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Who will jump higher (same person so same body structure):

Same guy at 250 lbs and 500 lbs squat
Same guy at 150 lbs and 300 lbs squat

Off one leg ^^^

What about this:

Same guy at 200 lbs and 400 lbs squat with 15% bodyfat (less lean body mass but more powerful neural signals)
Same guy at 200 lbs and 400 lbs squat with 10% bodyfat (more lean body mass but less powerful neural signals)

First situation, assuming they have the same bodyfat percentage, the 250 pounder is much stronger than his squat is showing (he's also on tons of hormones), so he will jump higher off 2 legs. 1 leg has too many variables to have an answer for. Lebron jumps off one leg and he's not "skinny".

Second, it's the same thing. The guy with 10% is actually stronger, he is just worse at the squat. Neural signals for squatting may  have a carryover for jumping, but it's not a direct correlation, so the 2nd guy is jumping higher.


And LBSS, d-bol isn't good for that. Tren/hgh is good if you want to burn fat and put on tons of muscle.

Same guy at 200 lbs and 400 lbs squat with 15% bodyfat (less lean body mass but more powerful neural signals)
Same guy at 200 lbs and 400 lbs squat with 10% bodyfat (more lean body mass but less powerful neural signals)

At the end of the day, I'm putting money on the latter being able to jump higher. Firstly, you said it's the same guy so how could he have different neural signals? But let's go with the fact they do have different NS. There's no real information supporting the difference in jump height when looking at neural signal strength. The solid information is that these people are equally as strong and one has less fat and is therefore lighter and will produce more power for body weight.

If you weren't heavily concerned about your abs you would aim to optimize the ES/BW ratio slowly and steadily over time, regardless of which body composition comes along in the process.

It's not about looks at all. It's about what will get me jumping higher, quicker. Right now I'm about 12% BFP and not very strong. I believe if I were to get down to 8% BFP and get a little stronger by the end of the year, I'd be jumping higher than if I were 12% BFP and considerably stronger.

On a side note, as a volleyballer there's something I've noticed recently. After a tournament (3+ days), EVERYONE jumps higher. Last time I got a PR running vertical was directly after a 7 day volleyball tournament (involving lots of jumping). Last night I went back to the gym after several weeks off weight training due to being at a tournament. I was able to jump a near PR (higher than I was prior to the tournament anyway). What does this tell us? The focus needs to be less weight-related and more jump-orientated, I think.

I don't think doing plyometrics 24/7 is going to be a lasting training regime and one will plateau, but I think people are too concerned with strength gains and don't focus on jumping enough. Completely off-topic, I know.

Harvey, it seems like you're trying to find an excuse to not squat and strength train, when you are obviously not strong.  You just want an excuse to jump and diet to look good.  Maybe I'm wrong, but you'd definitely benefit from focusing on strength training while still jumping 1-3x a week.

A low bodyfat is an indicator for some other stuff that helps, endocrine efficiency, better CNS and so on and so forth. So when you see a guy with a low bodyfat being athletic, there are more reasons behind that than just the low bodyfat alone.

A guy with a 265 pound max squat is saying squatting didn't help him?

I think an important point is being missed in so far as single leg vs double leg jumping is concerned.

It's commonly stated that squat/bw ratios are less important for single leg jumping and that low bodyweight is of more importance for single leg jumping.

Realize this comparison is usually made between STANDING double leg jumping and RUNNING single leg jumping. 

If we compared standing single leg jumping vs standing double leg jumping the difference would go away. 

In laymans terms we can remember that any running jump involves (a) absorbing/translating force (speed) and (b) making force/speed quickly.   A standing jump starts with speed==0 and thus only has part (b).   

Obviously, the approach needs to produce speed and thus also requires strength.  Indeed strength/bw will help more in for a 2-step approach single leg jump than a 4-step and 6-step and so forth.  However, if you don't constrain the run-in length on a single leg jump you remove one of the benefits of strength/bw from the single leg approach jump.   We recently submitted a paper on the optimal atmospheric long jump model.... essentially it's a sprint model with the parameter for drive phase removed.  Because this parameter is removed it's not surprising that more athletes who have a more sleight build tend to perform well in the approach single leg jump.   Don't make the mistake of assuming it's necessary to forgo strength and focus on losing body-weight to achieve a high single leg approach jump.... Sleight builds succeed, but success does not necessarily make a sleight build.  Additionally, you can find great counterexamples in the decathlon, athletes of all build who achieve near elite marks in all types of jumps. 

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As far as weight loss, I advise most athletes against long-term significant weight manipulation.  Obviously, being obese is a bad idea.  But if you are training hard and have any type of energy system work in your training (volleyball games, basketball games, sprinting tempo work, etc) you should achieve a manageable weight without intentionally restricting food, with the one caveat that you shouldn't eat complete junk sweets or drink alcohol.   Athletes with no energy system work (Olympic lifters, jumpers who don't also run the 4x100) might have to eat slightly under their appetite to achieve optimal weight, but that depends on the individual. 

Short term weight manipulation definitely has advantages for all athletes (a semi-fast the night before high-jump competition and a little dehydration the day of the event can pay dividends in a competition; especially when foolish competitors do silly things like carb-load the day before), but trying to lose substantial amounts of bodyweight can have unintended consequences that usually outweigh the benefits.  Essentially, if you are fat, train hard, or don't eat completely horrible, then theirs a 95% chance you will lose weight.  When you stop losing weight from that prescription then it's time to get stronger.

Quote from: T0ddday on April 05, 2012, 06:40:04 pm

A standing jump starts with speed==0 and thus only has part (b).   

That simply is not true. It would be true for a paused standing VJ. But in a regular one, when you quickly bend down you HAVE to amortizate that as well. So it's not completely 0 speed.

Layman's terms.  Speed == Horizontal speed.  It's a long jump model.