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Um...no.

Trying to keep things pretty simple for the moment. Both from a time perspective and just making sure I get in the gym, concentrate on doing the basics well and get back out again.  Will be adding some basic jumps and a day of sprinting in next week and then progressing from there. Probably have some scope to add in calves as well at that stage I suppose. I'm hesitant to try and accomplish too much too soon though.

Had last game of ball for the year last night which means I will have an extra day to train for the next 5 weeks. 23 points which was nice but we lost by 2 which wasn't. Almost had an alley oop but the pass was too close to the backboard to bring it round. Still managed to squeeze it in off the backboard though.

13/12/12

Injuries- None
Fatigue- None
Bodyweight- 92.0. Weighed first thing in morning.

Warm-up= Foam rolled legs, lower back, upper back
Dynamic leg swings and arm swings

Squat-
Warm up- 5xbar, 5x60
Work Sets- 3x70, 3x80, 7x90- probably needed more warming up or more correctly, more technique work. Haven't got a solid groove going on.

Bench-
Warm up- 10xbar, 35x5
Work Sets- 3x45, 3x52.5, 10x60

Complex Circuit 3x3x30kg
Bent Row
Hang Clean
Front Squat
Military Press
Back Squat 
Good Morning

Back into the swing of things and building some momentum. Feeling really good about how I'm progressing and want to keep things pretty simple for the next little while. Was looking back at a training journal from a while back and I've really been stuck around the same weights for the last couple of years due to inconsistent training. If I progress using 531 as I am now and make smallish jumps per cycle (2.5kg for bench and press and 5kg for squat and deadlift) I'll have some pretty impressive numbers (for me) this time next year. In the grand scheme of things that's not a lot of time.
I just need to remember to make those small jumps. By doing 10x60 on bench gives me an estimated max of 80 (Wendler's calc). I could easily jump to that in my next cycle but I think that would be a mistake. Will have to keep my ego in check.

9/12/12

Injuries- None
Fatigue- None
Bodyweight- 93.8

A walk with the wife and kids turned into an impromptu 2.5km run. Half the time was pushing a pram weighing around 40kg.
Wasn't too bad. Not a great pace but enough to get the heart pumping a bit.
Finally ended when, after deciding to run on the grass instead of footpath I rolled my ankle in what seemed like a 2ft deep hole. Felt like I needed a rope to get over it...


Either way no residual soreness today. Deads and press tonight.

Alright so after National Gastro Week in my household things are almost returning to normal. Haven't trained in the last week due to a fear of shitting myself whilst squatting. That's a PR I don't want to break.
Played ball last night. Pretty low energy game from me and we lost by 8. I had some good moments and scored 14 but had no energy for second attempts or rebounds late in the game. Have a bye next week so a chance to get some solid training in between now and the next game.
No niggling issues from the game last night aside from general soreness.

Happy birthday mate.

Ah the mid to late 20's. They were the days.

I jump higher in game because of two things:

1) Better rate coding;
2) Not being able to be my lazy self. If I'm my lazy self I can't get past the defender so in order to get past him I have to go really fast and then dunk

Nice.

I'm still trying to get a dunk in a game. Soon I hope.

It's easy to see that for you since you have such a low speed run-up. You're basically walking out there and jumping with such a low speed. Since the one-leg jump has much less strength to be applied due to a single leg muscles power output, you need to compensate by having good initial speed that basically makes you lighter. The one-leg jump is about conserving what you're already worked for to generate (the run up) and converting that into vertical momentum.

Compare yourself with me here:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmODiHirz6o" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmODiHirz6o</a>

Even though it's a missed dunk, see the huge difference in speed. I kinda pushed to get really fast there and that's a bit over my controllable speed though. And obviously you can't LITERALLY compare to me or anybody else because of so many factors affecting approach speed, but still... something to think about.

I think the "correct" equation of jumping should be movement efficiency * structure * power ... you need to see where you need to improve. If you have decent structure (and flexibility goes to structure as well since it alters the posture and center of mass) and you have power then maybe you should improve your movement efficiency, which means you need to jump more often.

It's a really good point and probably a reason why I seem to jump higher in game situations than in practice. It's also the intensity I'm noticing. In your vid and in others I've been watching. I seem to be pretty laid back on approach whereas you and the others are more aggressive in the approach including the additional speed. I'm really keen to try this out but it sucks that I have to wait till the groin is better.

Taking into account what you're saying above I probably need to work on a couple of things. Movement efficiency- off both one and two legs. My two leg jumps are horrible. Structure- Core strength as I feel I leak a lot of power here. Power- well yeah I need to get stronger overall anyway but focus on bringing up hams, glutes and calves.   

Mate thanks again for your help. It's nice to be able to fit more of the pieces together on this one. I'm sure I can gain a few inches in height just off this information alone.

I have no idea. But you should definitely be able to use a higher controllable approach speed... and it's usually the hamstrings and calves that prevent you from doing that.

If you suddenly gain weight (doesn't matter what kind, fat and/or muscle) and find out you can't use the same approach speed off one leg, it's usually the calves since they don't adapt as fast as the other muscles and therefore can't optimally amortizate this heavier BW like they used to, so you slow down a bit in your approach.

You know what that's a good point. I'm probably 3-5kgs over what I was around a month ago so that would have to make a difference.

Having said that, during a game I can certainly get speed up down the court and off the dribble. It may be just making more of a conscious effort to get the speed first before jumping. I will have to test it out when the groin is healed. Maybe I can trim a bit of fat too. I probably had my best vertical when I was in the mid 80kgs but I was certainly a lot weaker.