Raptor's Vertical Jump Articles (in engleza)

[Raptor]

Ok... din moment ce vad ca e mai greu la unele persoane sa intre la mine pe site si sa citeasca ceea ce scriu, o sa pun articolele aici.

Dar mai intai, cateva explicatii:

INCHEIETURI :

Hip = shold;
Knee = genunchi;
Ankle = glezna;
Shoulder = umar;
Elbow = cot;
Wrist = incheietura.

MUSCHI :

Calves = Gambe;
Quad/Quadriceps = Cvadricepsi, muschii din fatza ai picioarelor;
Hamstring - Biceps Femoris = Biceps Femural - muschii din spatele picioarelor;
Gluteus Maximus = Fundul;
Tibialis Anterior = Muschii din fatza tibiei;
Deltoizi = muschii umarului;
Abs = abdomenu.

Nu de alta, da' sa nu va treziti ca nu intelegeti ce zic. A, si inca ceva... articolele sunt scrise fiind presupus ca cei care le citesc au macar o baza in anatomie/antrenament sala/atletic. Daca nu stiti ce inseamna un exercitiu, puteti sa le cautati pe :

http://www.bodybuilding.com ;
http://www.exrx.net ;
http://www.abcbodybuilding.com ;
http://www.higher-fasters-sports.com ;
http://www.defrancostraining.com ;

si... Google is your friend ;)

Unele articole sunt mai vechi, mai sunt unele mici greseli, da' ma rog...

Acum, primul articol:

Article 1 - The three main jumping forces (powers)

Too many times I hear people with countless questions about how to increase vertical jump and hangtime. When it comes to hangtime, what I think is keeping some guys in the air more (apart from high verts) is that they have very developed core strength and they have good balance. Having these two things in their arsenal they gain some hangtime by applying forces with the core strength and having extreme balance in the air gives them the ability to maintain it. It’s difficult to understand this, but that must be the answer about hangtime.

But first, my name is Robert, I live in Romania, and at this time I’m 19 ˝ years old. Don’t be fooled by my age! I am learning about vert training for some years now. When I was in the 9th grade (15 years old) I was 5’9 – 5’10 and had a vert off one leg at the 12 inch range. I couln’t even touch the net!!! Of course at that time I didn’t tought about dunking or anything „crazy” like that, but well over time I jumped and jumped so at some point I was close to the rim. At the point where I was able to just touch the rim with my fingertips (in the 11th grade) I began to think about „how nice it would be” for me to dunk. At that point my heigth was 5’11 (1.81) and I remained at this heigth (unfortunately), and my vert was about 24 inches. After this I started training but with little weigth and began to grab the rim. Still away from dunking. Right now my vert is in the 40 inch area, but in the 12th grade I recorded the highest jump at about 43 inches (got my hand over the rim close to my elbow). What this means is that if you really want to dunk you will. You just gotta traing – smart and efficient. This is what this program is all about.

Now, about the vert training. Jumping can be done off one or two legs. It’s interesting to see how a beginner jumps. He has no ideea about what a 1 leg or 2 leg takeoff represent for his body structure and power, but instinctively jumps either off one leg or two. Having seen this, you already got some info about the guy. So, if he jumps off one leg, he is mostly taking advantage of the tendons rather than pure muscular strength and explosion. He usually has long legs but most importantly long tendons. Has to be weak when it comes to strength in the legs and overall body strength and he tends to lift little weigth in the weigth room. Being weak, this means he jumps bad off two legs. Of course that there are athletes out there that jump very well regardless of the tehnique (1 or 2 legs). If someone tends to naturally jump off two legs, then he is predominantly using his muscular strength, as the tendon length counts less. This is why NBA players usually jump off two legs (even players non-gifted at the structural department can go into weigth lifting and develop explosive power that he can benefit from in a two-legged jump).

The whole point in what it is said above has to do with the following, three-and-only IMPORTANT strengths:

1) Base strength – This is about how muscular you are. You increase it in the weigth room, doing all kinds of exercises in the 6-8 repetition range.

2) Explosive Power – Or voluntary force – it is the maximum amount of force that you can put forth in the minimum amount of time. This is the most important strength when it comes to jumping off two legs. Best training with box squats.

