Adarq.org

Well since you're planning to get a gym membership and push through to increase your squat, here are some of my thoughts

(anybody else feel free to debate them):

Knowing you I can pretty easily say the lagging muscle in your VJ "chain" is the quad (or are the quads). At your intermediate

level you need to ask yourself a few questions:

1) How good am I consecutive maximal height ankle bounces?
2) How good am I at maximal vert jump off a medium box?
3) How good am I at short GCT vert jump (DJ over hurdles) off a medium box?
4) How good is my full squat with perfect form?
5) How proficient am I at hip thrusts, GHR, RDLs?
6) How powerful is my snatch and power clean compared to my squat?
7) How good are my bounds, how smooth do they look?
8 ) How much more quad or hip involvement do I get in a SVJ?
9) How does my plant leg looks like when planting for a one-leg VJ?
10) How much speed do I get into my running VJs?
11) Compare broad jump to consecutive 2-leg bounds;
12) Compare a single jump squat height to a 1-2 jump squat;
13) Compare your running single leg VJ to your running double leg VJ;
14) Are you a very fast sprinter?

Again, here is what I think about these questions:

1) I'd say you're pretty good but not "great". Great would be a guy like Ced Norman - I'd give a rating of 8;
2) For the maximal jump off a medium box I believe you rate as "average" - you gain well enough but not great - rating of 7;
3) Pretty good as well in terms of short GCT over hurdle jumps - rating of 8;
4) I'd say you're pretty bad in comparison with your overall track and athletic DISPLAYED performance - rating of 4;
5) You probably do pretty good at hip thrusts, RDLs and glute ham raises - rating of 7;
6) Good snatch and power clean numbers, good form on them, good balance - rating of 9;
7) Your bounds are long, they generally look smooth and controlled - rating of 9;
8 ) More hip involvement in the SVJ;
9) Usually your one-leg plant looks pretty straight legged, with occasional knee bends. The knee bend means loss of leverage and
quad overload usually due to hamstring weakness - rating of 8;
10) As far as speed in the plant is concerned - you get a rating of between 5 to the occasinal 7 - you need to think what limits
your plant speed, and we'll talk about that after these points;
11) You get a pretty good bonus from doing consecutive broad jumps vs a single broad jump;
12) You get a pretty good bonus from doing rhytmic (consecutive) jump squats vs a single jump squat;
13) Your one-leg VJ is higher than your two-footed VJ;
14) As far as sprinting is concerned, you aren't slow but you aren't exactly fast either - rating 6.

Now we need to look at these points and draw forth some conclusions. Keep in mind that these are MY subjective ratings and that
you might not agree with some of them, but still - I'm going to base my assumptions on these ratings:

If you look at points 1), 3), 7), 11), 12), 13) - then you can conclude you have "good" calf and ankle strength. Being able to
get really low in the squat with good form should indicate good ankle mobility as well;

If you look at points 5), 6), 7), 8 ) - then you can conclude you have "very good" hip control, hip power and hip strength. The
great rating you get for the snatches and cleans vs. your squat gives you a good reason to think your hip power in particular is
great. You could probably use some additional hip STRENGTH, as that will carryover GREAT in your athletic movements since you
are able to apply that additional strenght in the athletic movements themselves with no problems whatsoever (glute dominant -
easy to apply additional glute strength on the field);

If you look at points 2), 4), 8 ), 13) - then you realize that your quad strength is bad to average, your quad power is average
to good, and your quad hypertrophy is about average. You might think otherwise since you have such a huge half-squat number but
honestly, I believe my notes here are pretty accurate, and since you're a glute-dominant guy you probably get a ton of posterior
chain contributions in the half squat.

If you look at points 10) and 14) - then you can say that hamstring strength is average to good and that the glutes are doing
pretty much all of your hip extension work which is great. The problem is that if you want to use a faster plant speed while
having the best possible lever (a straight leg in the one-leg plant) you're going to need GREAT hamstring strength in order to
keep the knee straight. If you don't you might get away having great calf and quad strength, but it's not going to be optimal
and you're most likely going to feel the break at the knee and possibly lose speed in the plant as well. If you're going with
quad hypertrophy and SOME weight gain - then you need to keep or even improve the calves and hamstrings as well in order to keep
the plant as straight as possible.

