Swimming is a great idea for you. I wish I could swim regularly. Always felt better when I had pool recovery sessions.
Update. Both of my knee is very sore the next day.
Looking at the video, i wonder if i jump too many times.
Especially when I was under the basket without access to the rim during 3on3. 80min jump session. I counted over 40 jumps. Each with at least 1min rest.
I've always been astounded that you jump so much on hard concrete and don't have worse knees. Any chance of using indoor court/synthetic track/grass for jumping now and again? Regardless, 40 jumps isn't excessively high volume, but surely they can't all be max effort jumps, simply because you'll get tired after 6-10 true max effort jumps. So if the aim is high quality maximal height jumps, you probably need to do less.
For me personally, i'm not astounded by it. I think if you're fairly lean, in good shape, and have a history of jumping on concrete; it shouldn't wreck you.
As for scoob's knees being sore afterwards, the amount of work he's putting in lately & his increasing the intensity of DJ's/drops is more likely to blame, I imagine. Also the way he forces his form on drop landings etc, could be placing more strain on his knees & creating some residual fatigue - and if it's not that, it could be something else related to mechanical overriding of natural technique. This is one of many reasons i'm worried about consciously altering mechanics, if we don't know for sure what we're doing. That depth drop landing AFTER his depth jump, is not at all natural to me. It's beyond artificial and it's just one potential unneeded "mechanical override" that could be adding undue stress. So there's always that aspect of it.. Depth jumps themselves aren't natural either, but, when we perform them, we should be performing them as natural as possible and not trying to make them too mechanical.
I'll give one more example .. I was going to comment on this a few days ago but didn't, scoob gets lots of advice, and he absorbs all of it, then is often guilty of mixing it all together and it just becomes unmanageable. But anyway, on his depth jumps, you can see it looks like he's constantly shooting his feet into the ground upon landing, rather than simply landing. To me, this is another "mechanical override", that he's thinking about. It seems advantageous to lock the ankle upon falling, ie, dorsiflex on the way down, but, once that's done, the next step is simply landing soft while getting off the ground as fast as possible AND jumping as high as possible. When you shoot your feet into the ground, it kills the ability to land softly, imho. It could also be more stressful on the body itself, it's more of a punch than a push. If I want to do a rebounding plyometric pushup from low blocks, do I smash my hands into the ground, or do I land softly and immediately push as hard as possible? The latter.. same thing with a DJ. You don't smash your contact points into the ground .. you brace for a soft landing and then you explode .. This may look deceiving to the natural eye, so some people may perceive one is smashing the ground, but that's not at all what is happening. When I watch videos of people smashing their feet into the ground during drops etc, it actually bugs me. It's like they are trying to crush a venomous snake. IMHO, it alters motor patterns for the worse.
Also one more thing about "mechanical" and "perception". Someone I know who doesn't run, texted me a few days ago: "hey are you supposed to be on your toes when running?" .. So I respond back, "NO. just run naturally, don't even think about it." .. and he replies back: "man I ran on my toes for only 2 miles and both of my achilles are so wrecked". So it's just incredible to me how many people nowadays have these thoughts. Like how did this dude even think to consciously, mechanically override his natural mechanics, to run on his toes. It's really incredible when you think about it.. I'm sure he was consciously pointing his foot (plantar flexing) upon landing and forcing the landing onto the ball of his foot, just a complete recipe for disaster. There's this guy who runs at the park, worst running form i've ever seen, and he's mechanically overriding everything, getting his knees way up, extending his stride length like crazy, trying to hit forefoot, it looks like he's one of those things on puppet strings with someone fiddling their fingers to get the limbs to move; i just hope he doesn't get hurt. Last night at the park I saw a young kid over striding like crazy, enormous strides, going nowhere, breathing like crazy. And to counter all of that, I saw this "thick" latina chick who doesn't look like she can run too well, put in like an hour worth of work; she ran very simple & relaxed, forced nothing, and was able to keep up her pace the entire time. I analyze these things for fun ... like what makes her a "better runner" (to me) than anyone else I saw in the park? People would have put money down on the overstrider kid, or some of the other people, but there she was, just relaxing with short strides, solid stride freq, and a normal foot strike, just keeping up the pace for a long time .. then I saw her later doing core by the table, somewhat proof that she didn't do anything dumb during that ~one hour of efficient work. It's rare that I see ANYONE running that long, that's why she really stood out.
The thing about 40 jumps is, by 15-20 you should be hitting max, by 30 you should be feeling beat up, and by 40 you may hit a second wind and get a few more really good jumps. That stuff can get petty weird. I still remember some of my best "how did I do that jump after so many jumps, jump". There's one in particular that I remember happened towards jump 80+, absolutely crushed it, but it was also when some kids were filtering in to use the court for some practice, so the crowd effect was kicking in and I got some adrenaline surges.
So yea agree with you on the workup, 6-10 max effort jumps before drop off thing, that seems to be the case for most people & in most situations. I'd suspect in that setting he's in - night time + hoopers everywhere, that he'd see some abnormal fluctuations & surges throughout a 40+ jump session. The crowd factor is such a great stimulus, a training tool itself. Looking back, I basically used it that way. Went out to courts at night, with tons of people playing streetball, and got my jumps/dunk attempts in, knowing that I could look like a total "noob" or I could use that extra amp'd feeling to put some more power into my jumps. It most often worked out for the better. Maybe that has alot to do with mindset though.. not sure if scoob gets as much adrenaline from that, as I did for example. I know for some people it actually shuts them down, opposite effect.
But ya back to concrete; for me personally, i'd suspect my knees/ankles/back/hips etc would be completely trashed right now if it was a truly evil surface, of which the body can't really handle well. I've spent the vast majority of my life running on concrete, basketball on concrete, jump roping on concrete, jumping/dunking on concrete etc.. So if it was as dangerous as some make it out to be, i'd suspect by 35 i'd be in serious trouble. I may very well pay for it down the line, I mean I hope not, but I just feel really good on concrete, seems like it's the preferred surface for my body. I personally think alot of that is a result of how I grew up; I didn't grow up playing basketball indoor, I was always out on the street courts, only occasionally going indoor for some leagues or camps etc.. So I think that really helps. People who grow up on indoor surfaces, might have a real problem doing this stuff on concrete. I think about it at times, it's an interesting topic.
guh. went off on some tangents.