3) Plyometric Force – Or reactive force – this is the ability to use the elastic energy accumulated in the tendon-muscle complex, during the SSC (Stretch-Shortening-Cycle). This is specific to one leg jumpers, as they are taking advantage of it in the amorthization phase. On of the best of plyometric exercises are (for two leg jumpers) DEPTH JUMPS and for one leg jumpers FULL SPEED SPRINTS.

[Raptor]

Article 2 - Study of the 1-leg vs. 2-legs jumpers/Amorthization Phase

Now we will talk about every of them powers, but first let’s understand what stands as the „amorthization phase”. This mean how much time takes between the last contact with the ground and the takeoff.

There are two basic types of it. The long and the short amorthization phase.

1) The long amorthization phase – This is two-legged specific. The ground contact time is higher (around 0.25 - 0.30 of a second) for guys jumping off two legs, since they can take advantage more of their power by maintaining the ground contact for a little more time.
2) The short amorthization phase – Is that used by the elastic jumpers. Jumping off one leg they use the shortest possible ground contact at the take-off to take full advantage of their plyometric ability (0.1 - 0.2 of a second).

Having this, let’s get to know how to train to jump higher.

Do a drill – go and jump. Now tell me, what kind of jumper you are? 1 or 2 legged?

So, if you are:

1) 1 Leg Jumper: Then you are relying on you plyometric ability to jump, using the tendons. The muscles are acting as both shock-absorbers and stabilizers. You probably aren’t very powerful overall and have a bad two-legged-jump. Note that you might be a power-jumper (2 leg) but not even know that due to the lack of strength. So what is to be done say?

We must go trough several scenarios in order to answer the majority of questions about what to do to gain more.

Scenarios:

Q) I am a one leg jumper, I have a 39 inch vert off one leg, but when trying to jump off two legs I jump only 24 inches. I have great top speed but I accelerate slow. My standing long jump is bad. How can I increase my vert?

A) You say you jump great off one leg but bad off two legs. This means you are lacking in power. This is amplified by the fact that your top speed is great – that is you take full advantage of the plyometric ability – so you don’t need to work on plyos right now, but have a bad acceleration – this means that you aren’t able to „push the floor” so you are lacking in explosive power.

What this means is that you need to train both on your base strength and explosive power. First train your base strength, doing squats, deadlifts, leg curls and after you have the muscle build you need switch to explosive strength, while maintaining at least the same level of base strength (continue to do squats etc but this should not be the focus of the training). For explosive strength training you need to do stuff like box squats, olympic lifts (ultimate explosive training exercises), overhead squats.

In the meantime to maintain the natural plyometric ability that you already have (running fast at top speed, having high one leg jumping ability – both demonstrate high reactive ability) you need to play basketball (or whatever sport you do). This ensures the reactive force is maintained and will not go down (might even go up).

From what I can think off right now, the vastus medialis is the most important muscle in the quadriceps when it comes to one leg jumping. If the one leg jumping is what you’re aiming to increase, then you must strengthen the vastus medialis, calves and glutes.

Because when you jump off one leg the muscles act as shock-absorbers and stabilizers, then the most important stabilizers in the lower body you are going to use are the calves and the glutes, while the vastus medialis will absorb the power and provide stability.

Often, when trying to dunk very hard you’ll find out that you „blow a tire”. This actually means that the proprioceptors kicked in the vastus medialis.

Q) My name is X, I have a 35 inch vert off two legs, I accelerate very fast but my top speed is not that great, I jump very long from a standstill. My one leg jump is quite horrid, at about 25 inches.

A)From whay you say – this means that you’re using your explosive power and strength when jumping. Your natural reactive force is not that developed, so you need to focus your training on plyometrics. This is shown by the fact that you accelerate very fast – so your explosive power is there, while the top speed is not that great. This translates into that your involuntary reactive ability isn’t that developed, as this reactive ability is what controls your top speed.

[Raptor]

Article 3 - Muscle Fiber Types and Ratios

We’ve covered what there is to be known about the 1-leg jumper and the 2-leg jumper. Now, we need to take a look at the muscle fibers. The muscle fibers are of two main types: I and II.
The I type, or slow-twitch, is the type of muscle that is resistant in time and relatively slow. These fibers are red as they use the blood to bring them oxygene, their primary fuel. THESE ARE NOT THE FIBERS YOU WANT TO BUILD IN YOUR MUSCLES! Usually, marathon runners or other long distance runners have plenty of them and train for them specifically (endurance rather than explosive). Point is, the average vert jump of a marathonist is 12 inches. I’m guessing you want more than that, right?

