I'm 5'11", could dunk in the past. It requires about 38" vert for me to dunk, and I'm @ around 33" w/o working on it. So here's the plan:

a. stop being a lazy ass about it, start doing light plyo, skipping, etc
b. start doing sprints and heavy lifting in spring
c. suck it up without relapsing after getting back to 35"+
d. dunk by end of summer 2010. was dunking miniball last summer w/o weights, no excuses for pussyfooting this

Plyo starts Saturday, gives enough rest after game Thurs night

EDIT: piss, meant to post this in fitness.
EDIT: thank the lawd to whoever moved this.

This post has been edited by RewtheBrave on Tue - Jan 19 2010 - 13:41:52

unless i turn into spud webb ill never dunk the ball

gl

i thought the same thing about myself when i was 17-18. my friend was 6'0", had been dunking since we were 12. finally he decided to give me some tips and i was dunking within a month. not sure where those tips were 5 years earlier ofc. however i wasn't good at dunking until i was about 22-23. not easy at 5'11", but i want to get back to it before i'm too old to get it done.

if you're 5'9" or taller dunking is probably possible with correct, hard training. it depends on your body's fast-twitch recruitment as well. w/o training i can usually touch the rim, but then again i play basketball and i've been working out again on & off for months.

6'nothing here... used to be able to dunk
my coach made me strap these damn things for conditioning - i thought my calves were going to explode
paid off though

i have short arms

my total reach (embodied) is about 7'4 or 7'5 which mean i need 32 inches to touch the rim. that's higher than most guys in the NBA jump. reach is useful, but fast-twich muscle fibre recruitment is king.



yeah jumpsoles are pretty good. i used some kind of "strength" shoe i borrowed from my bud who dunked at age 12. and it worked back in the day even though when i was that young i was 5'6 all i could do was touch the rim. will likely invest in a pair b/c it definitely helped out last time. good call, would save me some of the weight-lifting and dreaded sprints.

yea, you got me beat on that reach

if only i had a huge penis to make up for the trouble of being short

paint it black

I used to be able to grab the rim when I was 22-23. I'm only 5'7".

that's a decent vert ofc
starting workouts again tonight. had a sore back all week then basketball last night.

updating:

a. stop being a lazy ass about it, start doing light plyo, skipping, etc CHECK
b. start doing sprints and heavy lifting in spring CHECK
c. suck it up without relapsing after getting back to 35"+ CAN'T TELL YET
d. dunk by end of summer 2010. was dunking miniball last summer w/o weights, no excuses for pussyfooting this CAN'T TELL YET

^^ basketball season ended on thursday. we started off 6-0 then went down to 3-3 in the 2nd half of the season and we didn't make the playoffs b/c only the last 6 games count in the standings for the playoff race. that's shyte and the commissioner only added that this year after his team failed in the 1st half of the season.

so with the season over, it's time to get srs.

FML, my leg workout yesterday is being felt today: did some weight-lifting (mostly leg press supersets with 400 lbs because the machine ran out of weight..so i turned it into a power movement of 10-12 reps per set), running (kept under a minute pace for 3 x 400, then dropped on 4th lap to cool down)and box (depth) jumps. will add jump squats (with weights) etc next time, the workout was too easy but i was pressed for time and some hot bisches took all the leg machines.

leg machines are pretty lol, the leg press pic i posted in my topic only goes to 505, i know this because thats what i did for like 40 reps to try and get tired

yeah i hate leg machines and even the leg presses that go to 1200 pounds at the gyms i've been to still feel like maybe 500 pounds of raw weight. there's a manual press that's pretty sweet at the gym but the fekking bar is too short so you can't get over like 600 pounds on it. i'd rather get into squats but i was doing a plyo workout and some fast running on the same day so i didn't want to mess up my legs too much (mostly the explosive stuff is what got me sore anyway). i'll probably start off with sets of something like 300-325 LBS for reps on squats when i get back into them since i'm already pretty strong but i'll need to ease back into it before going for heavier loads into the 400s (which would be epically stupid to try before making sure the mid-300s still feel okay). so maybe i should shoot to start at 275-300 again even if it's a steep cut back from a few yrs ago, since it's not a few years ago nao.

at some point i'd like to do jump squats with relatively heavy weight, but i don't think i've ever gotten off the ground comfortably with over a 180 pound load (including the bar), even when i was going hard at it for rugby. it feels really really iffy to go heavy with those so i'd probably start the jump squats with 35s or 45s (1 per side) and play it from there.

this is why i need to slow into things; otherwise i end up going too heavy too fast because i love lifting heavy weights.

btw started bench pressing again doing sets of 180 LBS, moved up to 200 LBS @ free weight bench @ home in same starter workout. it felt pretty good so i'll start with 200 or 210 next time and chop at them from there because going up to 225 will take at least a few weeks if not a month+.

good news is i feel relatively strong for starting out again. i was expecting less tbh.

also pisssss i forgot to order some of these but i guess it can wait a few weeks until i'm shopping online for something and it clicks that i need to get a pair of these.

