Evolutionary Athletics

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I want to establish through this post the “proper equation of jumping”. Yes, I know, I’m starting to sound more and more like a marketing guru but bare with me on this one.

The problem I have found with whatever there is in this strength&speed “industry” (although I have hardly understood where the word “industry” should fit – oh wait – marketing gurus just reminded me) is that simplicity is the worst enemy of any quality idea. Whenever you go simple about a thing the guy you’re trying to train is like “hey man, cut me this bull, I want real training”. Because, like the industry word suggests, “real training” is “complicated training”.

Now for those that think that know me, they’ll be like “yeah man but you’re the first to overanalyze stuff”. That’s true. But am I the first to overcomplicate training? I don’t think so. My training journal should be pretty obvious about my training and it’s simplicity. The overanalyzing comes just from the pure curiosity of understanding. I can’t just say “yeah man, it just works like that and that’s it”. That’s like saying “yeah man, I’m just stupid and can’t understand things, I’ll just leave it at that”. Doesn’t work that way for me.

But enough with this chit-chat. What’s up with this “equation thing”? Nothing else than a fancy name for simple stuff.

Before we get to it, I want to make a geek analogy, like I sometimes do.

Let’s suppose you work into computer graphics. Nothing to do with athleticism, right? (I actually work in the domain, by the way).

Say I’m a Photoshop beginner. But I want to become the best photoshopper I can possibly be. What are my possibilities for improvement?

Well, for one it would be just working in Photoshop. You know, working in it, playing with tools, see what they do, what the menus do etc. Read the help. Whatever.

Another possiblity would be to watch tutorials, read advanced books etc.

Once I get decent at it, I could go out with deadlines on my projects. I have to finish this stuff in 2 hours or ELSE. Etc.

1) What would happen if I only read books/watch tutorials but never actually practice working in Photoshop itself? My POTENTIAL of being very good would increase a lot, but I wouldn’t be good. I could become very good in a very short time though, working in Photoshop.

2) What would happen if I would only work in photoshop and not read anything/watch any tutorial? I could become good, but probably never great because my potential of greatness would be limited/it would demand too much time to discover stuff on my own out of hazard.

3) What would happen if I would do deadline work without knowing the program well/having the background to do quality work? Well, for one I’d probably be very slow and for another – I’d probably be very limited.

So how the heck does this correlate with jumping/athleticism?

Well, the same thing happens in this field. The muscle is your potential. Practicing your movement is a SKILL. Overload exercises are your “deadlines” (think depth jumps).

To make a comparison:

1)What would happen if I only strength train but never actually practice jumping itself? My POTENTIAL of being very good at jumping would increase a lot, but I wouldn’t be good at jumping (especially running jumps, regardless of them being unilateral or bilateral). I could become very good in a very short time though, practicing jumping.

2) What would happen if I would only jump and not do any strength training? I could become a very good jumper, but probably never great because my potential of greatness would be limited/building strength would demand too much time using only jumping (because the time under tension is too low to optimally help build muscle).

3) What would happen if I would do depth jump work without jumping/having strength? I’d probably be very bad and my depth jumping advancement would be very limited.

The equation is build muscle + train movement + overload ever now and then with supramaximal exercises like depth jumps to increase the tension threshold that the CNS is/is not accepting in the eccentric phase.

So, again: build muscle to increase your potential of tension, train your movement to learn to apply/access your potential of tension in your jumps, do depth jumps to increase the amount of tension the CNS accepts.

It’s really that simple. Once this is settled, the only downside is bodyfat. If that is in check (say around 10% maximum) then you can’t help but jump high. Really. Notice I haven’t mentioned the relative strength factor in here because I’ll talk about it in the next article. You really have to be aware of what relative strength tells you/what can mean for you/how to read it.

I want to establish through this post the “proper equation of jumping”. Yes, I know, I’m starting to sound more and more like a marketing guru but bare with me on this one.

The problem I have found with whatever there is in this strength&speed “industry” (although I have hardly understood where the word “industry” should fit – oh wait – marketing gurus just reminded me) is that simplicity is the worst enemy of any quality idea. Whenever you go simple about a thing the guy you’re trying to train is like “hey man, cut me this bull, I want real training”. Because, like the industry word suggests, “real training” is “complicated training”.