The fibers that we, vertical jump freaks are searching for are the type-II fibers. These fibers are composed of two types (some say three) : IIa and IIb (IIc). The IIa fiber is somewhere between the I and IIb fiber when it comes to contractile ability. The focus of our training is the IIb fiber, which is the most important fiber in the muscle for the vertical jump. The fast-twitch fibers (or II fibers) are the biggest in the muscle and also have big motor neurons. They rely on glycogen for fuel rather than oxygene as it happens in the I fibers. This means that they are more easily to fatigue because the glycogene storage will run out as opposed to oxygene.
You know that I said above that we need to focus our attention to the fast-twitch fibers. Still, some muscles are slow-twitch predominant genetically, so we will train this muscles in a manner to develop the slow-twitch fibers, since they pretty much dominate.

So why some muscle is slow-twitch predominant and other muscle is slow-twitch predominant. Well, the slow-twitch muscles in the body are the muscles that maintain posture, such as the solear and the neck muscles. This ensures they resist over time and endure to maintain walking and keeping your head up ability. Opposed to this, the hamstrings are used to achieve optimal strength and speed, so they are fast-twitch predominant. It’s all about the muscle function.

[Raptor]

Article 4 - Muscle protective mechanisms - The Proprioceptors

Another thing you need to understand about the muscles is the muscle protective mechanism or „proprioceptors”. Remember that I said „Often, when trying to dunk very hard you’ll find out that you „blow a tire”. This actually means that the proprioceptors kicked in the vastus medialis.” So what a heck did I just said?

Well, these proprioceptors are the muscle danger sensors and if they detect that the force applied to the muscle is potentially dangerous, they will turn off the muscle. Ok, great, but what if they kick in before you want? Will this hinder the results you are hoping for?

Hell yeah!!! These proprioceptors can be trained to protect the muscle more efficient and let us use more muscle force when jumping. They are primarely responsible for the amount of muscle fibers you can use at one specific time. For example, the untrained person or sedentary freak will use (when jumping) about 50% of the muscle fibers. Opposite, the elite athlete will use up to 90% of the muscle fibers so they are close to the limit in breaking their muscles up, but the performance they achieve is tremendous.

This problem is resolvable during weigth training into teaching the proprioceptors to act later and more efficient. So, to train the proprioceptors you will simply weigth-train with heavy weigths, increasing both strength and proprioceptive „elasticity”. Also, the most efficient type to improve this is training for eccentric strength, with depth drops.

[Raptor]

Article 5 - Explosiveness

All basketball players want to increase it. But what explosiveness really is? Well, we characterize a player as explosive when that player is capable of putting a high amount of voluntary force whenever he needs it. This is the ability to turn on muscles and maintain that huge power turned on for about 0.2-0.3 seconds.

In order to make gains in the explosive departement so to say, there is a rule that comes to my mind that says : you need to be explosive to be fast, but you don’t need to be fast to be explosive. This is called „dynamic-strength trough static-overcome”. Here is where the box squats take the role as explosive exercises. Even tough when you are performing box squats with heavy weights, you aren’t moving fast or looking explosive, to overcome the weight from a standstill (standing on the box) and going upward is an explosive movement, even if it doesn’t look that way. To perform the box squat correctly, you must turn on and maintain that power over the way going up with the barbell. So you have dynamic strength trough static overcome.

You know, this will eventually come in and help you when you reach a plateau in regular squatting. Some athletes that have reached plateaus in regular squatting and switched to box squats then after a month or two returned to regular squatting they observed that the squat is better and they have progressed at it even they didn’t trained for it! So, being explosive will definately help in limit strength exercises also.

You can perform the box squat in two ways:

1) With a weight ranging 50 % of 1RM – and doing explosive and fast. You should be able to do 5 repetitions in 5 seconds.
2) Heavy Box Squat with 85% of 1RM – squeezing the buttocks (gluteus maximus) and hamstrings (biceps femoris) to initiate the movement. These are both great exercises for the posterior chain. Use them to your advantage!

