Another Day 6 rolls around, concluding another great week of training with plyometrics! This week was a little different from the last, and a little less disappointing. If you remember, last week I did not see an increase in my vertical, and I was not even close to dunking. I do the first two days of working out in my basement, and then on Sunday's I go to a place called NexGen, which is where I do my testing. After my visit this Sunday at NexGen, I found that I gained an half of an inch on my vertical. Now I know that I said that I wanted to gain an inch a week, but after not seeing an increase last week, anything is good enough for me. It makes me wonder if I had set my goals a little too high for someone partaking in beginner exercises.
Speaking of beginner exercises, after the disappointment last week, I decided to change up the training a little bit. Last week, my program was eight exercise where I had to do three sets of 12 reps. Seeing that I didn't have an increase, I altered the sets and reps to 4 sets of 15 reps. Now that I am two weeks into the program, it's time to start ramping up the intensity. With only four weeks left, and a half an inch increase in my vertical, it's time to get serious if I want to be dunking consistently by the end of the timeline. Here are a few of the workouts that I am doing...
The first one is the squat jumps. This exercise targets explosiveness from a position of rest. When in a basketball game, you could either be jumping up for an offensive rebound, or you could be leaping through the air to steal a floating pass.
This exercise here is called the power skips. Power skips are an exercise that targets the calves, quadriceps, and it helps strengthen your ankles. This exercise is applicable to my basketball journey because its the same action as a one footed jumps. In addition to the dunking aspect, it also goes through the same motions as trying to block a shot on defense. Like I'm sure I've said before, defense is the nucleus of my game, and making it stronger will only increase my chances at playing on the varsity team next year.
This last exercise is the squat jumps. This exercise targets explosiveness from a position of rest, just as the squat jumps do. The squat jumps and box jumps are nearly identical, however this one focuses on the quick transfer of energy from the starting point to the explosion upwards, or in scientific terms, you want to shorten the time it takes to get from the eccentric stage to the concentric stage. This idea is important when it comes to dunking, because when you plant your foot before the jumping action, like seen below, you will lose more kinetic energy the longer it takes to get up off of the plant.
(Zach LaVine foot is planted below)
After Week 3 was all said and done, I was very satisfied with progress. Although I am very behind schedule in the increase of my vertical jump, I still found a way to break even and increase it by half of an inch, which is a lot considering I'm walking myself through a beginner's workout. However, next week I plan to increase my workout regime from 4 sets by 15 reps, to 4 sets by 20 reps. As I continue to do the exercises, I feel that they are getting easier and easier. I hardly am working up a sweat! Desperate times call for desperate measure, and I think with a couple of weeks left that I really need to crank up the intensity. As for the dunking aspect of my training, all this week I will be trying to dunk off of one foot and "throw it down". I am feeling confident that either this week or the next will finally be the week where I break through, and start to feel a little more like Zach LaVine or Michael Jordan. I will be in touch with my blog sometime in the middle of the week with a side by side comparison of when I tried dunking last week to when I try dunking this week. I'm totally confident that there will be an astounding difference between the two, and that sooner or later my training will finally start to pay dividends. Thanks for reading, and for your viewing pleasure, here are the top ten dunks of last week!
Alex, I think it's really cool that you're showing how you train. A suggestion I would make is that you explain how each exercise improves your jumping ability. I also think it would be cool to see you do these exercises again later on in your project, but with more reps or maybe a higher chair that you could jump onto. It would be cool to see that side by side with these videos to see how much the training has improved your jumping ability. Still can't wait to see you dunking!
ReplyDelete