Evolutionary Athletics

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During our years in the combine prep industry I have read people talk about a number of things related to prepping for performance and a big vertical jump PR.  Tricks stem from stretching the hip flexors prior to testing your vert, a crowding the line on your 40, the spiderman shuttle run (a now banned technique) to full on athletic preparation programs.  With all the tricks and techniques discussed one area is often neglected: a proper warm up.

Warming up for a power event essentially boils down to priming the CNS.  Getting the CNS fired up will allow for an increase in muscle fiber recruitment, including the hard to reach high threshold motor units, during the testing which will allow you to generate more force.  More force = running faster and jumping higher.  In Sky High: Improving Your Vertical Jump I discuss a warm up method called ramping.  Ramping is a way to fire up the CNS when you are going to be lifting weights.  The warm up I am going to outline here is designed to prepare you for explosive/plyometric activities.   This will prepare you to run your fastest and jump your highest.

The warm up involves the following three exercises:

Kettlebell Swing

Depth Jump

Altitude Drop- Performing an altitude drop is simply the first two images in the depth jump photograph

Warm Up

Kettlebell/Dumbbell Swings x 10

Altitude Drop x 8

Kettlebell/Dumbbell Swings x 10

Depth Jump x 8

You should rest based on how you feel and can feel free to add in a third set of swings followed by depth jumps.

In this warm up the swings are aimed at explosively activating the posterior chain so that it will carry over into jumping activities, thus why it preceded the altitude drops and depth jumps. The altitude drops get your body generating more force than you can voluntarily create which has a significant impact on the CNS stimulation and muscular contraction. Altitude drops precede depth jumps because they are similar movements and serve a preparatory function for the subsequent depth jumps. Depth jumps accomplish the same task as the altitude drops plus get you jumping which means that they will have greater carry over to the jump than altitude drops will.

Enjoy the warm up and have fun setting some new PR’s

-Alex

“No measure of athleticism has received more attention or fanfare than the vertical leap, and many authors have tried to capitalize on this popularity. Plenty of people have put out manuals or books on the topic, and a few have even released high quality, applicable material, but none of the works I’ve seen approach Alex’s.

In “Improving Your Vertical Jump” Alex breaks down the vertical jump into its constituent parts, and with both insight and experience, lays out a comprehensive training plan to take performance to the next level. Focusing on proper muscle activation along with improving relative strength, the plan can’t be described as anything except solid, and would work for beginners and veterans alike. I would recommend this text to anyone looking to improve their leaping ability and athleticism in general.”

-Roger Nelsen Jr., Owner Singularity Sports Training

Jack Woodrup posted a review of the vertical jump e-program.  I am proud that it was rated just behind Kelly Baggett’s Vertical Jump Bible.  I have a lot of respect for Kelly and his work.

You can read Jack’s review at his website Vertical Jumping

“I purchased the other day and it’s really nice. Looks like a very solid program (as well as his other one) and addresses a lot of deficiencies an athlete would deal with.

I really like the GPP style phases you have. I’m definitely stealing them and running my hs volleyball team through those types of workouts during the season.

If you followed the GPP then ran Alex’s article where you squat 3x/week THEN went into the rest of the program, I think you would throw some serious hops onto a high school kid.

Anyways, it’s $17 bucks and gives some nice insight into a smart coaches way of organizing training. I would have to say this ranks up there with KBs Bible. If you have any strength base at all this would be the way to go (and you can’t beat the price).

Good work!!!”

John

I have added a new Vertical Jump Training Manual to my products.  It costs a mere $17 but this IS temporary (until I reach 100 sales) then the price increases to $37.  So hurry up and get your copy today!

Alex

If you are a basketball player, or a football player basketball weight training and football weight training should focus on improving your vertical jump. The vertical jump is the only key predictor of performance taken at the respective combines. Much research has been done on vertical jump performance. A number of factors have been identified. The first key factor seems to be relative maximal strength. That is strength/bw. With this in mind the first goal of anyone trying to improve their vert is to get strong.