[Raptor]

Article 6 - What's better for my current strength - 1 leg or two legs?

You know this is a very common question and I like answering it. For 1 leg jumping, you need the longest legs in the world. The longer the leg, the longer the tendon, the higher the jump, but not only that, it comes pretty much about the tehnique.

It's pretty hard to explain, but I'll try to do it.

So, to jump off one leg the highest possible, you need to have the last stride as longest as possible, but, to have it that way, you need to have the strength levels in the jumping leg very high so that you can "rebound" from that position.

Your body should be leaned back pretty much, because at the taking off point you will use that backward lean and throw your body forward-upward, and the amount of backward lean will give you the amount of power you can use in this manner.

You never want to take off of one leg in a straigth position - this way you can't activate the posterior chain nor take advantage of momentum.

Also, when jumping of the left leg (right handed), your non-jumping right leg's knee is important at the finishing position. The higher the point that that knee get's into the higher the jump tends to be, if backed up with the neccesary strength, of course.

You see, the right knee's upward advace takes some of your body's weight away when jumping, so this is where tehnique is so important.

But now let's get on to business about the actual power/tehnique rankings.

Let's suppose you have a squat power of 100 KG, and you weigh 50 kg. So, if distributed equaly over both legs, that is 50 kgf for each leg.

When squatting, the overall amount of weight is somewhere around 135 kg if you consider that you squat the 100 KG weight and some 35 KG of your body weight, sice you don't get the legs' weight into this (consider the legs are 15 KG).

So, for two legged jumping, you will have an overall power of 135 KGF.

When jumping off one leg, it's another story. If you are the kind of guy that has a leg (the jumping leg) stronger than the other leg (the non-jumping leg) it comes like this:

100 KG of squat distributed 60% to the left leg and 40% to the right leg means you have an overall of 60 KGF on the left leg. But now you need to get those 35 kg's of your upper-body on one leg only. So that's 60 - 35= 25 KGF. Now the right knee comes and help reduce the body weight and not only that, but even aid the left leg because the right leg has upward momentum so the overall power is somewhat relative, let's assume 25(the remaining power) + 35(recovered body weight by momentum) + * (presumed momentum added power) gives you an overall of 60 + * KGF.

That * is a variable number that depends on the speed that you come when jumping off one leg. The greater the speed, the greater that * variable. So if you have the *=30 KGF, then you will have an overall of 90 KGF, that is lower than the 135 KGF for two legs. If you can run that fast so you get a *=80 KGF, then one leg jumping power is 140 KGF > 135 KGF for two legs.

But hey, this guy that we are talking about on here is 50 KG, and squats 100 KG. That means he squats DOUBLE his body weight. That's pretty STRONG, isn't it?

So, unfortunately or not, it's harder to increase top speed than overall power in the squat, no? This means that for a guy like him, jumping off two legs would be best suited.

How about a 100 KG guy that can only squat 50 KG, that's half his body weight.

So, for two legs you get 50 KG + 70 KG (70% of the body, without the legs) = 120 KG of two-legged power.

For one leg, if he gets that 60%/40%, then this means he has a 30 KGF on the left leg.

So, 30 (the remaining power) + 70 (the body weight recovered by momentum) + * (presumed momentum added power) gives you an overall of 100 KGF + * KGF.

Right now, the difference between one leg and two-leg jumping is 120 KGF (2 legs) vs. 100 KGF + *KGF (1 leg). Now depending on the speed of the run, the * variable can be 20 KGF or higher, but he definately needs less *KGF than the 50 KG guy, that squats 100 KG.

So, to make a comparison, the 50 KG guy has these coordinates:

135 two legs, needing an approach speed in one leg jumping that can give the * at least 60 + (*)75 KGF to equal the two-leg jumping power.

The 100 KG guy has these:

120 two legs, needing an approach speed in one leg jumping that can give the * at least 100 + (*)20 KGF to equal the two-leg jumping power.

So you can definately see the difference between the strong and the weak guy. The weak guy will be better off one leg since he can easily achieve that 20+ additional power trough tehnique than the strong guy that would need at least 75 KGF additional power TO EQUAL his two-leg power. He will provail in the two-leg jumping tehnique.

