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Damn i really want to add some DJ's into my training. Just like 5x1 or something, but all max effort. Low box. Im in a strength building phase right now. 5x1 will do a good job of potentiating my squats and keeping some jumping efficiency.

But heres something thats been bugging me. And i seriously believe it needs to be addressed. I havent overanalyzed in a long time, but bare with me: Are DJ's worth your training time if youre naturally decently reactive?

I just feel like is more economical training wise for me to increase my squat:bw ratio rather than focus on plyos EVER. How long do your plyo gains stick around??? This is very important. When i lift for strength, if i take a few weeks off i lose some strength right away. It takes a few weeks to get it back after that. But most of the gains REALLY stick around. I mean if i go from a 200lb to 300lb squat and then take a few weeks off, i may hover at 270lbs so im still benefitting from having increased my squat even though i havent squatted in a while. Another important fact is that max strength has a very high ceiling. But not only that, increasing max strength increases RoFD as well!!!

Three iportant things to take away: after not squatting for a while you still benefit from having squatted for a long time preceding the hiatus. The high ceiling on max strength. Increasing max strength increases RoFD. These three make it "worth it" (highly economical) to increase relative strength.

Movement efficiency has a very low ceiling. As an analogy, say i play a lot of bball from January through March. Say i dont play basketball from March through July so my vert suffers. But say i continue to make relative strength gains the entire year. When i start playing ball again in August, my vert starts going up again and by October Its is higher than what it was in January due to the relative strength gains i made since January.

So Would it ever be really necessary to waste time keeping that movement efficiency from Jan through Oct really? I mean, do basketball players stay conditioned in the off season? Not really. Its quickly lost and quickly gained, so why stay conditioned in the off season when you can just condition yourself for a couple weeks before the next season starts?! Like conditioning, feel like the ceiling on movement efficiency is hit pretty quickly so theres no real need to keep it up in the long term. Just get it back when you need it.

But what about DJ performance? If you are regularly doing 5x5 from a high box, then youre kicking ass at them because thats tough. But lets say you take a few weeks off from doing that. How long until you get back at the same jump heights on that highbox?? If it takes very long to get it back, then that sucks and its not so worth busting your ass with them (if youre naturally decently reactive). If you can get it back quickly however, then thats similar to the movement efficiency analogy i gave and it may mean DJ's have a low ceiling. So again it may not be sp worth it.

So where does that leave us? Well it sucks if DJ performance takes long to get back that sucks. But if it can be regained quickly that means it may have a low ceiling... Then the most important question is.... Much like increasing your max strength... If you increase your reactive ability from 20 units to 100 units, and then dont train it for a long time. Does it drop back to 20 units, or does it hover around 70 units so you are still benefitting from having done DJ's? Or is it more like movement efficiency, where you can go from 100 units and down to 20 units, but very quickly back up to 100 units ahen needed. That really is the golden question.

This brings up SO many questions in terms of programming. I have a hunch that at least for athletes like me (naturally decently reactive) depth jumps should pretty much be saved for peaking phases. Its not worth making them a big part of my training when it means my strength will stall during those phases and the DJ gains have a low ceiling, are quickly lost, and do not be efit me anymore if i were to have stopped doing them for a few weeks. I mean how much is my squat going to increase when im DJing 4x10 twice a week? Fuck that id rather just focus on building max strength.

Then when i have to focus on strength again... Ill have to cut back on the DJ a lot but then ill probably lose DJ performance, you know? So its like... I made those temporary gains, but now that i want to increase my squat:bw ratio and make aome permanent vert gains, DJ take a back seat.

With my limited knowledge i conclude (but really shouldnt; my assumption is based on the idea that depth jump effienciy is quickly lost and doesnt benefit you for long when untrained, much like movement efficiency) that for people naturally decently reactive, and for long term gains (so ignore peaking phases), DJ's should be limited to being an excellent potentiation exercise before heavy squats. And they will do a great job of improving and keeping jumping efficiency damn high. Anyway, lets not forget, increasing your max squat increases your RoFD by a significant amount -- especially if every rep is performed at 100% effort. Remember, its not the bar speed, its the intended speed that counts. This makes an even greater case to train moreso for relative strength than to focus efforts on DJ's -- no need to have strength take a back seat to increase RoFD when heavy squatting does that too (admittedly to a lesser extent, but dont forget DJ gains are lost).



