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I have had extensive trouble with both of my knees. I had a bad MCL sprain in my right that took years to clear up. Caused effusion which limited range of motion and made the muscles shrink. Nothing could contract properly because of all the fluid. It took me draining the knee every day for eight months for that to clear up. Then my left knee got an effusion from overuse. I've been draining that one for almost a year and it seems to be calming down, but more slowly than the right did. The right knee is almost completely stable now, though I have to drain it every couple of months after heavy use.

I relied on Rehband knee sleeves for the longest time, but I've recently thrown in the towel and started using THP knee wraps when squatting heavy. I was trying to stay RAAAAAAW, but I wasn't doing my knees any favors. My knees are much happier since I started using wraps for heavy singles and for the actual work sets.

People will say that I'm getting extra pounds from the wraps and that I'm preventing my knees from getting strong. Ha! Preventing my knees from getting beat up is more like it. That's worth "cheating" ten pounds on my squat to me. If I don't use the wraps for the hard and heavy reps, my knee fills up within hours and has to be drained (the fluid just will not go away on its own with RICE). If I use the wraps, the wraps take the brunt of the trauma at the very bottom of the squat instead of my knee capsule.

As for those extra pounds, I'd say they probably don't amount even to ten pounds. The range where they "help" is the range where I'm bouncing off my knees anyway. The wraps just take the brunt instead of my knees. I've tried near maxes on the same day with and without wraps and didn't get any extra weight. What I did get was relief from knee pain at the bottom and confidence to pull down hard at the very bottom and reverse hard. Without the wraps I hold back a little, slow down and do something approaching a paused squat.

I see claims of people getting 50 lbs out of their wraps. But that requires an extremely tight wrap, the kind that makes you walk stiff-legged because you can't bend your legs under your own power. I've had one of the multi-ply powerlifters wrap me as tight as those guys do and couldn't handle the pain or control even warm up weights.

I got my squat and deadlift and bodyweight up quite a bit in the last couple of years. I would practice jumping frequently during all this, and I would occasionally do a few months of dedicated weightlifting. I even incorporated jump squats and such. Vertical stayed the same.

I put on the power jumper on Jack Woodrup's recommendation and got immediate results. Did one session per week as my "dynamic day" and a month later I was jumping 5 inches higher. Broad jump was 13" farther.

Started a thread on SS about it and immediately got into fights. One of those fights about what exactly the jumper improved. Someone said technique and I rejoined along the lines of "technique if by technique you mean raw speed in the descent."

I think the overspeed eccentric did a lot more for me than resistance in the concentric phase. It's my understanding that I could have gotten an overspeed effect from drop jumps, but the bands gave this effect without making me have to land on a hard surface after a fall. This is no small matter with someone with beat up knees like mine.

Maybe I'm being a little greedy, but I want even more gains, despite getting 5" in a month. I'm at 28" now and I just want to crack 30" because it's a nice round number and where most people consider getting beyond average. The power jumper's effects seem to be waning, however. Meanwhile my squat strength seems to be picking up (I currently squat high bar without a belt but with loose knee wraps). I just have a feeling I can squeeze more inches out of my current (and improving) strength levels. I'd say I have plenty of strength for a 30" vertical (~350 high bar without a belt at 180) and I need more speed.

What I wonder is if I'd be better off keeping the overspeed eccentric and eliminating the extra resistance at the top. That is to say, replacing the power jumper with drop jumps. I got heavier bands for the jumper and they don't seem to be helping any. I think I may be adding too much of a strength component with the resistance after the quicker eccentric. The only way to get the quicker eccentric without the band resistance in the concentric is to drop from a box, right?

Thanks for reading.