Of course there are lots of variables in there, but this is just a brute explanation of power regarding jumping tehnique.

[Raptor]

Article 7 - The optimal way to train for POWER

Ok, the best way to create a long-time schedule for a dedicated athlete in order to increase the vertical jump, sprinting speed and explosive ability in general goes like this (the number in months of training depends from person to person, but I provide a sample):

Cycle 1 :

Period 1 - Strength Training - Heavy Weight Training in the 3-6 range (80%+ of 1RM, 6 Months);
Period 2 - Hypertrophy - Weightlifting in the 8-12 range for increased muscle mass (50% of 1RM, 2 months);

Optional : Repeat Cycle 1 for added strength and mass, 2 weeks of rest between repeat;

Cycle 2 :

Period 1 - Reactive Training - Drop Landings and Depth Jumps - For increased neural activation (2 months);
Period 2 - Explosive Training - Explosive Jump Squats (Reactive and Paused) for Rate of Force Development (30% of 1RM squat or isometric strength, 3 months).

Cycle 3 :

Period 1 - Active recovery and rest (2 weeks).
Period 2 - Extreme display of explosive ability, vertical jump, and overall power.

[Raptor]

Article 8 - Eccentric Training - The Supreme Power in Jumping

There are lots and lots of articles over the internet about how can someone improve his/her jumping ability with the use of plyometrics. And now, there are even more plyometric exercises than ever. So, with all this plyometric thing, I definately think there is alot of room for confusions and misunderstandings.

So what is this plyometric thing all about? Well, it's about increasing a muscle-tendon complex the ability to store elastic energy in the eccentric phase, energy that can and will be released during the concentric actions. The "reactive force" that comes in to help is generated naturally inside a muscle-tendon complex. This is due to the body's nervous system protective response to a stretch. Also note that you are more powerfull eccentrically than you are concentrically.

Let's take an example: Say you can squat 100 KG. What does this mean? It means you go down with 100 KG, and you go back up with 100 KG. That 100 KG eccentric strength isn't at near your eccentric limit! If you were supposed only to get down, without any get-up part, your eccentric limit would be around 150 KG. Why am I telling you all this?

Because (and make it remain in your mind) : "Eccentric strength is the premiere strength in vertical jumping, especially off one leg".

For example, studies show that the power gained in a concentric movement following imediatelly after an eccentric contraction is 200-780% greater, in the first 100 ms. Furthermore, the numbers sky-rise if the first 20 ms of the Stretch-Shortening-Cycle (336-1332 % enhancement).

Now the question comes: "Why is this happening, how can we take advantage of it and how can we train for it?". These are the kind of questions that many people try to respond, some can, to a certain degree, someothers can't, more or less. It isn't really clear about what is really happening, but I will try to figure it out for you.

First, let's get into the nr. 1 question of "why is this happening". The cause of this "building-up force" is a natural one: the body's response to a potentially damaging stretch in the muscle-tendon complex. You see, when you land from a jump, your landing weight is higher because your body is accelerated to the ground, thus increasing the weight. When you land, your muscles are both absorbind and stabilizing the weight. The nervous system is doing this by eccentric-contracting them. It feels the stretch in the muscle with the golgi-organ tendon, a sensitive entity. When the stretch is too high, this golgi organ sends a signal stating "this is a potentially dangerous situation for the muscle". There is a threshold, meaning that if the stretch is too high, the muscles are being shut down, to prevent injuring them, and the absorbing and stabilisation phase is compromised. If this threshold is not "overwhelmed", then the muscle fibers are activated to absorb and stabilize the forces, contracting eccentrically. The higher the landing weight and force, the more motor neurons need to be recruited (activated) to support it. So, if you would normally use let's say 100.000 motor neurons when running, for the eccentric phase (aborbtion and stabilizing), when you altitude drop at a high altitude you'll use 250.000 - 300.000 motor neurons. This type of training will improve both that treshold and motor unit recruitment.