In terms of programming - I'd go with a conjugate periodization style of workouts with focus on quad hypertrophy and strength.

Since you're a glute guy, you need to also go with hip hypertrophy to prevent the "collapse" into becoming a quad-driven/quad
dominant guy.

Here's what I propose:

3 workouts, each with 2 days of "rest" in between: this is going to be very similar with what Lance was writing about some time
ago, but with some explosive stuff as well:

Workout A (heavy weight quad CNS intensive + glute hypertrophy):

Low box, low GCT depth jumps/empty barbell rhytmic straight leg jump squats with low GCT: 2x10 (ankle power)
Jump squat (not rhymic - reset after each rep): empty barbell 2x5 (knee power)
Squat (preferably high bar): 5x1 (work up to a daily single then strip off 10% and do 5x1) (knee strength)
RDL, hip thrust or GHR: 3x6-8 (hip strength&hypertrophy)
Calf raises with slow tempo and top/bottom holds: 3x20 (ankle strength)

Workout B (quad "middle ground" benchmark + hip hypertrophy):

Medium box maximal height depth jumps: 2x5 (ankle and knee power)
Jump squat, pause after each rep (wave loaded): 4x5 (first set with an empty barbell, 2nd set with 10 kg more, then repeat this
cycle one more time) (knee power)
Squat (possibly low bar if you want to): 1x6 (work up to a 1 single set of 6 reps - try to improve on that every time you hit
this workout)
RDL, hip thrust or GHR: 2x6-8 (hip strength&hypertrophy - a lower volume than in workout A since you don't want to be tired
muscularly for workout C)
Calf raises with slow tempo and top/bottom holds: 2x15

Workout C (quad hypertrophy + hip power):

High box depth jumps: 3x3 (ankle power + knee power)
Hang power clean/Hang power snatch: Work up to a daily "max", then strip off 10% and do 5 more or so
High bar ATG squat: 4x10 or 3x8+1x15 or 8x5 with short rest intervals (quad hypertrophy)
Single leg calf raises: 3x20

There ya go. You can take an additional rest day after Workout C as well - just make sure you're rested and feeling "ready" and
powerful for your Workout A since it's a CNS day so you want to display maximal power.

I personally go with hang cleans/hang snatches in the rest days (basically in the day before my leg days) and since I'm doing
low volumes anyway, they usually help the next day in my squats.

So you could go with hang cleans/hang snatches in the day before each of your leg workouts, just make sure you don't go
overboard with it (what I wrote here: Hang power clean/Hang power snatch: Work up to a daily "max", then strip off 10% and do 5
more or so - should be a pretty good volume for just potentiation and not fatigue).

I have also found out that doing a perfect form heavy deadlift, but not maximal by any means (possibly snatch grip deadlift if
you plan to do hang powersnatches) before the O-lifts helps potentiate the lifts as well.

If you choose this path then you can go with what I'm currently doing before my leg days, which is this:

Work up to a heavy deadlift/snatch grip deadlift single
Hang powerclean/Hang powersnatch: Work up to a daily "max", then strip off 10% and do 5 more or so
Ab work/hip flexor work
Good stretching

There ya go. If you do upperbody lifts make sure you do them after the leg workouts, that should give you the next day (the day
of o-lifting) as a "rest" day in preparation for your leg workouts the next day after that.

So it should look like this:

Monday: Leg Workout A
Tuesday: Back strength + some chest and biceps hypertrophy
Wednesday: O-lifts + core + good stretching/recovery
Thursday: Leg Workout B
Friday: Shoulder strength + some back and triceps hypertrophy
Saturday: O-lifts + core + good stretching/recovery
Sunday: Leg workout C (squat volume day - more rest required)
Monday: REST
Tuesday: Back strength + some chest and biceps hypertrophy
Wednesday:  O-lifts + core + good stretching/recovery
Thursday: Leg workout A

Repeat ^^^

Good luck!

Yeah but ideally you should be able to dunk with any ball regardless of its grip.

Wilt Chamberlain   NBA   7' 1"   48"