If you dont mind whats your weight at? at any rate 225 is vn, i hit that benching for 5x prior to injuring leg and then switching to dumbells temporarily and felt cool...2 plates is nice

192 LBS is my weight, and the last fitness test i did had me sitting at 13% body fat.
in highschool i did some natural bodybuilding, and my weight never got over 196 pounds when i was getting down below 5% body fat.
in university i played varsity rugby at 185 LBS, and i stayed around/under 10% body fat.
later in university i went down to 170 LBS for basketball, and i stayed under 10% body fat, usually 5-10%.

i tend to carry lean muscle mass without much fat but if i "let myself go", i can go up to about 15 body fat, which is still pretty low; i don't have any trouble gaining or dropping weight but i really slow down at about 165 LBS on the low end and at 195 LBs on the high end. to get to 200 LBS i'd have to work really hard even if i was using carbs to fatten up.

at 175 LBS i used 260 LBS for sets of 15 reps at 260 LBS in highschool, which was more n1 than i'm doing now (although i'm just starting out again, nn for me to cry at all). to get back to that form i'll need to do a lot of work. if i try to stay at 185-190 LBS it will be less work on the weights to get to that strength point but it will be more work in terms of diet since i'd like to drop about 4-5% body fat to help out my vertical leap (it actually has an effect for some reason, at least for me). i hope to actually drop some weight to get down to 175-180 LBS and try to get up to doing reps at 275 ish LBS by the end of summer. that's a LOT of work and as soon as i lose weight i have to work harder to bring up my strength (or so i tend to find). that's a very ambitious summer goal but it's within range and i work like a dog when i want something.

a tl;dr version of this post would discuss my goals for leg stuff since tbh i care a lot more about the posterior chain than i care about mah man boobs. i also need to be careful with leg traning to keep my fast-twitch ratio high, because too much plain strength stuff will slow down my vert goals. this won't be an issue with squats but i'll need to avoid the leg machines once i get back on board strength-wise.

basketball and possibly plyos OR weights ton8

will be doing core stuff ton8

did some moar, should've added details here but either way looks like about +2 to vert so far (inches). aiming for +6 to +8+ so this should be an adventure.

been doing abs lately, did chest/tris last n8 as well. did some jumping the other day, just throwing down heavy dunks on an 8'8" rim. oddly enough my sister-in-law (15 yrs old) was able to dunk a mini-game at that height, which is REALLY impressive for a female. i've started to get the body fat % down again, but the journey has just started. tomorrow i'll play some basketball but i may shoot around a bit tonight. i'll either do plyos or legs or both tomorrow, but i won't get legs done unless there's nobody playing rec ball at the gym tomorrow.

rew you broke out of your shell

wait, how so?

btw i've been doing a lot of vert work (nothing too srs yet) but i havent been updated because it's the same basic crap every time. i won't add serious inches until later but i'm probably still +2-3 inches right now from where i started. i may get greedy and aim to add a foot+ just because i'm responding to training better than i'd expected. i made big gains when i was younger but wasn't sure it could happen again.

still doing the basic stuff
moving into weights soon

highlight: did a round the back lebron type dunk at 9'6", was n1

I wish I could dunk, but im white

iso vid when you get into am dunk contest

lol ikno right?
I'm 6'3'' with fuckin monkey arms and I still can't dunk, I'm getting better tho, I can touch the rim but it takes all my effort.

i won't be doing anything amazing for a while.

so today i did some leg stuff:

squats 300 lbs x 8 reps x 3 sets, haven't done squats for a while so i wanted to go light (for me)
leg press 400 x 12 x 3 sets low rest, about 20 seconds btwn sets at most (again light, but i used a univeral press and that's all the weight they had on it)
plyo's. 20 x 24 inch double box jumps -- this is just where i have a platform and then a platform above it (like stairs, sort of) and so i jump 2 feet onto the first box and then immediately jump onto the box on the box, which gets me the "double". so 40 total jumps.

did some arm stuff. tricep rope pull-downs, bicep preacher curls using 35 on each side, 21s using 55 lbs

that was about it. i was going to keep going on legs but i'll be playing basketball tomorrow so i didn't want to tighten up after not doing legs w/ weights for a while. the workout felt light, which is what i was hoping for considering i haven't been lifting. i've been playing a lot of basketball and doing some plyo's lately. the good news is that i didn't feel like i had to struggle, which was my biggest worry since i had numbers in mind before i lifted the weights and i got what i wanted done. was gonna try 250 on the squats to start but i told myself 250 would dishonor all the work i did in high school like 7u49275975937593579 years ago.

at 6'3" if u train yourself a little more you'll get there. the rim is basically 6 inches from dunking. the ball is like 13" in circumference, but you have to consider that you only need to get a portion of the ball to meet the rim to shove it down. there are some tricks to get to a point where u can dunk.

power comes from a mix of strength and speed, so if you worked on both you'd get a synergistic response.

train the "p chain". nothing else matters. p chain = abs, lower back, ass, hamstrings, calves. sure quads help but they aren't the stuff of good jumpers.

penultimate step. develop one, check it out on some track n field site. it will help you produce momentum IF you're a one foot jumper.

plyo's if u can squat 1.5x your body weight. sprints. these things help you recruit more fast twitch fibres and they also build muscle in a usefully dynamic way.

squats, deadlifts, hamstring curls, ab stuff, thigh extensions, skipping.

that's a basic recipe for success, but you will want to really look at plyo's only once you're strong, and after that you can find a lot of useful stuff. another thing is that dunkers usually have less than 10% body fat, so slimming down (while hard to do) is a big step. so cardio training becomes interesting, too.

did not know all of that went into just dunking a bball...