On the "how can we take advantage of it" part, we need to address two things : 1) This can be trained and 2) This will become natural (will maintain over time). If you jump off one leg especially, then imagine the following scenario : The first dunk you try, you approach the rim with a moderate speed, plant your foot and dunk the basketball with one hand. For the second dunk, you come with near-full speed, plant your jumping leg, you bend down ... and you remain there. What happened? You lacked eccentric strength. Your muscles weren't able to absorb and stabilize the high force you've builden up by running at full speed. Now, you get back to training, feeling so bad you missed that dunk. You train and you train and you train. After 3 months of plyometric training you come back at the dunk contest. You approach with moderate speed, plant, bend, jump and dunk two-handed this time. So what the...? Next, you approach with near-full speed, plant, bend, jump and stick that elbow in the rim. WOW. You're amazed, and so are the other people standing there. What happened? You had enough eccentric strength to overcome the forces, absorb and stabilize them, then make them work for you.

Now we have come to the part of "how can we train to achieve a greater eccentric strength". The answer, for all this "scientific approach" is as simple as it gets: altitude drops. You see, there are other exercises in the form of depth jumps, that are said to be better than altitude drops. This is not the case. When we talk "eccentric training", we talk "altitude drops". One-legged altitude drops are the best, because instead of increasing height, you increase the difficulty for that leg's muscles. When we train with depth jumps however, you can't use such a high "altitude", because you will not be able to "couple". Coupling means switching from eccentric to concentric. When doing altitude drops, you only train for eccentric contraction and absorbtion phase. The concentric force will come naturally, whitout really training especially for it. This type of training is called "super-maximal eccentric load". When training in this manner, it's also important to bend as little as possible. This will improve the absorbtion.

[Raptor]

Article 9 - The calves and the role they play in jumping

We all hear or see everywhere people talking about "how high does that guy jump and how big and nice shaped his calves are". "He jumps soooooooo high... but just look at his calves" you hear everywhere now and then. People don't really get into this, and think that if you have great calves, you automatically jump high. Well this isn't really the case in here.

Guys are always fascinated by the so called "mirror muscles". These are the muscles that they can see (i.e. calves, quads, biceps (if we give an upper-body example)). What many can't see, and therefore train, instead, are the most important muscles in the names of hamstrings and glutes.

So why is this happening? And why the calves get so much importance, and other real important muscles don't? The answer is definately the lack of knowledge. Now don't get me wrong, the calves contribute in a tremendous way in jumping, but only if certain conditions are met.

Ok, ok, but what are those conditions and how is that people with strong calves usually jump very high? I said usually, because bulky calves will act as ankle weights in certain scenarios.

If we approach the calves in a anathomic manner, then they act as ankle extensors, and of course the tibialis anterior as ankle flexors. There are alot of muscles in the calf complex, in the names of gastrocnemius (or calves as po****rly known), soleus, and others like flexor hallucis longus or flexor digitorum longus.

If we take it athletically-like, they act as shock absorbers and stabilizers. When you "plant" your leg(s) to jump, they aborb the shock, stabilize the forces, inmagazinate elastic energy (in the best case) and then THEY MAKE THE TRANSITION OF POWER FROM THE HAMSTRINGS AND GLUTES TO THE TOES TO THE GROUND. This is the main role. So you need to have great calves if you have great hamstrings and glutes. If you don't have the calves strong enough for the power the hamstrings and glutes are providing, then you tend not to have the best transition and shock absorbind capacity, therefore you can't really take advantage of the "jumping muscles" (that is - the posterior chain).

If you however have strong calves and lack at the posterior chain, then your calves are mostly useless, but since you have them strong, you have great potential in building up a great vertical, by training the posterior chain. The ideea is that it's harder to train the calves than the posterior chain. This is really the problem over here: if you have strong calves genetically, then you can train and will see better results with posterior chain training. If you lack at the calves point, then you have less potential, that is unless you get them stronger.

You might have seen people with big calves that jump very high, but you haven't seen their hamstrings or glutes (unless your gay or part of his team... looking over when he's showering... but that is another story). Ok back to this, it's very clear that there is a difference between strong and nice shaped calves and bulky-like calves.

You want the best reactive calves possible, strong and "bouncy".

I won't come into how to train the muscles, maybe in another article, but what is very clear is that calves made on the playing field (or basketball court) are alot more functional than body-building, calf-raises made calves. The forces are so high when you land from a jump when playing, that they can't (or are very hard to) be simulated in a weight room.

[Raptor]

Article 10 - Collapse points in jumping

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? Could be so many things, as you already learned if you read all my other articles. 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 "*" 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 tehnique. Then you jump...