Now for those that think that know me, they’ll be like “yeah man but you’re the first to overanalyze stuff”. That’s true. But am I the first to overcomplicate training? I don’t think so. My training journal should be pretty obvious about my training and it’s simplicity. The overanalyzing comes just from the pure curiosity of understanding. I can’t just say “yeah man, it just works like that and that’s it”. That’s like saying “yeah man, I’m just stupid and can’t understand things, I’ll just leave it at that”. Doesn’t work that way for me.

But enough with this chit-chat. What’s up with this “equation thing”? Nothing else than a fancy name for simple stuff.

Before we get to it, I want to make a geek analogy, like I sometimes do.

Let’s suppose you work into computer graphics. Nothing to do with athleticism, right? (I actually work in the domain, by the way).

Say I’m a Photoshop beginner. But I want to become the best photoshopper I can possibly be. What are my possibilities for improvement?

Well, for one it would be just working in Photoshop. You know, working in it, playing with tools, see what they do, what the menus do etc. Read the help. Whatever.

Another possiblity would be to watch tutorials, read advanced books etc.

Once I get decent at it, I could go out with deadlines on my projects. I have to finish this stuff in 2 hours or ELSE. Etc.

1) What would happen if I only read books/watch tutorials but never actually practice working in Photoshop itself? My POTENTIAL of being very good would increase a lot, but I wouldn’t be good. I could become very good in a very short time though, working in Photoshop.

2) What would happen if I would only work in photoshop and not read anything/watch any tutorial? I could become good, but probably never great because my potential of greatness would be limited/it would demand too much time to discover stuff on my own out of hazard.

3) What would happen if I would do deadline work without knowing the program well/having the background to do quality work? Well, for one I’d probably be very slow and for another – I’d probably be very limited.

So how the heck does this correlate with jumping/athleticism?

Well, the same thing happens in this field. The muscle is your potential. Practicing your movement is a SKILL. Overload exercises are your “deadlines” (think depth jumps).

To make a comparison:

1)What would happen if I only strength train but never actually practice jumping itself? My POTENTIAL of being very good at jumping would increase a lot, but I wouldn’t be good at jumping (especially running jumps, regardless of them being unilateral or bilateral). I could become very good in a very short time though, practicing jumping.

2) What would happen if I would only jump and not do any strength training? I could become a very good jumper, but probably never great because my potential of greatness would be limited/building strength would demand too much time using only jumping (because the time under tension is too low to optimally help build muscle).

3) What would happen if I would do depth jump work without jumping/having strength? I’d probably be very bad and my depth jumping advancement would be very limited.

The equation is build muscle + train movement + overload ever now and then with supramaximal exercises like depth jumps to increase the tension threshold that the CNS is/is not accepting in the eccentric phase.

So, again: build muscle to increase your potential of tension, train your movement to learn to apply/access your potential of tension in your jumps, do depth jumps to increase the amount of tension the CNS accepts.

It’s really that simple. Once this is settled, the only downside is bodyfat. If that is in check (say around 10% maximum) then you can’t help but jump high. Really. Notice I haven’t mentioned the relative strength factor in here because I’ll talk about it in the next article. You really have to be aware of what relative strength tells you/what can mean for you/how to read it.

I want to establish through this post the “proper equation of jumping”. Yes, I know, I’m starting to sound more and more like a marketing guru but bare with me on this one.

The problem I have found with whatever there is in this strength&speed “industry” (although I have hardly understood where the word “industry” should fit – oh wait – marketing gurus just reminded me) is that simplicity is the worst enemy of any quality idea. Whenever you go simple about a thing the guy you’re trying to train is like “hey man, cut me this bull, I want real training”. Because, like the industry word suggests, “real training” is “complicated training”.

Now for those that think that know me, they’ll be like “yeah man but you’re the first to overanalyze stuff”. That’s true. But am I the first to overcomplicate training? I don’t think so. My training journal should be pretty obvious about my training and it’s simplicity. The overanalyzing comes just from the pure curiosity of understanding. I can’t just say “yeah man, it just works like that and that’s it”. That’s like saying “yeah man, I’m just stupid and can’t understand things, I’ll just leave it at that”. Doesn’t work that way for me.

