White Man CAN Jump!?

I hope through my rigorous training that I made Woody Harrelson proud! For my learning project, I researched how to increase my vertical jump. My goal was to increase my vertical roughly 10% within the 6 weeks I gave myself to do so and while I did hit that mark, I also decreased those gains due to external factors. What I learnt through the process though was valuable! I can reuse the same program when I have more ability to dedicate myself to it with the hopes of seeing similar results! So how did I learn to increase my vertical jump? Well…

Below is the training program I followed. This program was made through extensive research on what exercises are beneficial for increasing leg strength and explosiveness (mainly used the Cal Dietz triphasic training model) as well as having my good friend Deiondre (a trainer at the Nest) help bring the program together.

Some things need to be considered though for how I chose this program. The program was the skeleton for my learning and the weekly posts were me diving into different aspects of the training to see if what we made worked or not. The other factor was myself. I work a full-time outdoor labour job with two part-time jobs at Balgonie Elementary and the Regina Climbing Centre AND I had two online classes this semester. Needless to say, mentally and physically, I would be exhausted and burnout was inevitable. Did I mention the two Volleyball games a week? So with all these factors in mind, the program was made to not completely exhaust me with too much volume or sessions, and it also included sport-specific injury prevention methods.

 

Here is what I focussed on/learnt each week.

Week 1: 

• How to create a program that fits my needs (as previously discussed)
• How to test my vertical, both running and standing (Hint: We fix it later on!)
• Looking Back: The workouts were exhausting and fitting time in for a near 3 hour workout AND having the energy for it was quite difficult. As the weeks went on I unfortunately excluded some exercises or dropped the amount of sets done to make sure the workout was still good-quality and not completely fatiguing me.

Week 2:

• Which kind of training is best; strength, plyometric, power, etc., and I found that they all have importance.
  • Strength is for laying the foundation. A bigger muscle provides a stronger source for the muscles to do their job. In an analogy, a bigger shovel can shovel more dirt right? So bigger muscles make you jump higher?! Kind of…
  • Plyometrics for the jumping/movement patterns and explosiveness. Practice makes progress and the same applies to jumping. The more we learn a specific movement pattern, the better and more efficient we get at it! Plyometrics are also fantastic for training your nervous system to better handle the new stimuli you are throwing at it. In other words, your nervous system gets better at telling your muscles what to do and how to handle stress.
  • Power for explosiveness but trained differently than plyometrics. For example, as a 130lb individual… jumping with 65lb dumbbells in each hand repetitively would absolutely destroy my knees with the added force of gravity. BUT, doing a snatch of ALSO 130lbs (where you explode a barbell upwards mainly using your legs, photo below), the weight becomes more manageable but you are kind of replicating similar forces as used in jumping.
  • Finally, we have isometrics. These are mainly to build up tendon stiffness and capacity so we don’t get Jumper’s knee (I have had jumper’s knee before, do not recommend).

Week 3:

• Injury prevention can help ensure that our added workout load does not injure ourselves. Muscles grow at a much faster rate than tendons do, and tendons usually need different kinds of stimuli to grow compared to muscles.
• The Spanish Squat and Leg Extension Isometrics are two of the best ways to prevent jumper’s knee (personal testimony and researched).

Week 4:

• Single leg movements are WAY more effective in terms of  receiving “gains” than their double legged counterpart. This really surprised me and in retrospect, should have been a concept I researched earlier.
• Looking Back: I can say for certain that my left leg is stronger and more coordinated than my right. When looking more into my movement patterns however, I noticed that my approach jump is reversed from the “normal population”. My penultimate step is with my left instead of the usual right which would make sense as to why my left leg is so much stronger and well coordinated. The penultimate step is the step in which you plant down a strong foundation for your other leg to swing in and complete the footwork for the jump. Long story short, because of my jumping technique: my left leg is stronger. This would also make sense looking back to my TaeKwon-Do days where any right leg jumping kick was easier than the left. The difference is due to my left leg being the sole leg in propelling myself upwards/forwards…meaning it NEEDS to be stronger/more coordinated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 5: 

• Resting or using active recovery is a great way to make sure you don’t “waste your gains”. It still keeps you active but not enough to unnecessarily fatigue the muscle.
• Looking Back: Maybe I got a little too lenient with recovery due to a back injury and allergies surround the season. No workouts were done during week 5/6 and I took it upon myself to consider this time the “bulking time”. This is when I gained roughly 5lbs (on purpose) in order to meet other fitness goals. The weight gain combined with the lack of training meant that even if I’m equally as powerful as before, I will not be able to jump as high as before.

Week 6:

• All about science baby!! Also all about false advertising. While the placebo effect is absolutely a thing, it shouldn’t enable your desire to spend a butt-laod of money on sport-specific shoes or insoles that promise to make you “jump higher”. I learnt how advertising can be dangerously misleading and you should study their findings before falling for their trap.
• With a slightly deflated ego, I turned to science to back up the fact that my vertical almost returned back to week 0 numbers. As previously mentioned, the weight gain worked against me. It now costed my muscles more energy to jump and my muscles lacked the strength training to keep up with the higher energy demand. Long story short, heavier body without training = lower jump. It’s simple physics!

In conclusion, my dream of jumping higher to make up for my lack of height was both challenging and enlightening. Certain obstacles were inevitable though like time constraints and mental/physical fatigue from various life demands. Throughout the six weeks, I learnt new information and new tactics to make a better program for the future! To the skies my friends.