Adarq.org

Do you have a GHR machine?

yep. vid coming.

ETA vid of GHR and paused squats. notes:

i do not fire my glutes properly on GHRs. on the set after this one (it was the second of three) i focused on squeezing my glutes and extending my hips at the top and trying to maintain that all the way through. made the movement harder and i still lost some glute contraction at the bottom; transferred to hamstrings.

paused squats were just bad yesterday, this should not have been as ugly as it was. will stick with 285 next time but i'll be mad if it's not better than this. interesting to note that these are really full depth sans back rounding -- they don't look as deep as they feel. guess that's where the dorsiflexion comes in. you can see from old vids and the screen cap i posted that i don't usually lean this far forward. i came way up on my toes on the third rep. will do better next time.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6VvmllVvVk" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6VvmllVvVk</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03mF1JEpzj4" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03mF1JEpzj4</a>

haha sorry about the confusion with my screen name. didn't think about that acronym when i came up with it however many years ago. maybe i should just change it a la hyperdunk.

and yeah, avishek is just better at producing power than i am. his movements look lighter than mine, on hops and jumps he doesn't muscle through stuff the way i do. hopefully with bounding and sprints that will improve. on friday if it's not raining i'm going to hit up the track and measure out 40y and 60m. sprinting on turf in sneakers is not ideal. one thing avishek mentioned during our session was that he's gotten his best power development from working not on acceleration but on top-end speed. i should do more 60's, in other words, and fewer 40's.

WEIGHT: 176
SORENESS: none
ACHES/INJURIES: quads tight but not as bad as the other day, left hip tweaked while i was stretching right hamstring at the end. weird.
MENTAL STATE: okay

- warm up

- SVJ x 8
better than the other day, 25-26

- depth jump x 8
the space is wrong and it was crowded, hard to get a good full jump. mostly around 26 or a little higher, but these would have been better if i'd had more space

- SVJ x 3
nope

- MR half tuck x 30,30,30

- various leg raises, windshield wipers, etc.

- some DB upper body shit

- 15 double unders on the minute x 10
easy once i got the rhythm, too easy. hadn't done double unders in a while.

- stretch

should have been a track day today but it was pouring so i improvised. back tomorrow.

^ GHRS look great.  Awesome that you have those in your gym.  What kinda gym you train in?

Just to reiterate?  You primary goal is dunking and you are a two-footed jumper right?  If that's the case... Then I think for you and those like you that way to much emphasis is put on the similarity between squat angles and standing jumping angles.  Who cares about your standing vertical... your going to jump highest with a running start, so squatting isn't that specific to you.  Your pause squat look great although I disagree with Raptor that you need to focus on bar speed to go up in weight.   Don't let reps become all out grinders but push the weight up consistently, lift weights to get strong, jump, bound and sprint to get fast.   

I posted a video of some jumping practice I just did in my journal ( http://www.adarq.org/progress-journals-experimental-routines/t0ddday-journal/msg90151/ ) and realized my two footed jump truly looks nothing like my squat.  Not only is the depth way higher but on the best jumps I am almost twisted, my left foot plants slightly first and my right swings around with a bit of torque... Now this could be just a bad habit... but it still makes me think that while squatting helps it's really helpful because of the general strength and muscle building rather than the speed though a certain movement....

Could you tell me the meaning of your avatar? Is it a foot injury or something?

i have osteoarthritis in my big toes. both feet. that's an x-ray of the left one, which is the one that started hurting first. now the right one is worse.

@t0ddday and raptor:

thanks to both, good advices. t0ddday your plant sounds right, as raptor says. my plant is too much of a jump stop, something you can see easily in my vids or in person, as avishek can attest. not sure how to fix that other than practicing. SVJ is simply a measure of power, so i figure improving SVJ can't be a bad thing. if i'm unable to do any kind of running jump (like yesterday when it was pouring rain) then i'll do SVJ and depth jumps.

part of my problem with RVJ is that i'm overwhelmingly a LR planter, but my right leg is historically bigger and stronger than my left. whether that's from years of fencing, or what, i don't know.

ETA: if lance or alex v comes in here, would love to hear some thoughts on the GHR vid.

also, my gym is a pretty ordinary gym except their roots are in fitness boot camps and "functional training." so there's the normal machines and treadmills and stuff, but also i think 8 squat racks, an oly platform (getting another one soon), at least two GHRs, med balls, kbs, etc.

Ghr looks pretty good, youre already doing them better than most.  Drive your toes into the pad HARD as you come up, drive your hips through the pad more.  Youre letting your hips come back a little on the way up taking some of the glute drive away.  A good cue to get the calves and glutes working correctly is to "pinch" the foot plate with the first toes, then drive holes in the plate with them.

Guys like yourself will get more out of squatting explosively than naturally fast and explosive types.  There is a lot going on, but to put it simply you have to teach your nervous system to be fast and powerful under high stress/high loads and not shut down, its not as reactive or "natural" as some of the springy type athletes who have different genetic set ups. 