But enough with this chit-chat. What’s up with this “equation thing”? Nothing else than a fancy name for simple stuff.

Before we get to it, I want to make a geek analogy, like I sometimes do.

Let’s suppose you work into computer graphics. Nothing to do with athleticism, right? (I actually work in the domain, by the way).

Say I’m a Photoshop beginner. But I want to become the best photoshopper I can possibly be. What are my possibilities for improvement?

Well, for one it would be just working in Photoshop. You know, working in it, playing with tools, see what they do, what the menus do etc. Read the help. Whatever.

Another possiblity would be to watch tutorials, read advanced books etc.

Once I get decent at it, I could go out with deadlines on my projects. I have to finish this stuff in 2 hours or ELSE. Etc.

1) What would happen if I only read books/watch tutorials but never actually practice working in Photoshop itself? My POTENTIAL of being very good would increase a lot, but I wouldn’t be good. I could become very good in a very short time though, working in Photoshop.

2) What would happen if I would only work in photoshop and not read anything/watch any tutorial? I could become good, but probably never great because my potential of greatness would be limited/it would demand too much time to discover stuff on my own out of hazard.

3) What would happen if I would do deadline work without knowing the program well/having the background to do quality work? Well, for one I’d probably be very slow and for another – I’d probably be very limited.

So how the heck does this correlate with jumping/athleticism?

Well, the same thing happens in this field. The muscle is your potential. Practicing your movement is a SKILL. Overload exercises are your “deadlines” (think depth jumps).

To make a comparison:

1)What would happen if I only strength train but never actually practice jumping itself? My POTENTIAL of being very good at jumping would increase a lot, but I wouldn’t be good at jumping (especially running jumps, regardless of them being unilateral or bilateral). I could become very good in a very short time though, practicing jumping.

2) What would happen if I would only jump and not do any strength training? I could become a very good jumper, but probably never great because my potential of greatness would be limited/building strength would demand too much time using only jumping (because the time under tension is too low to optimally help build muscle).

3) What would happen if I would do depth jump work without jumping/having strength? I’d probably be very bad and my depth jumping advancement would be very limited.

The equation is build muscle + train movement + overload ever now and then with supramaximal exercises like depth jumps to increase the tension threshold that the CNS is/is not accepting in the eccentric phase.

So, again: build muscle to increase your potential of tension, train your movement to learn to apply/access your potential of tension in your jumps, do depth jumps to increase the amount of tension the CNS accepts.

It’s really that simple. Once this is settled, the only downside is bodyfat. If that is in check (say around 10% maximum) then you can’t help but jump high. Really. Notice I haven’t mentioned the relative strength factor in here because I’ll talk about it in the next article. You really have to be aware of what relative strength tells you/what can mean for you/how to read it.

It’s funny how western guys take things for granted. In all domains. But since we’re talking athletic things in here, let’s keep it at that.

Whenever I look over youtube, say, searching for squats, plyos, or whatever training “events”, I see all kinds of fancy gyms, apparatus, machines, bossu-balls, tens of squat racks, power racks, Gatorades, stability balls, med balls, kettlebells, GHR machines, plyo boxes, aerobic boxes, pink dumbbells and stupid instructors. This — in the USA.

Whenever I look around me here in Romania, when I go to train either in gyms or on the track, I see trellises, old tracks, mud, dirt, spounges, broken bars, rusty plates, rusty bars, wooden boxes with spikes in them if you’re “lucky” to have some in the first place, rusty pink dumbbells and stupid instructors.

The point is — if the western guy would change place with an eastern guy for one week… oh man!

It’s harder when the stupid coach gets crazy ideas though.

A friend of mine that I was training with got into high jump and bobsled training. One day when he was training for the high jump he was doing jumps in the sandpit over a metallic, NON-COLLAPSABLE hurdle. Sure, a small 40 cm or 16 inch hurdle. But he was doing technique jumping where he was told “how to jump”. Needless to say — his jumping was different than what the coach was trying to make him do. So he blowed up the jump and blown his leg up in the hurdle.

Truth is, stupidity + lack of conditions are the mother and father of the injury. What can be said about the water “dive-bomb” Olympic team? They don’t have a dive-pool to train in the WHOLE COUNTRY and, to still train, they dive into spounges. Can you imagine that? They don’t jump into water until they’re in the competition itself! One guy still got 10th place in the World Championship. Can you compare that with the US conditions?