Think of strength as potential. The stronger you are the greater your potential for a high vert. A friend, Kelly Baggett, posted this calculator, made by Colin, for vert based on weight and squat strength.

It is fairly accurate. 100% no but close

Personally I like Pavel’s guidelines. 2-5 sets x 2-5 reps daily. Never miss a rep. Never do more than 10 total reps in a workout.

What are your favorite methods for increasing strength or vertical jump?
So if you are interested in basketball weight training or football weight training, focus on training to improve your vertical jump.

Please visit my store for a program that has worked successfully time and time again for improving vertical jumps

So what role does plyometrics play in vertical jump training?

Kelly Baggett says jumping is largely related to horsepower and movement efficiency. Horsepower as related to the maximal relative strength and movement efficiency as related to improved coordination.

He goes on to state that the other stuff about plyometrics like reactive ability, supramaximal recruitment, and sciency mumbo jumbo that strength coaches like to talk about is bunk!

What do you think the benefits of plyo’s are? Are they needed in a training program?

Ok,

Years ago, many years ago, I was at home on summer break from college.  I enrolled in a summer weight training course at the local Junior College.

I enjoyed lifting weights and had improved my squat to 250lbs at a body weight of 185.  I was proud of this because I happened to squat more than anyone at the commercial gyms I frequented.  Sad huh?

Well I decided to focus on the “king of exercises” over the summer.  The class was about 8 weeks long, I have a tough time remembering as it was 15 years ago.  We met 3x/week.

At the time I had read John McCallum’s “Keys to Progress” book and one of the outines inspired me.  It was about progressive pulls.  In this program you started with an empty bar and added weight in 20-30lb increments. You started with the hang snatch, when you couldnt get 5 reps you switched to a hang clean and kept adding weight.  When you missed the clean you switched to an RDL, and finally you progressed to a max set of 5 on the deadlift.  Progressive pulls.

I decided to try this approach with the squat but not change movements.  So 3 days a week I started with 135 and did sets of 5 adding 20-30lbs on the bar and doing sets of 5 reps.  When I got to a weight that started feeling heavy I dropped the weight increments to 10lb jumps in weight.  When I felt it was a maximal set of 5 I called it a day and noted the weight in the journal.  The next time in the gym I looked at the weight and had to beat my previous best of 5 reps.  This could come in any increment possible.  5lbs, 10lbs, or more.  The size of the jump, obviously, depended on how I felt that day.  The key being that I HAD to beat my previous PR.

I went through this program for 8 weeks.  It was a grueling program with balls to the wall intensity.  At the end of the class I had squatted 405 for 5 reps.  405!  This was a strength increase of over 150lbs in 8 weeks!!

My bodyweight had increased by 10 lbs as well.

The other key to the program was milk.  See the old timers believed in squatting heavy and drinking milk as the keys to getting stronger, and I followed their advice, drinking milk at every meal and a big glass post workout.  You figure that was an extra 70-100g of protein every day.

What does this have to do with performance?

Well we know that relative strength is a key to getting a bigger vertical jump.

Well my relative strength at the start of the summer was : 250/185 = 1.35lb/bw

My relative strength 8 weeks later was: 450 1rm (estimated with 405 being 90%1rm) / 195 = 2.30lbs/bw or 58%

If I were to implement this program with an athlete it would be followed by a power program which included jump squats, bounding, vertical jumps, run up jumps, and perhaps depth jumps (if the squat phase included altitude drops)

This program is simple and effective.  I encourage all fo you to give it a shot.

Here is how it would look

M/W/F

Altitude drops 3-5×5

Squat 135 -> ? x5 increase weight 20-30lbs between every set, as it gets heavy drop increments to 10lbs.  Always beat your PR

Upperbody, what ever you wish pick an upper push, pull and train the guns too.

No added volume for the legs as this is a very intense program and recovery is improtant.  Also, don’t play ball or any thing else that may interfere with progress.

This could be called a concentrated strength block or just plain ol’ gettin’ after it in the weight room.  Remember you are trading 1 step backward for 5 steps forward so you vert may suffer but will increase a ton following the power block.

Enjoy

Alex