Now let's get on with everything happened over that jumping movements.

That * amount of speed is very important. As I have already write an article called "Eccentric Strength", it's the most important thing in jumping.

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

4) Coming up slow and jumping low would mean you have both bad tehnique 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.

You plant... this is simple : off one or two legs. Next is the bend-down phase, depends on either you jump off one leg (less bending) or two legs (more bending down).

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 the power in (move trough the absorbtion and stabilisation phase) then it means you are lacking posterior chain power, and you need to train more on it to improve your jump optimally.

Now, get me those 35... oh... you jumped 35 inches? ;)

[Raptor]

Article 11 : Hangtime

I know, many people tried to explain things about hangtime... what is it, how some people do have it and others don't, how can you get some hangtime and stuff like this.

While there isn't really a scientific explanation for how can more hangtime being achieved without, of course, jumping higher, I pretty much have my own ideea about this.

In my view, there are three main things affecting hangtime:

1) Ballance - The more ballanced you are, the better your hangtime will be.

2) Correct muscle activation patterns : There is a chain reaction of how your muscles work when jumping : some contract, others relax, then the reverse. You can have some weak points meaning that at a certain time, one muscle's movement contradict with the another muscle movement and stops your upward movement.

3) The most important thing, if you can talk about a "most important thing" in hangtime, is HOW EFFICIENT YOU USE YOUR HAMSTRINGS!

You know, people with great hangtime like MJ, Vince, Josh Smith use the hamstrings when they jump extremely well. Ok ok, but how do I know that?

Well, we all know (or should) that the hamstrings play the following roles: knee flexion and hip extension. The hip extensors are the most important jumping muscles in our bodies. Therefore, they are the jumping "protagonist" muscles (performing the main role).

The antagonists are, as you guessed, the quads and the abs. So, the quads provide knee extension (opposite to the hamstrings) and hip flexion (opposite to what the hamstrings do). The abs do the hip flexion and also work as stabilisers.

Ok, now that we know all this, let me quote www.exrx.net :

"The biarticulate hamstring muscles [1, 3, 4 ] enter passive insufficiency through the completion of knee extension when the hips are more flexed or through the completion of hip flexion when the knees are more extended. The biarticulate hamstring muscles [1, 3, 4 ] enter active insufficiency through the completion of knee flexion when the hips are more extended (short head of biceps femoris [2 ] becomes more active) or through the completion of hip extension when the knees are more flexed (gluteus maximus becomes more active)."

So what's up with this?

Well, the first part talking about passive insufficiency doesn't really enters our attention. It just says that when the knees are extended and the hips are flexed, the hamstring begin to stretch. It's pretty much what we already know.

Now, the important part of that sentence is the other one: active insufficiency: when the knees are flexed and the hips are extended, the hamstrings DON'T PROVIDE THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF POWER WE ARE LOOKING INTO.

Quote: "The inability for a biarticulate muscle to exert enough tension to shorten sufficiently to complete full range of motion in both joints simultaneously" - Active Insufficiency.

This is why bending at the knee when jumping is wrong. When the knee is bent, the hip extension power of the hamstrings isn't provided the way it should be, because hip extension in the same time with knee bending IS A CONTRADICTION.

Notice when you do STRAIGHT LEGS DEADLIFTS for the hamstrings that you don't bend at the knee, only extend at the hips, and when doing LEG CURLS also for the hamstrings, you flex the knees but you keep your hips extended.

Next, when the knees are bent and the hips are extended, you active more glute power rather than hamstring power.

Here is the exrx.net illustration of the first and second situation:

http://www.exrx.net/Images/HamstringInsufficiency.gif

So, I guess you saw how great hangtime players pull their heels up to their butt more or less (flex their knees at the highest point of the jump).

That is exactly what the jumping pattern should be: first jump with legs straight, bending at the hips while keeping the knees straight, then flexing the knees and providing additional hip extension power with the glutes.

Sure, now it's kinda hard to train this, I mean it's about the jumping tehnique, and all these movements are to be performed smoothly and quickly, otherwise it's no good.

Just tried to explain what is this all about... if you have this type of tehnique when jumping then you're on the move of getting very good hangtime. If you do have this and don't have good hangtime, then you need to train for more power at the hip extensors.