Really, even doing depth jumps is a real problem here because you don’t have any boxes (yes, those square wooden things) to do depth jumps off! But when I look over youtube in the USA everybody has nice all sizes boxes to do them from. Oh, and GHR machine? I never ever seen one here. Never. I don’t think anybody knows what a GHR machine is to be frank.

Never seen a power rack where you take the pins and put them to suit your height/squat depth. Never. I know only one gym that has kettlebells, and they have only 2. As for plyo boxes that I was talking about? They have only like 2 in the Olympic athletic training facility in which I trained for a short period. That’s the only place I’ve seen them.

Oh, not to mention that the only Olympic high jumper (2.30 m personal best / 7′7) has a salary of about 175 euros or 200 $ per month. Yup, you heard right. A good way to be performant, I guess. He borrowed 15 euros about 4 months ago from me and hasn’t given them back yet. No money to do it.

Check out how I do my depth jumps (what I use to do them):

Think about that when you’re complain about the training conditions!

When people talk about isometrics in the training world, they don’t really associate isometric stuff with dynamic efforts for athleticism. Truth is, the isometric concepts/benefits/volume/intensities etc are barely known in the training world.

One could go on and think “why the hell should I train isometrically when the aim is doing dynamic movements?” and, well, he’d be right from a specificity standpoint. That’s not the issue though.

Let’s take a quick example for a more “specific” approach in terms of jumping and dynamic movements. The “athlete” in cause would be, you guessed it — your favorite athlete — me.

Whenever I take a running jump or do any kind of change in direction or whatever dynamic effort, I always am “ready” for the shock of that particular event. I don’t know if you’ve figured it out already, but a lot of people talk about “be ready!” for these kinds of things yet nobody ever defines what “ready” means. Besides of the usual “be aware” definition, “ready” also means “tensed”. So you basically get “tensed” before a dynamic event occurs. According to Yuri Verkhoshansky, this can lead up to a 20% increase in performance in the dynamic movement.
Really, the next time you jump at high speeds be aware of your “preparedness” before the jump. I bet you’ll find out that you’re already tensed up (pre-tensed), just that you haven’t thought about it before.

If not, try to isometrically tense your BODY muscles and see the difference. Notice I haven’t said “leg muscles”, and that’s because it’s a whole body tensing that’s the important thing. The reason for that is the muscle irradiation effect the other muscles have on your stability and power output. This has been bought to my attention by Pavel Tsatsouline but I have found out that I have already been doing all the things he talks about in his book “The Naked Warrior”.

So basically, tensing isometrically before an athletic feat (or a power/strength lift etc) is very important. That’s why the isometric training can/must have some emphasis in training for overall athleticism.

One of my favorite isometric holds is the split squat iso hold using a barbell. Here’s me doing it:

You should aim for sets of 10-20 seconds for strength gains. You want to bring real intensity and LEARN to tense up good so the next time you tense for jumping it will happen quickly and provide you with good stability for the leg muscles to exert power against the ground, but also (and more importantly) for the leg muscles to properly and effectively absorb the ground shock in the amortization phase.

Good luck!

Ok, let’s say you have a 30 inch vert. Now I come and tell you : jump 34 inches. You listen and go try it: you begin your approach, you plant, you bend, you jump, and I measure 30 inches. Ok, fine, but why can’t you jump 34?

Yeap, I know, pretty hard to tell, ain’t it? We certainly don’t know what is the weak point in your body. But we can figure it out quickly, to a certain extent.

Now don’t get me wrong: I ain’t telling this is a sure thing, but we can speculate around it, in a logic manner I suppose. But enough with this, let’s get started. First, let’s review what you did to jump 30 inches.

You began your approach… this means you used an “X” amount of speed. Could be fast, moderate, or slow. Then you plant. You could jump off one or two legs. Then you bend. You could’ve bent more or less, depending of the plant (1 or 2 legs) and your specific technique. Then you jump…

That X amount of speed is very important. I believe that the “Eccentric Strength” i’s the most important thing in a running jump.

