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Hear me out. I've decided to make a last ditch push for a windmill by xmas before I hang up my hoop dreams, accept the passing of youth and embrace being an older man.

Theres a lot of talk about plyometrics when it comes to dunking but no one ever talks about the upper body. I think even if i somehow get my ducks in a row and am able to jump high enough to legitmately attempt a windmill, i'll not actually be able to, owing to a lack of explosive upper body. Hard to explain but bringing the ball around quickly in the short time you're in the air is not something I can take for granted and actually needs to be trained. Not that im in any danger of jumping the 36 odd inches i'd need for a windmill any time soon.. but suppose i will keep working towards that end, what can I do to make sure my upper body also improves over time so that when the time comes that I can jump high enough, im also able to land some nice dunks.

i dont have any special attachment to a windmill, it just seems like one of the hardest dunks one can do, so that's why i'm referring to it. I also like that dunk where you have your back to the rim and you bring the ball down low between the legs before finishing the dunk - not sure what it's called, but again i'd like to have enough upper body explosive whatever to successfully complete that dunk in the fraction of a second i am in the air.

Thank you for your thoughts and to scooby for inspiration for thinking about adding mad inches to my lying plyo pushups.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGK2KprU-To" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGK2KprU-To</a>

Theres a pretty steep learning curve to it all. But you can make it easier for yourself by being smart and using the best technology available at the time. That would be the best designed and documented languages and libraries (building blocks for your app - think of newton's if i hae seen further ive stood on the shoulders of giants). I'd learn a modern high level language by taking an intro to CS/programming course, whether online or at a university. University is prob better for the feedback of having students and teachers to talk to and work through the experience of learning your first language. You dont have to do a full on degree btw way - im talking about a single class or two that you can do in one or two semesters. Alternatively you can get a good book or follow a tutorial - whatever you prefer, though this will require being selfmotivated which is a challenge for many people.

Also ideas are worthless. Or rather, cheap and easy to come by. Take any half decent software developer and he will be able to rattle off a million ideas for potential programs. In the space of writing code, we're limited by time and effort not by ideas. Ideas in comparison are super easy, making things though is infinitely harder. It takes hours every day up to years at a time for a serious project. You're dealing with a great deal of complexity - keeping that in your head is a challenge, not everyone is cut out for it, but if you like puzzles and like figuring stuff out - it might just be your thing. Start now though, it might take a few years to get to where you are able to build things you imagine.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFz9pqbA8w0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFz9pqbA8w0</a>

Interesting discussion! another factor may be cultural. I think you guys in the US are lucky to have a culture of physical performance from an early age. I went to a relatively exclusive private highschool with lots of facilities but we had no weight room and no would ever have thought to get kids lifting. In the US kids have been lifting in school for decades and decades in addition to track and field and competitive sports. We had sports but it wasn't very emphasised except for swimming - and my fav sport football (soccer) then basketball were never popular in my formative years as a teenager. Basketball popularity peaked in the mid nineties thanks to MJ  and was all by dead by the advent of the naughties. I never grew up playing competitive basketball - but i imagine if i had been around guys who were dunking etc at a young age, i would have worked harder to attain something I only thought to be impossible irl. I never saw anyone dunk in front of me throught highschool. I had one friend who was crazy and a bit of a pervert who i remember doing 'jumping exercises' which he called 'hopping like a kangaroo' - i didn't take him seriously but it prob would have helped to build some reactivity at that young age. Unfortunately I had no idea what was possible through training - which isn't something that was emphasised in school days.

I doubt there any serious health effects. I think i'd be a good candidate for juicing up. I'm 6'3, 159 when lean ... dont think anyone would fault me for taking a little somethign something to put on 15-30lb of muscle to bring me up to the average adult weight. but i wouldnt in good conscious be able to compete against 'naturals' - not that i think that would be unfair bc i'd be too big/strong, just as a moral thing, pragmatically it probably only brings me up to a level playing field in terms of bodyweight. Would love to do it, everyone talked me out of it last year though. 

I am left handed and I plant RL and SLJ better off my R leg.