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So I've been hearing this clicking noise when I extend my right leg. I can also feel the click if I touch my knee when extending. It's happening right at the top of my right knee, a bit to the right. As of yet, absolutely no pain in that area including after lifting/playing ball...I'm just a little nervous about it cause obviously something isn't right. Anybody have any experience with a similar clicking/cracking noise? Any ideas on what I can do to get rid of it?

So I was talking to a guy who used to be on the track team for my school. According to him, and all these numbers seemed legit, he was 6ft flat and about 200lbs. His max squat was 365lbs and he was deadlifting about 400 when he was on the team. So pretty solid numbers. Now watching him do some vert measuring I was extremely surprised to see how low his vert was. From a standstill, he was probably about 4 inches short of the rim. Now I'm guessing like a 7'7" or 7'8" reach, not sure on that. He definitely didn't have ridiculously short arms though. Running, he hit 1-2" over the rim.
I was so surprised because I thought first of all that his standing vert would be much higher, and second that the difference between his standing and running (double-legged) wouldn't be as high as it was because he was strength jumper.
So what I'm wondering is, how is it that someone can squat 365 and be so far from touching the rim from a stand still? How can you explain the difference between standing and running vert?
He said that he never did his lifts explosively and that he put on slow-twitch muscles, hence the lack of pop in his jumps. But wouldn't the strength from his high lifts compensate for that?

Overall just confused by his stats and seeing as I'm starting up with similar lifts, I don't want to end up with no explosiveness like him!

Damn man you're getting up..

I was wondering though, I never see you dunking off the dribble or just running up, the'yre always lobs. From the height you're getting on the jumps it looks like you could throw down a 2 hander pretty easily. Is there a reason you stay away from dunks off the dribble? Don't you want to work on that too for in-game dunks?

AGE: 19

HEIGHT: 6' 1" without shoes

WEIGHT: ~160lb, could be slightly more

SLEEP SCHEDULE: Sleep usually between 11pm to midnight on weekdays. I mostly feel drowsy when I first wake up, start to get into things after about and hour. I usually smoke (mary jane) at night before going to sleep so I guess that's somewhat of a sleep aid.

BODY TYPE: Skinny, lanky build. Long arms and legs but I have broad shoulders. Not very strong, I would say my lower body is stronger though.

GOALS: Jump out of the gym. My ultimate goal would be elbow to the rim, but anything over a 40" RVJ would be awesome.

CURRENT ABILITY: Getting from about 2" above my wrist over the rim from a running DLVJ, maybe an inch more from SLVJ. With a reach of 7' 10" standing, that makes my DLVJ about 30" and my SLVJ about 31".

INJURY HISTORY: Achilles tendonitis over summer, went to rehab for 8 weeks and am now careful to not overwork it/keep it properly stretched out. Barely notice it now, occasionally after a tough session it'll feel a bit tight, but after stretching it out feels fine.

TRAINING HISTORY & ACHIEVEMENTS: Been working solo on my jumping for about 6-7 months now and have seen roughly 4-5" in gain on my DLRVJ. I started doing straight strength work on my legs and kept reading online about optimal training methods. I started with a leverage squat machine (never felt comfortable doing free weight squats, couldn't position the bar properly, but I've been wanting to start that up) and leg press a couple times a week. More recently, my leg workout has been:
1x10@250lb
1x8@260lb
1x5@270lb
on the leverage squat, all explosive as possible with ~5mins rest in between (do upper body in that time).
1x10@230lb
1x10@240lb
1x10@250lb
on incline leg press, also explosive and also ~5mins rest
1x10@150lb
1x10@160lb
1x10@170lb
on incline leg press, very quick up and down, explosive

I do that once a week and I need about 3 days to fully recover (isn't that long?).
The past 3 weeks I've been doing intermediate plyos from the VJB as well, so weights once a week and plyos once a week with a couple of straight ballin days in between when the legs are up to it.
I feel like I've been training hard for a while but not seen the best possible results. I want to train right, and I think if I get the right program I could be dunking by the end of the year.

CURRENT ACTIVITY LEVEL AND/OR TRAINING PROGRAM: Pretty much broke this down above. Just seeing the leg work typed out now it really doesn't look like much, but that's what I've been doing the past couple months.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF CURRENT DIET: I eat a lot of crap, mostly because of gettin the munchies. Breakfast on weekdays is a bacon egg n cheese with a coffee and usually a muffin. Lunch is usually some kind of sandwich with meat and cheese and a soda. Dinner is usually a pasta and meat dish of some kind, with variations including pizza, sub sandwiches, stuff like that. After dinner I usually eat a shitton of unhealthy food - candy, ice cream, chips and the like.

IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES: I don't really need to be fresh for any specific time. Things to work around right now are work which go from early in the morning til about 5:30 when I get home. After that all time is my own.



Just to kinda sum up, I feel like I've been working my ass off trying to get my hops up and don't have that much to show for it. If I had put all that effort into the right training methods I think I could be dunking by now. Sure, I've seen some gains but I don't think I've been as efficient as I could have.
I've been following your journal for a little while and I have to say your dedication is inspiring. Anyway hope I've given you everything you need, looking forward to hearing your take.