1) Coming up with a high speed and jumping high means you are having (or probably having) a very good technique and having (for sure) a very good eccentric strength.

2) Coming up with a high speed and jumping low means you are either having a a) bad technique (or wrong movement patterns) or b) you have bad eccentric strength, or c) both.

3) Coming up slow and jumping “relatively” high would mean you have good technique and strength and bad eccentric strength.

4) Coming up slow and jumping low would mean you have both bad technique and bad eccentric strength, period.

Now we need to correct these scenarious, one by one. The correct approach, in my oppinion (remember, these are not proven facts) would be the following:

1) Increase strength to jump higher;

2) a) Go into plyometrics, low intensity, focusing on the correct movement patterns; b) Get into strength training, then go into drop jumps to improve eccentric strength; c) both;

3) Get into strength training, then train with drop jumps.

4) The same as 2) c), training first low intensity plyometrics, then strength, then high intensity plyometrics.

By saying “training first”, I don’t mean to do that type of training first in your session; what I mean is to prepare yourself focusing on that kind of training, without mixing them up. This means you must do (or focus almost entirely) on that kind of training (either low intensity plyometrics (LIP), strength training (ST) or high-intensity training (HIT)).

Ok, we are done with the approach part, let’s move on.

Now this is another important part. You jumped 30 inches right? Now what muscle, or movement stopped you from getting higher?

Well, other than regular strength, sometimes there are certain muscles that collapse before the others do. For example, when I approach my jumping spot with a very high speed, I lose eccentric strength in the vastus medialis and jump a mere 8 inches or somewhere around. This happened because the proprioceptors kicked in, in the absorbtion phase. I felt quite confident in my other muscles that they can handle that speed, but the vastus medialis in my quads didn’t. What I am saying is that, for my case, strengthening the vastus medialis would provide a very good boost for increasing my vert. But this is just my case.

You could lack strength in the calves, so if you feel you collapse at the calf point, you need to train the calves for more eccentric strength.

If, however, you can get a lot of power in (move trough the absorbtion and stabilisation phase) then it becomes just a matter of lowering the coupling phase time (where the switch from eccentric to concentric happens) and increase overall strength. Taking a lot of power in without collapsing is the definition of an efficient nervous system, as the proprioceptors don’t kick in to shut down the muscle. However, it is also dependent of muscular strength, so you gotta have a combination of both strength and an efficient nervous system. We hear a lot about “combinations” and how you can’t separate the muscle from the mind, and that’s because it’s true.

There is another thing I must add: from my experience I have found out that the eccentric strength is also specific. What I mean by that is that eccentric strength can exist in a movement but can lack in another, even if the load on the muscles is similar.

The reason for that is movement efficiency. Say you train to jump off two feet. You go out and practice that for 2 hours everyday. What happens over time is the body (CNS) starts to accept the forces of the amortization phase and starts to get better in that movement, accepting higher and higher levels of speed (becoming efficient and “trustful” that the movement can safely be performed). You can therefore conclude that your eccentric strength has improved and you would be right (although you have to first define what EXACTLY does eccentric strength means). If it means that you’re able to use more speed in the jump without collapsing then yes, you have increased it. If it means you’re going to be able to lower a heavier bar in the squat than before… I’m not so sure. If it means the “newly found” eccentric strength is going to be properly used in change of directions, cuts, decelerations while playing basketball… I’m not sure about this either.

What I have found out on my own self is that you can be great at jumping and still suck when it comes to decelerating, cutting, changing directions etc, even though it feels like the same loading of the muscles is being applied during these movements. Even more, when you think about it, in high speed jumps there are forces that are highly superior vs. some low speed changes of directions.

So, in my mind at least, the eccentric strength also carries a specific “value”. Here in Romania the high jump coaches are really obsessed with specificity by the way, in whatever they put their athletes do. Everything has to be specific. There are little things not specific to every parameter of a one-leg jump.

What this means is that you’re most likely see the high jumpers do a lot of plyos, 1/4 squats, few full squats (because they are not specific when it comes to the knee/hip angles of a one-leg jump), low ROM step-ups (for the same reasons) and bounce squats (where you drop down and use the plyometric effect to get up, a killer for the knees by the way).

Well, this is it about the collapse points and eccentric strength and it’s specificity. Watch out for new articles soon!