I have been able to dunk a ball since I was 15 by doing nothing more than just playing ball, can even do it today being a lazy slob @ 6'2 210lbs

5'11" and 6'2" are pretty different.

most people at 5'11" can't dunk, most people at 6'3" can dunk (if they're athletic), and at 6'2" it's > 50%. this has more to do with reach than height, ofc.

at my reach i need about 32-33" to touch the rim, and 38" to dunk. so just to hit the rim i need about 5" more on my vert than the average NBA player. dunking takes more. i'm pretty athletic but to dunk it takes some work.

so if u play ball often at 6'2" you should be able to dunk, but not so at 5'11" (at least not without other training). at about 5'8" and less height, the possibility of EVER dunking becomes an issue. most guys under 5'9" can't and won't dunk even if they're athletic (like 90%+). so it's not hard to dunk, or it is, but it depends a lot on reach, which generally goes along with height.

oh i lied (tried today just to see)

cannot dunk as fluidly as i used to, now i just look like a white guy barely getting the ball in. fuck

takes a little practice etc but if you`re pooping it in you`re not far away.
i had a TERRIBLE vert day today for some reason. i was missing a lot when i set my rim to 9`. normally i can do lebron stuff at 9` but i`ve been jumping and playing too much lately. my legs needs a couple of rest days. maybe after tomorrow, i want to play for a few hours

but i felt peg-legged today, very much unlike a few days ago.

played some ball since last entry, ofc

did some insane sprinting and work on a hill near my house yesterday, as well as carrying wood all freaking day (4 hours of it).

will play basketball this afternoon. maybe some kind of workout later.

played basketball all week
did some abs stuff
need to do more with sprints, weights and plyos

tried dunking by bringing ball around the back and got the rim but failed. feeling ok since most guys in the nba can't do it, either.

also have been relentlessly practicing dunking on a 9'1" rim any time i go outside.

had a couple of light shooting days

had to do something for work, had to get first aid upd8d, etc

need to stop making excuses and get in the gym

the excuses rew: stop making them

worked on the jumpshot and also shot free throws
played 1-on-1 forever

feeling good but tired

make it click already, stop not doing this

like 80 gazillion jumpshots the other day
only 1 game of 1-on-1, nobody was there anyway (game was crap, it's a hs junior bball player i can beat with eyes closed)

more juan on juan yesterday
more jumpshots

some 2 on 2 & 3 on 3

can we make a rew&tony jumpstyle team?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyAvaLsLFl8

not so much that as much as this?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2kJZOfq7zk&feature=related

basketball monday & wednesday
did a heavy set of press press wednesday, ended up play basketball for over 4 hours

sore today

i like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce7IWwebMUk
and i wanna get it on this trainin, it looks like so much fun

i don't even know if you're trolling but tbh that's a neat tutorial; this looks cooler (same guy): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_IAA92YOM&feature=related

not sure i'd try that out but it looks semi-safe. when i was in undergrad i'd use the track & field indoor practice area at queen's university to do flips with a buddy. we were just trying to catch tennis balls or footballs that we'd launch @ each other while flipping. would have been nice to know about all the fancy flipping...

however these days i'm not trying to get hurt from jumping. i just want to get a better vert for basketball. today i did some sport-specific jumping.

1. take basketball with 2 hands
2. jump (with legs as straight as possible) and hit the rim with the ball
3. immediately jump back up (repeat) about 10 more times

the exercise forces muscle lengthening and contracting without allowing the body to use all of its momentum (basically the opposite of "lift" the jumping guy mentioned in his video). this creates better quickness and timing. technically it might also strengthen the cavs and give you faster plantar-to-dorsi-flexing but that's not the point. it's just about quickness and timing. eventually the muscles "remember" the action and reproduce it at the END of a normal vertical leap that uses momentum/lift

I haven't jumped in quite some time, could be because I had over 100lbs of extra weight to hold me down and bounce around.

Gz on getting better on the jumps though, perhaps I will dunk when I get back to a decent weight

the shitty thing about jumping is that < body fat actually helps a lot
i had a strong leg day on monday, blocked a 6'6' " beast of a dude and got a lot of steals which is a good general sign

i don't think my vert has improved a lot, but i still haven't done much strength/power work. my timing HAS improved a lot already. i can get to the rim quickly. not quite like shannon brown (if anyone saw his missed dunk in game 1 vs the suns...wtf is in his legs?? beast). i won't be doing anything great around the basket for a couple of months.

legs have felt better lately
starting new goal tahpic soon

going to be working on str/power now

squats ofc