At the end of the day, i wont play basketball for months right. So my very will drop from 36" to 30". But then ill make great relative strength gains. And my vert will be at 32". Then when i play a ton of ball again, my vert will shoot to 38". Over the years my training has gotten simpler: figure out what micro and macro cycle set ups help improve my squat:be ratio the most... And then go out and jump. If i were to think long term, DJ's should only have their place when (1) my squat:be is so difficult to improve past a certain point that its more economical to focus on reactive strength, or (2) increasing squat:bw ratio fails to yield an increase in vertical thats worth the effort, its time to focus on DJ's since they will be more economical at that point.

In other words, by the time it makes sense for me to focus on DJ's from a long term, holostic perspective of my training career (ignore potentiation for squats), i will be using them to reach only the pinnacle of my jumping ability.

I just feel like is more economical training wise for me to increase my squat:bw ratio rather than focus on plyos EVER. How long do your plyo gains stick around??? This is very important. When i lift for strength, if i take a few weeks off i lose some strength right away. It takes a few weeks to get it back after that. But most of the gains REALLY stick around.

The gains are sticking around because you haven't lost strength.  You have lost  movement efficiency in the squat.   That's why it might take you 3 months to go from 250 to 275 and another three to go from 275 to 300, but after taking time off and going back down to 270 you can get back to 300 in a matter of weeks.  One thing you will notice is that the "increased strength" from going back to 300 from 270 won't have any carryover.   That's because for most people squats have very little direct carryover to jumping (far less than bounding, depth jumps, sprints, etc).   The increase in the jump from squats is the side effect of squats - larger lower body muscles, stronger core muscular, etc.   But that's the problem with your claim that maximal strength has a higher ceiling - as we get stronger we make more and more squat gains because of squat movement efficiency... These won't carry over.

If nobody feels like reading all that, i basically argue that for people who are decently naturally reactive theres no need to focus on DJ's unless you are nearing the end of your training career defined as not seeing returns on increasing your squat:bw ratio that are worth the effort. Only then is DJ centered training economical. The fact that increasing max strength increases RoFD as well, also plays a big role in this.

What's interesting is that you present yourself as a naturally reactive athlete (and I'm not here to tell you that you are not) but keep stating the carryover of maximal squat strength to your jumping ability.   Truly reactive athletes don't see returns on increasing their squat:bw ratio from jump.  They essentially begin at what you define as the end of their career.  Depending on their build and level of starting strength some will see gains from squat:bw ratios if they are very weak - but these are fleeting.   My max squat was a shaky above parallel 185lbs when I was in highschool - I was 5'11 170 and could dunk off 1 foot and rim out my attempts off two feet  and could run 11.2 in the 100m.  My jumping ability (svj,dlrvj,slrvj  was about 28'', 33', 35'') .   After getting in the weight room and getting to the point where I could nail 5x5x225lbs  ATG @ 5'11 183 I was able to run 10.6 and my jumping ability was ~ 30'',38'',36'.   Interestingly I tried deadlifting for the first time then and could do 405 on my first try...  Anyway, years later I built my squat to 500lbs @ 205lbs and achieved jumps of ~ 34'', 38, 34''.    My gains from squat:bw ratio essentially were maxed out by the time I could handle 225lbs... 

