I hate to say it folks…my old friend injury has come back to haunt me. While battling machinery at work that was roughly twice my weight, my back lost the battle. This week I was able to partake in a 3 hour Volleyball practice in which my movements were slower and certain jumping/swinging motions were painful, but this was only possible on a good amount of Ibuprofen. This had me wondering… with forcing myself to take time off the gym, what am I to research? That is when I looked at these beautiful specimens I bought in Calgary and thought… do sport specific shoes/insoles actually make a difference in jump height? On the left is a pair of Mizuno Wave Momentum 2‘s I found on sale and on the right is the comparison between my old runners and the new shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

While testing my vertical between both shoes, I did notice that the volleyball shoes gave me about a half inch increase across the board. BUT I tested my reach height and in the volleyball shoes I did reach about a quarter inch higher ie: I was taller. I believe the reason why I did better in the running vertical is because the volleyball shoes offer a lot more “bite” and traction while making sharp and quick movements so I was less likely to slip and mess up my jump. Could this all have been placebo though? It absolutely could have been. I will say though that IN game with the new shoes? Performance is much cleaner since I am not slipping everywhere I go and rolling my ankle frequently…yikes.

But what does the research say? Truthfully, its hard to tell. Asics, a popular sport shoe brand, says that their volleyball shoes are lightweight so they “help you jump higher and further” yet I found no hardcore research to back it up. A blog by Volleyball Town also confirms that volleyball shoes are lighter in hopes that the athletes who wear them can jump higher. But are volleyball shoes actually lighter? What I found was a big fat no. I compared all the shoes I own (for reference) and this is what I found. From lightest to heaviest was my runners, hiking shoes, volleyball shoes, then my outdoor work shoes.

What I found was that the Mizuno’s were actually 35% heavier than the run of the mill runners I have! So obviously this “lighter shoes make you jump higher” is false in my case since these shoes actually add about a half pound extra to my weight while jumping.

This difference in weight is pretty negligible. It makes total sense that if you are lighter, you could in theory jump higher. For example

Person A: 150lb person who can exert 200lbs of force.

Person B: 150lb person who can exert 150lb of force.

This would mean person A could jump higher since they can exert more force according to their bodyweight.

Why are we talking about weight and force and all that scientific mumbo jumbo that hurts our heads? Well, because we are learning ways in which different factors alter your vertical jump opposed to just training. I also need a reason to justify why my vertical on a Sunday morning testing session has decreased after two weeks of no training. Science is here to save me.

USA Basketball puts the science behind a vertical jump in the simplest way. Vertical Jump is dependent on many factors but one big factor is “Power”, and Power = Force x Velocity. Without going too deep into the science of it, the more force I can output while jumping, the higher the jump. Since calculating force includes calculating my weight, and my weight has changed throughout training, lets see how much it has impacted my results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comparing two calculators: Calculator Academy and The Hoops Geek, I found the answer I was looking for. As I gained 3kg throughout the last few weeks (including the shoes), I need to exert roughly 5% more force in order to jump at the same height as before. 5% does not seem like much but if we take say, a 30 inch vertical and subtract 5% from it, it becomes a 28.5inch vertical which is a substantial difference.

THE BIG QUESTION 

Did we get stronger? Using our test results and these calculators, lets see…

Week 1: Standing Vertical: 24inches. Weight: 131lbs. Force outputted: 356N

Week 4: Standing Vertical: 26.5inches. Weight: 134lbs. Force outputted: 402N

Week 6: Standing Vertical: 24.5inches. Weight: 137lbs. Force outputted: 387N

With 2 weeks of no training and a 3lb increase in weight, our force production went down. BUT, since the start, it has gone up! So although we took a bit of a dive, we have still improved. So in theory, and the theory is backed up by The Hoops Geek, if I went back down to 131lbs and was able to exert the same amount of force I could at week 4 (402N)…in theory my standing vertical would be barely over 27 inches! Science is pretty cool.