vertical and basketball, the quickest way

[paolo12345678910]

Hello every1 I'm convinced I'll be able to dunk by august but I just need to know some things. K I've been waiting to dunk for a while and now I have alotta time to train. I know airalert 3 is the best but how long does it take to get the 8-12 inches? im thinking 8 weeks I forgot how long the program is. Another thing is I'll be losing alot of running time because I run5k a day 5 days a a week, so when you rest inbetween is running for 30 minutes every 5 days the same as running as 50 minutes for 3 days a week?

Anyways ONE more question JUMP SOLES http://www.jumpusa.com/p89.htm, I read in some forums they work but 2-3 inches in 8 weeks, if you use them with the air alert 3, will you get even better results? People say it at least works your toes so you become more balanced and quicker, but I'm going back to skool this september and Im gonna dominate the court!!! Oh ya, I'm only 5 10, 6,1 with my "special" shoes on hehe and with a 7, 7 reach, I don't care about dunking that much but I"ll have a perfect and unreachable fade/jumpshot if I get my vertical up. I'm already a MAD dribbler since I grew up in streetball, (all handles no shots,no vertical ,no speed)

[BeefKakBuk]

All of those "fancy" plyometric vertical leap programs get a lot of undue hype. There are very few athletes who will see optimal gains in vertical leap by jumping onto one of these programs. Take for example one of thos infomircial testimonies where someone lost 30lbs in 5 weeks doing the ab crunch. They probably did do the ab crunch, but also they started out fat and out of shape, and they also ran, started eating right, and started exercising. Wow, must have been the ab crunch.

I think a lot of they hype comes from people not wanting to admit that the programs did not work as well for them as it did for others. Usually people under test their vertical before the program, conciously or sub conciously, then exaderate an inch or 2 afterward. That in itself can give you 4 or 5 inches in 15 weeks.

My claim is that AA3 is not optimal for most athletes. Most will see gains from it though. Plyometric programs are great for developing the stretch-shortening cycle. Stretch-shortening the key to jumping, right? Wrong. Plyometric capibilities are not the limiting factor in most athletes' jumping ability. The limiting factor for most athletes is limit strength. Calf raises and regular squats aren't enough. Most athletes have very undertrained hip extensors(the posterior chain I am always talking about). Look in a typical gym and you will rarely see anyone doing a gluth-ham raise, pullthrough, good morning, deadlift, reverse hyper. Now go to a good strength and conditioning facility(perhaps a Div.1 college football gym) thoses exercises are used more than any other. There is a huge rift between what personal trainers and gym buffs do versus what strength coaches and premere athletes do.

The next piece of the pie is power. Strength-speed is normaly more lacking than speed, so I am not talking plyometrics here. Olympic lifts, or the variations if you don't have the time or resources to learn them properly, are going to be the staple for developing power. Olympic lifters are the most powerful athletes you will find anywhere. You should definately incorporate at least power cleans and pulls into your routine. Loaded jump squats are also great power developers. Another often over looked exercise is box squats. Where you load the weight on your sholders and sit back on a box 8-12 inches. Unload your legs by raisige your feet just off the ground, then explode up as quickly as possible. Use about 50-65% of your max squat, and come up with proper form. Don't lean forward, and be sure to push your heels throught the ground.

Plyometrics can also be very helpful, if trained properly and with the right volume. If you play a lot, most of your plyometric volume may already be being "used up." When doing box jumps or depth jumps, don't use a box too high. To determine the height to use first box jump off of a 12 inch box and mark your jump height. Raise the box by 4 inches and test again. If that jump is as high or higher, raise another 4 inches. Basically you want the highest box where you can still jump at least as high as you can from a shorter box. If you ar jumping off of a box that is too high you will be detraining the plyometric effect.

I just typed a lot of crap but let me try to recap.
>Train Max Strength, it is usually the limiter(Clean:squat ratio will be a good indicator).
>Train your posterior chain as much as your quads(Good hip snap is very crucial).
>Flexibility is more important than most people realize(quad and hamstring, but also hip and ankle).
>Olympic lifters are the most powerful athletes, train like them(Plus there is no lift more fun than a snatch).
>Box squats will improve explosiveness and stimulate your hamstrings.
>Plyometrics are often over done.

In my opinion AA3 has too much volume. They actually claim that you will be overtraining yourself in the middle of the program. So it definatly doesn't leave any room for Strength training, and not much for a lot of playing. You will probably see gains form AA3, but almost every athlete out there would benifit more from prioritizing Strength, then power, then the stretch-shortening cycle.

I think most of the benift of jumpsoles is doing the exercises. There are some real benifits in the jumpsoles, but none that you can't live without or train another way.

What do you precieve as your biggest weaknesses when it comes to jumping? I would like you to do a test for me. Go out to a hoop or somewhere that you can test your vertical. From a standing position, jump up and reach as high as you can(you can use chalk to mark the height of your reach). Now do it again, but this time as you squat down, hold the lowest position for 2 seconds, then explode up from the squat. Measure the distance between the 2 marks. Do each one a few times to make sure you get the max for each type of jump.

[paolo12345678910]

wow, thanks alot I'll try to jump when its morning since its 11pm right now and swarming with mosquitos. I think I was a pretty ok jumper before maybe just 6-8 inches from the rim with a running start. I remember a while back ago some pretty short people could dunk around my height, what do they do?

[BeefKakBuk]

Well only they know the answer to that, but I would guess that they had perfect jumping form, were very flexible, had wicked powerful hip extension, and could probably squat twice their body weight(if they didn't weight train, they probably could squat that much with a few weeks of pratice). Also they probably had very little body fat, strapping 30lbs of fat to your belly really decreases your vertical. I bet those same guys were also very fast, right? Sprint training also has a very strong cooreolation to jumping. Some people get an enormous amount of development without weight training, but I would not plan on that suddlenly working if it hasen't already.

[ryan01]

im 5/10 and a few years ago, i did some polymetric training.. whoa it helped a lot, i already had a good jump, but it gave me a great jump. only downside is i did a program called air alert 2, and it was extremely hard as the weeks went on and i never finished it. but it works

few weeks ago, i could barely touch rim.. ive had numerous ankle injuries, two serious the past 2 years, so i havent played as much and lost my jump. so i did this weightless program.. its really easy (well compared to polymetric training) and it works, after the 4th week u should see results

do these 5days a week, then rest 2 days and go on next week

Weightless Bench Squats - 3 sets of 25, 10 more reps each week (except on week 11 you will do 4 sets of 60 and on week 12 you will do 4 sets of 70)
Lunges - 3 sets of 25, 10 more reps each week (except on week 11 you will do 4 sets of 60 and on week 12 you will do 4 sets of 70)
Calf Raises - 3 sets of 25, 10 more reps each week (except on week 11 you will do 4 sets of 60 and on week 12 you will do 4 sets of 70)
Tippy toe Calf Jumps - 125 reps, 100 more each (except on last week when you will do 1000).

ON THE 5TH, 10TH, AND 13TH WEEK OF THE PROGRAM NO EXCERSISES WILL BE DONE EXCEPT FOR BASKETBALL BALANCING (5th week - 6 minutes, 10th - 10 minutes and 13 - lowered goal dunking and stretching before going to bed)


after the 12th week, ur done.