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took my dad to the gym today because him falling and breaking his wrist at the beach finally threw the light switch that getting stronger is gonna be pretty important as he gets older. was great, i took him through a warm up, some basic lower bodyweight stuff and a couple of machines and then we stretched. his wrist is still much too fucked up to do much upper stuff but that's okay. wouldn't call it a workout but i got an hour of moving around and doing some mobility and stretching in.

my right knee felt fine all day until, after he left, i went back to do shoot around and do some jumping. it started hurting as i was walking back into the gym.

i'm starting to wonder if these intermittent pains are psychosomatic somehow. the damn thing still hurts as i type this. wtf.

EDIT 10/1:

RE: psychosomatic. thought about it more last night and this morning. my knee still hurts today, although not as badly. but i wonder if a lot of the lifetime of odd, apparently idiopathic aches and pains that i've had since i was a little kid is somehow related to fear of athletic inadequacy or underachievement. this is related to the realization i had toward the end of college that i'd really coasted through most of my life to that point: school was easy, tests were easy, i'm naturally "smart," without trying, in ways that society rewards, i'm good-looking, and to some degree i'm funny and personable. also white, straight, middle class, and a dude. everything is easy.

athletically, getting good enough to compete (but not win very much) at a high level of fencing was easy in middle school and high school. same for ultimate frisbee, at which i got competent but never great, despite having the basic tools to do so.

BUT.

but.

all that shit made me feel like a wuss. i got good enough grades, but my friends who got straight A's in college because they worked hard absolutely awed me. there is something special and amazing about putting your ego on the line to get really good at something, to try really hard and accept the possibility that your best effort might fail. that is why i started trying to dunk in the first place: it seemed hard and i was very far away from being able to do it. sticking with it all this time, even through all the wheel-spinning and dumb injuries and whatever, feels good even though i haven't gotten there yet.

some of y'all who've been around have heard this story before, but i'm coming back to it because i wonder if all the aches and pains i've had since i was a little kid have been a way for my body and brain to make an excuse for themselves. my shoulder's messed up. back's killing me. i'm getting a sharp pain in my knee on the swing phase. to be fair to myself, i have had my share of certifiable injuries -- separated shoulder, 5-6 ankle sprains, etc., plus arthritis for the past 5+ years -- and so i know what that level of pain feels like and i know that i don't just have a super low pain tolerance or something. but the random aches and pains, the idiopathic injuries like the one i've had the last few days in my right knee, are still beyond my ability to explain. so i wonder if at some subconscious level they're just from a place of fear, of excuse-making for not trying harder.

i doubt that that's the explanation. but it's a thought that's been with me for a long time and one that won't go away.

WEIGHT: ???
SORENESS: none
ACHES/INJURIES: none
MENTAL STATE: very good

- warm up

- DLRVJ x ~10-12
not great but that's to be expected after such a long layoff (>2 weeks) from ME jumping. reinforced the need to practice multiple times per week, i was floating the first couple steps until i took a break and watched vid (will post later). corrected the float and attacked a bit better after that.

- squat 275 x 3,3,3
short rests. solid but not explosive.

- superset x 3
-- DB OHP 50s x 6
-- pull up +10 x 6

- DB shrug 65s x 12,12

- stretch

i need to squat and jump multiple times per week to feel good and jump consistently. unfortunately, i'm heading to tajikistan and afghanistan later this week for a couple of weeks. i'll be in dushanbe for part of that time with access to the meh gym in the hotel, but for a lot of the trip i'll be out in the mountains and will have to resort to bw stuff and SL pogos and the like. guess i'll use it as a conditioning block.

your technique looks wierd, its like you want to jump RL but then in the last moment you switch it up to LR.. and its like you kinda collapse forward sometimes.. i think technique is the main thing thats holding you back..
you reminded me on ori biala, his jumps looked like yours, just the opposite plant and hand..
i have a friend whose 2 foot jumps also reminded me on yours- its like he doesnt know which plant to choose and looks like he collapses forward in knees on his jumps.. hes pretty good of one foot tho, how good is your 1 foot?

I agree with Merrick that you jump the way your body's strengths allow you to. I would also add to that that it seems your eccentric strength isn't up to par with your concentric strength. I think that's the case because of the way you naturally pause before the jump and maybe even the way you land (if that's not you deliberately not trying).

I'd suggest one day of eccentric strength work a week to balance out with how strong you are with the concentric portion. Maybe something like:

Depth drops
Eccentric squats focusing on purposely dropping with speed and catching yourself at the bottom
Eccentric bench press (same idea)
Etc

I think even if I'm wrong in what I'm seeing that would help your nervous system and body adapt to the absorbing force portion of the jump better and help you no matter what. But I think concentrically you're strong enough to jump higher.

Maminho, yeah I would imagine soccer players use their quads a lot with all the "breaking/changing directions" they go through.

Yeah undoubtable, I kinda noticed that slight pause before the jump too.  A slight deceleration.  It can just be from not having jumped in 2 weeks / CNS body not that primed / etc...  If not, then yeah reactive work probably would be the best fix.  I love me some eccentric squats too (real name is REA squats but whatever lol)

thanks for the feedback y'all. i posted these mainly as a record of what it looks like when my approach is off or bad. the problem is that i wasn't adding speed with each step -- you guys notice the pause on the last step but what sticks out to me is how high i was on the first couple of steps. instead of leaning in i was bouncing too much, or "floating" as i put it yesterday. then when i got to the last step i had to kind of hesitate to get low enough to actually jump up.

i don't know whether the hamstring stuff has had any effect, i haven't really done enough yet to tell. will continue with it for a while. i'm off weighted reactive/explosive stuff for a bit still given what i did to my back a few weeks ago. but it's worth thinking about depth drops in addition to depth jumps.

WEIGHT: 172
SORENESS: hams and glutes a little, more pronounced on left side
ACHES/INJURIES: none; right low back (higher up than SI joint) started saying hi a little, see below
MENTAL STATE: anxious

- warm up

- DLRVJ x a few
not great, soreness getting in way. 34ish.

- depth drop @28" x 4,4

- squat 175 x 20
solid, breathing hard but had at least 2 reps in the tank at the end

- dip x 19(TF)

- pull up x 10+3+3+3
harder than it should have been

- BB RDL x
started warming up and right low back was like no, be careful. bagged it.

- stretch

couple of things causing anxiety right now:
1. i think my boss is getting fired at this very moment. this is a good thing and something that i (along with others) have been agitating for for some time. however, it also means that i'm about to have a bunch of responsibility that i didn't today. i can do it but that's a little intimidating.
2. i have been missing my ex like crazy the last week. not sure how much that's affected by the nerves of planning for (1) and knowing that it was coming but not knowing when and having to act normal around the office all the while, but at any rate i had three dreams about her last week and have been much sadder thinking about her absence than i had in a while. one of the dreams literally woke me up, like a nightmare.
3. my brother is in really bad shape. he's not in the hospital right now but i'm (more) worried about him (than usual).
4. i'm leaving for two weeks in tajikistan and afghanistan on thursday and have an epic fuck ton of things to do while i'm there and will be underprepared for most of them.

did the dad hour against last night. got up a sweat, good easy movement, and a good stretch.