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Trick #3 Use Squats For Delayed Potentiation

maybe my squat before speed workout is not a bad idea after all. been doing it that way all this time. my self-reason for doing it is the effective "warmup" i get when i feel all the big muscles in my legs have fired already.

i don't do piston type continuous tension - bodybuilding reps where the whole set feels like a one big long rep. i'm more like 3sec on, 2sec off, repeat.. thats one set. could be the reason i dont tire much even with heavy weights.

I apologize for my lack of newsletters as of late as well as the delay in getting the VJ Bible 2.0 out. I had planned on having it released by now but I had some personal difficulties that kept me occupied a couple of months that prevented me from working on it as much as I would have liked. Fortunately, things are back on the right track and I'm now in the process of finishing it up. In the meantime I wanted to give newsletter subscribers a first look at a special VJ Bible 2.0 promo that will be released along with it. It is called, "12 modern tricks for higher jumps". I'll give you the first 6 now & the remaining 6 next week.

Enjoy!

Trick #1 - Use caffeine judiciously

Low grade stimulants like caffeine can give you an extra boost if used intermittently and judiciously. They increase stimulatory neurochemicals like nor-adrenaline and that can give you a little bit of an extra muscle recruitment and rate coding boost. The key thing is if caffeine's going to be effective you can't use it all the time and it works best if you cleanse your system of it for a few days before using it. I recommend you take 3 or 4 days and consume no stimulants - make sure you're not taking in anything that has "disguised" caffeine (guarana) such as NO explode, red bull, or other common energy drinks and obviously lay off "obvious" caffeine sources such as coffee and pop. After you've been off the caffeine for 3-4 days it'll be much more effective. I recommend about 200 mg of caffeine about 45 minutes to an hour before you really want to set a PR type performance. You can either take a caffeine pill (no-doz or generic caffeine), drink a big cup of strong coffee, take in a big mountain dew, or use one of the common "energy" drinks on the market like Red Bull or NO Explode. You'll definitely feel it. You can also add in natural stimulants like l-tyrosine (3000 mg is the common dosage) or acetyl-l-carnitine, (1500 mg) but honestly, with a good dose of caffeine on dormant receptors those things aren't gonna add much in the way of noticeable effects.

Trick #2 Low grade dehydration/carb depletion

Here's a little trick that can be quite effective you've probably never heard of before: Short term weight loss via either dehydration or short term caloric restriction can temporarily improve vertical jump performance via a loss in bodyweight. Longer term weight loss via caloric restriction and the things that come along with it tends to have negative effects on strength and power, as does prolonged weight loss thru dehydration, yet in the short term (as in days) a loss in bodyweight can improve VJ performance. I've known about this for years but it's not something I've talked about much. In a vertical jump it can be enough to give you an extra couple of inches - not a TON but definitely noticeable. Over the years I've been amazed at the number of athletes I've s een hit PRs the day after a night of fairly heavy drinking - I believe the dehydrating effects of alcohol have a lot to do with it. The positive effect of low level temporary dehydration or weight loss has also been confirmed in research.

The key is the temporary weight/water loss can't be TOO MUCH - no more than about 3% of your bodyweight - anymore than that and you negatively affect strength and energy too much. So if you weigh 100 lbs that's only 3 lbs. If you want to dehydrate yourself in an effort to increase your vert I'm not gonna tell you how to do it and it's not something I recommend. Too much dehydration can be dangerous and someone will think since a 3% drop in bodyweight is good a 10% drop is even better and run into all sorts of problems. I'll just tell you it can work and it's not hard to find information on how wrestlers and other athletes do it. Just make sure if you do decide to dehydrate yourself it's not something I'm recommending.

Ho wever, I can tell you how others have done it thru short term caloric restriction. It only takes 2 or 3 days. For 2 or 3 days simply consume about a gram of protein per pound of lean body mass and little else. A typical individual might consume 600-800 calories per day with most of that coming from protein. A typical diet would include something like 6 hard boiled eggs, a glass of milk, a piece of bread, half a pound of grilled chicken breast, a big salad, and half a pound of broccoli. Other than unlimited water that's it. Follow that for 2-3 days, or until your scale weight is down about 3%. Keep in mind the weight you lose will mostly be water weight and glycogen depletion and most of it will come back as soon as you start eating normally again. As far as exercise goes, you can do some stretching, shooting, lifting, and other light to moderate activity, but it's probably a good idea you don't try to do TOO MUCH like a marathon or full court basketball. Next, after 2-3 days have a good sized high carb meal to get some energy back into your brain, then go out and test your jumps. Most likely you'll be getting up higher and will continue to do so for a couple of days.

Trick #3 Use Squats For Delayed Potentiation

Here's something else a lot of people aren't aware of: A low volume of barbell training has a tonic effect on the nervous system that can temporarily improve performance several hours later. What happens after a fairly intense session of weight lifting is the nerves that fire muscle motor units become stimulated. This allows the stimulated muscles to fire at a reduced level of neural stimulation, which is a positive thing. Any activity you do while the nerves and muscles are in this state will tend to become enhanced. The problem with this is there's also a lot of fatigue that occurs from the weight training used to induce this state in the muscles, so the effect is not immediate. You have to let the fatigue dissipate first. However, the good thing is the fatigue doesn't stick around all that long. After a few hours the fatigue from the weight training will be mostly gone but the neural stimulation will persist. The best way to take advantage of this is to lift weights, wait 4 to 6 hours, then do plyos and/or jumps. Virtually any sorta barbell squat training will create this tonic effect but for my money I prefer a workout like this:

A.M. Session: Squat 6-8 reps of 1 @87.5% of 1rm (use a weight you could do 4 reps with if you had to) Rest 4-6 hours

P.M. session Jumps for max height

Trick #4: Use extended warm-ups in quality warm-up situations

Here are 4 important things pertaining to warm-ups you should be aware of:

A: Most people don't warm up nearly enough

B: Most people get their best warm-ups on accident

C: A standing vert requires significantly less warming up than a running vert, which typically requires less of a warm-up than a sprint. A warm-up that is optimal for a sprint is TOO MUCH for a jump, in my experience. A warm-up that is optimal for a running vert (bilateral) can be too much for a standing vert. So before you determine what type or how much of a warm-up to do you should determine what type of event you're warming up for

D: Adrenaline (competitive situations) definitely helps with your warm-up

To that end the best chance you have of hitting a running vert PR are things like full court basketball games when you're surrounded by your peers. The extra adrenaline you get from being around your peers and the competitive environment tends to promote quality performances. In my experience the best warm-up is a light dynamic warmup followed by 15-20 minutes of full court basketball or similar endeavor. All the dynamic warm-up stuff is ok on its own but not as good as actually getting out and participating in sport. Here is an example of coach Andrew Darqui demonstrating what I consider a quality dynamic warm-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um5jnjFav7Q

I'm curious to see Dryeth low bar squat

Quote from: Dreyth on February 06, 2012, 07:46:59 pm

If it doesn't, I don't know what to do.

if it doesn't, i know what to do: http://www.premierptny.com/Services/JointRehabilitation.aspx

ask a qualified PT.