Yeah I changed to my real name.
It is an effective exercise but since I was maxing out I compromised form except for the third repetition. Yeah I used to sometimes put my feet on 10lb plates to get that extra achilles tendon involved, so wearing jumpsoles would be good. I usually just do these standing now, excpet I haven't done much lifting this summer since I've been doing bounding + sofa and vert been skyrocketing so doesn't matter. But today I did them again and I like them because I can target the vastus lateralis very well but can't in lunges or anything else as much. You can also rotate the bar as you lift it up, it's tremendous.
Another great variation is once I lift the weight up, I drop it down as fast as possible witout letting it hit the floor (pretty much my feet temporarily leave the floor while hips drop) and this rips up everything quite well, then jump back up. Can do that with lunges, squats, anything as long as the load is moderate and you don't kill yourself.
In all honesty though, that the running vertical jump lift is just a nitpicky way to train slightly more specifically. You'll get similar results in squats except glute/ham activation better with this