Sorry for the long digression but I think this reminds me of one very important coaching tip: Sometimes we have to train to our strength.  You might have good reactive and maximal strength expression in your jump.  Which is the point your making - essentially that you should focus on your weakness because it will give you the best bang for your buck...   This might be true for you.  But for those on the extremes it's important to recognize that while it seems counterintuitive focusing on your weak link is often the worst thing you can do.   We see this all the time in sprints.  You have an aspiring 400m runner with runner who has amazing top speed and mediocre speed endurance ( say 100/200/400  10.4/20.8/46.5 ) - the runner dies at the end of the race.   A well meaning coach immediately looks at the athlete and decides that the athlete has "enough" speed and needs to focus on speed endurance.   After getting far more speed endurance the athlete comes back and now has the ability to run 46.0 (but has splits of 10.6/21.3/46.0).   It's terrible coaching and it happens all the time.   Initially the athletes 400 time was "bad" relative to his 200m (a 20.8 200m predicts a 45.3) not it's "good" because a a 21.3 predict a 46.8.   I've gone through this cycle with coaches and it's really frustrating.   The coach should have done a little endurance work throughout the year but kept emphasis on speed - the athlete would have been better served getting their 100m and 200m down to 10.2 and 20.5 then neglecting their natural ability to gain speed endurance...

The same is true for jumps.  The really reactive guy - he needs to focus on reactive work.  Sure maximal strength training should probably take place but it should not be emphasized.  The really reactive guy is the one who needs the depth jumps!  His bang for the buck for reactive training is far greater than the other guy, in other words he is the best athlete he can be when he is squeezing out 95% of his reactive potential and 70% of his maximal strength potential.  Same thing with the other way around... get the non-reactive person as strong as possible.  Reactive work is his background training...  Sometimes we have to train our strength and just be conscious of our weakness. 

merrick/dreyth, i'm going to reply soon. was going today but didn't get around to it. just letting you know.

pc!

I agree with everything you are saying and already knew it, except for the following:

- I have always had a direct carryover to my jumps from increased squat strength relative to bodyweight, even when I was a 1 foot jumper. ... the single most important thing I have ever done is taken my squat from 1x bw to 2x bw.

It's great that you replied in detail because I think that this claim actually shows how different jumps are.  You can correct me if I am wrong but I feel like your line of thinking goes:

1) I was a one footed jumped which is clearly a far more reactive technique than DLRVJ.
2) Therefore I am really reactive.
3) My squat made my legs stronger and I jumped higher.
4) Therefore, increasing squat == increasing jump across the board for reactive or strength oriented jumpers.

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I think that you should carefully consider each of these points and how they could be false:

1) We often forget that while the one footed jump has a far greater speed component than the SVJ - there is still a hell of a lot of diversity when it comes to one footed jumps.  Their was a paper that showed how drastically different Carl Lewis and Mike Powells take off is - one begins with a lowering of COM 2 strides away to prepare for the jump while the other essentially springs out of the penultimate and accelerates into a final step and jump.  If you look a high jump analysis there are a great many ways to jump.   Their are strength 1-footed jumpers, reactive 1-footed jumpers, hip-tendon dominant 1 footed jumpers, achilles jumpers, fascia speed jumpers, etc.   

2) You are capable of carrying horizontal speed into a jump and making use of it but that doesn't mean you are not a strength 1-footed jumper.  I can barely grab the rim from a SVJ.  Give me a single drop step and I can dunk the ball easily.  However it's still a strength jump. 

3) Maybe.  At what level of an athlete were you before squatting?  Maybe you are quite reactive but were really weak - ie had zero core strength, no low back strength and couldn't express your reactivity until you got some general strength.  Maybe it's not your squat going from bw to 2bw but just the general strength that allowed you to maintain stiffness in the jump - general strength that could have been obtained through sprinting or other training that wouldn't have increased squat.

4) For the above 3 points you can see why this is not necessarily true.  You could also just consider the high-jump over head world record holder, Stefan Holm.  He is 5'10 and jumped 7'10.  It's hard to convert that into a vertical jump but getting your COM 7'10 from 5'10 even with perfect flop technique suggests that he easily has a 50'' SLVJ.    Despite this 50+ SLRVJ his standing vertical jump is only 23''.   He mostly uses an empty barbell in training.  He hasn't squatted near 2x bw.  Do you honestly think that if he got his squat to 2xbw his jump would get better?  He is already the world record holder in height above head and 2inches from the world record set by a 6'6'' guy...

Consider the diversity of both people and jumping...  Squats were specific to your body to increase your jumping but that just can't be generalized easily... 

Good points Todday. I hope DJ's can increase my vert more than i think, and i hope its more permanent than i think too!