and B-> Not let my diet fall apart.  If I finish my work early tonight I might do some light tempo or even do my deadlifts but besides that...  This weekend will be mostly about rest.  Hopefully I will take a swim or a jog on the soft-sand of the beach to get in some active no-shock recovery and keep the activity up to keep the weight loss going. 

Finally... In other news I am VERY disappointed that Asafa pulled out of the 100m.  I will still be watching this weekend... but what seemed like a very open field look like it will just be another Bolt show.  I'm afraid he wont even be pushed to run hard.  I have a buddy running in the 400m  hurdles and the 110's should be really exciting so at least there is that....

As far as #1, yes.  Def I am have APT.  I have had coaches try to correct it a lot but I have had other coaches say it might also be beneficial for sprinters.  Most sprinters are more shifted toward APT than PPT.  Would attempting to correct it improve my jumping?  Any suggestions for what to do?

As far as #2, I don't know.  I have pretty good hip flexor flexibility.  I do a lot of hip mobility work and even used to hurdle a bit.  What you might be seeing is that I am sort of afraid to commit to the jump because of my knee tendinitis that is plaguing me right now. 

Thanks for the analysis