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I get so many people asking similar questions as you - eg They are timid, weak, slow and soft and want to no longer be.   The truth is even if you get a 45 inch vertical and a 2.5 bw squat you will still be slow and soft on the basketball court because you lack movement efficiency.  Settle in a comfortable weight for you right now, you should feel better about this because of your recent experience jumping at a higher bodyweight...  It's probably around 175lbs and then make and conquer your movement efficiency goals and you will be a good athlete.   Your going to have to get faster and learn how to be an athlete and some of this unfortunately requires improvement in measures that don't come in the weight room or with a tape measure...

Hmm! Lacking movement efficiency makes a lot of sense. Agree that even getting a big squat and vertical wont help without it. What would you suggest to acquire it?

Got a call out to fill in for a bball game tonight! If this happened regularly it wud be worth organising my training so that i'm fresh weds. I lifted yesterday but also ate loads so im ok today but in future i'll prob do better if i lift weds. Plan b is pickup on sundays, so if i lift Wed/Fri/Sun then i have the option to play pickup sunday or a game weds? Hopefully i play well tonight so they want me back again. I'm quietly confident. My captain from the comp told me to "Play big" -- which means I need to exploit my size/strength more than the way ive played .. (more timid and soft).

Thoughts for long term training
This year I did the lightweight thing and i was still a mediocre athlete. I had lifts that most ppl my height would be happy with if they weighed 15kg more than I did. It won me nothing. I was slow and unthreatening.

Next year I want to do the other direction, try to become the Lebron version of myself. Thinking I should aim for a 180kg backsquat while weighing a lean 85-90kg. Doing weighted dunks at 115kg or more. And i want to bench 140kg. If I can do three of those things, i'll have the size and strength of a 6'3" Lebron while being able to outmuscle my opponents on the court. If i can contribute rebounds and post defence i'll be a useful player on my team. As it stands, im the ultimate tweener, useless at post offense and defence, too slow and too poor a shooter to outplay smaller guards -- im a basketball nobody. I can't contribute with my current physical attributes. But I want to change my game to become a more productive player next years comp. I was going to retire this year but i don't want to go out a loser -- next year i'll win the comp and then hang up the kobes.

So first things first, get lean as fuck, get my backsquat ratio up to 2.0 and then mass gain steadily up to a strong 85-90kg while remaining lean. Keep regular skill and conditioning work so i don't have to start from scratch again. And finally, don't go into the tournament after a long cutting cycle -- i will do the cutting now and prior to the tournament i'll be maintaining for at least 8 weeks.

Got some more PRs lately, did a bodyweight push press while on the road. And today I hit 6x182.5kg and 5x187.5kg  on RDL. Also 8x180kg, 6x192.5kg and 6x200kg on hip thrusts. And got a >bodyweight hang clean while messing around. Should be able to PR there if i do it consistently but not bad for the first attempt at the lift.

Back from the tournament! We got knocked out in the semis .. but everyone thought my team shoulda won cause we had enough talent/size/etc .. ddint help our PG went 0/17 in a key game and then followed it up with 2/11 in the next .. more unselfish play .. or more competent selfish play would have got us further. I'm still upset how close i came this year to winning with the team I had. Just fell short on a few key areas, bench was non-existent .. and players like me played too many minutes .. it was death by basketball and it was wonderful. I ate too much food trying to recover .. junkiest stuff i could find .. binging for several days after friday.


BW: 175.9lb

This happened. just stepped on the scales and was horrified to be just under 176. Lol.

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If i had gained a kilo i might have said, ok back to getting in shape. Now im more likely to just say eff it and continue the binge. lets see what happens

I did a refeed yesterday night .. begrudgingly lol. 2800 calories, 297g carbs, 50g fat, 271g protein. Literally ate ~300g of chicken breast cold because i wanted to save carbs for icecream. And then i had 305g of cookies and cream for dessert. Was amazing. Next day expecting the scale to spike violently upwards towards 77kg and imagine my surprise when it reads 74.1kg. Yes that's the lightest it's registered in a long time. After a legit carb up. Which means i'm probably sub 74kg now -- which is my goal weight of 74kg/163lb. so i pretty much have nailed my goal on the last day.

So my plan for this week (tourno begins friday) .. keep the weighted vest on .. i can only check in 23kg .. so ima have to work out how to take it with me. My pref would be to wear it on board but i dont know how that would go across security check.,. heh. Remove the last row of weights if i'm doing any jumping .. which i think i will be doing around weds. Otherwise only do a set of 5 max with +20kg. Hoping for some hypergravity gains going into the comp.

Not going to lift much if at all .. will prob just do a bench/curls session .. and maybe push press .. but no squats. If i feel super fresh weds i may go for a squat PR because i'm addicted to squatting and need to force myself to avoid it lol. A cardio session wont hurt but nothing crazy, no intervals.. just a decent submax run will be enough. Or see next paragraph.

The only training i will be doing is basketball specific. Will be going to shoot hoops daily tues-thurs though .. just get my jumper silky smooth .. (it's already well on teh way to that).. practice some ball handling and something else im forgetting now. oh yeah, my ugly looking layups, ball fakes and driving both ways R and L. That should do it. Free throws, 3pts are all included under shooting of course. Include conditioning into my drills if possible. Just to improve that while working on skills .. but not if reduces quality of skill work. 

And diet wise, im not changing it much .. will try to hit 150g of clean carbs a day .. protein around 250g and fat under 40g. That should keep me getting a bit leaner with decent recovery.

IF all these stars line up .. i will PR my vertical for sure. It only remains to be seen how high I can fly! Watch this space.

or hook em (horns)

Pickup Bball
RDL 6x172.5(PR), 8x180(PR)
BHT 6x167.5(PR), 6x180(PR), 6x187.5 (PR)
WCU 3x101.9(LPR; +25kg), 5x96.9(LPR; +20kg)
OHP 3x60, 3x62.5(LPR), 4x60 (LPR)

BW: 74.5kg / 164.2lb (PR)

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Not going to do a long retrospective but it really bummed me out that i couldnt PR my squat this week and my athleticism isn't impressive or even improved much.   I hate that my conditioning was so dire that i needed to resort to running intervals and treadmill and so on. If I was in better shape i could just have focused on the essentials (lifts + skills) and have more athleticism to show for it than my present state. All good. After the tournament i will take some time off but then come back to finish the job. I know i can jump and run faster than this, I just got caught up in having poor fitness and being fat which unfortunately made the task of peaking much much much harder than it should have been.

Still, did okay, gonna take a few days to rest and hopefully i'll be good for the tournament. I will do a bench and guns workout during the week at some point though, if i can find a gym on the road. If I take my gym shoes i may even try to PR my push press just cause I would want Lance to be proud of me getting that BW lift but i dont think it's worth the trouble right now and i'd prob get tempted into squatting heavy which is something I dont need now. Deffo get the PP milestones later down the line though.

I do think that if i was closer to an athletic bodyfat of 10% and subsequently some kilos lighter, I would pretty much have a 2xbw squat and jump higher from the virtue of carrying less dead weight.  Works in progress i guess.

On 2nd thought .. ive dropped 10kg of bodyweight and my squat is 4.5kg away from my best effort at 85kg. That's kinda good, i shouldn't be too hard on myself.

Anyway! Til next time, keep chasing those dreams!!