You can tell pretty easy who is which type of athlete by the speed of the run up they come in with.  Guys that get more out of squatting more explosively will be the ones that tend to "ease"  into the counter movement.  This stands for the standing vert as well.  You can find different opinions on why this is,  a solid theory is that one type of athlete is relying more on muscular contribution, while the other is more tendon/springy in nature.  The guy getting more out of his tendons is not going to get the same turn over from squatting explosively as the guy not as gifted in that area will.  It is extremely valuable to the second type of athlete.

Ghr looks pretty good, youre already doing them better than most.  Drive your toes into the pad HARD as you come up, drive your hips through the pad more.  Youre letting your hips come back a little on the way up taking some of the glute drive away.  A good cue to get the calves and glutes working correctly is to "pinch" the foot plate with the first toes, then drive holes in the plate with them.

Guys like yourself will get more out of squatting explosively than naturally fast and explosive types.  There is a lot going on, but to put it simply you have to teach your nervous system to be fast and powerful under high stress/high loads and not shut down, its not as reactive or "natural" as some of the springy type athletes who have different genetic set ups. 

You can tell pretty easy who is which type of athlete by the speed of the run up they come in with.  Guys that get more out of squatting more explosively will be the ones that tend to "ease"  into the counter movement.  This stands for the standing vert as well.  You can find different opinions on why this is,  a solid theory is that one type of athlete is relying more on muscular contribution, while the other is more tendon/springy in nature.  The guy getting more out of his tendons is not going to get the same turn over from squatting explosively as the guy not as gifted in that area will.  It is extremely valuable to the second type of athlete.

word, thanks for the cues on GHR.

i'm not sure what you're saying about what i'm doing, in that vid or more broadly; what would you recommend? i'm already trying to increase my emphasis on speed stuff through the bounding and sprinting. t0ddday's point about squatting to get strong and sprinting and jumping to get fast and...good at jumping makes sense to me but i'm wary of it because that sounds like a quick way back to focusing too much on the squat.

@alexv thanks for the feedback. i figured out the iso hold from the top + slow descent thing but i haven't tried those intermediate holds. sounds like a good plan. i'd like to think that my lower abs are reasonably strong and that the problem is more with my hip flexors restricting full extension throughout the movement. regardless, i can obviously improve in both areas.

Guys like yourself will get more out of squatting explosively than naturally fast and explosive types.  There is a lot going on, but to put it simply you have to teach your nervous system to be fast and powerful under high stress/high loads and not shut down, its not as reactive or "natural" as some of the springy type athletes who have different genetic set ups. 

You can tell pretty easy who is which type of athlete by the speed of the run up they come in with.  Guys that get more out of squatting more explosively will be the ones that tend to "ease"  into the counter movement.  This stands for the standing vert as well.  You can find different opinions on why this is,  a solid theory is that one type of athlete is relying more on muscular contribution, while the other is more tendon/springy in nature.  The guy getting more out of his tendons is not going to get the same turn over from squatting explosively as the guy not as gifted in that area will.  It is extremely valuable to the second type of athlete.

This is really interesting. 

Does this mean that if you come into the counter movement fast that there is no benefit to squatting?   I haven't always measured my vertical but I could always jump at least 36 inches while squatting 205 or 405...  If anything I've found only that squatting directly helps my vertical jump from a low pause... something which isn't very good anyway.   Because I have never seen a direct correlation with myself or any of the sprinters I have worked with...  I've always figured the carryover was indirect general strength.  The only guys I have seen jump much higher after squatting are usually somewhat poor athletes to begin with; and there are so many variables (fat loss,etc) for beginners.   Personally I feel squatting helps the sprints moreso just because the ability to handle fatigue during multiple rep squat sets carries over well to sprinting.


How much evidence is there that there are guys who use less tendon by nature?  I've just always assumed that guys who "ease" into the counter movement that you describe are just guys who are not yet coordinated at jumping correctly.  Give them practice and everyone will jump with similar optimal mechanics.   I mean you don't have sprinters who muscle up the track or long jumpers who approach the board slowly!  There is some difference in jumpers as far as how much slowing is done during the penultimate step.... but they are all storing a lot of energy.   I can't imagine someone really training the jumps and sticking with mechanics that don't look springy.  Even poor jumping decathletes don't appear to be jumping without building up a lot of energy.   

Perhaps being involved in basketball gives you a unique ability to study these kind of athletes in the two footed jumps.  I guess basketball has so much more to it than jumping that you will have high level players who aren't capable of jumping in an explosive manner?  And these athletes can make more gains by getting stronger than they can changing their mechanics to store more energy?  Never thought about it like that.

Also, if  LBSS can get more out of squatting because he is a more "deliberate" jumper, then would you argue that he will also be a better vertical jumper and dunker (where you need to be deliberate and controlled to coordinate the movement) then someone who jumps with more speed?