This thread's goal is to answer some of your questions about your vertical leap. Understand, I can't dunk, I simply have studied the vertical leap for a long time. If you are devoted, and stick to a plan you will get up there. And here we go...
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A little bit about the vertical leap. Vertical is explosive power, and is found using this equation. Force x Velocity = Power. Realize, this means quickness and strength for an optimal jump. So, you more power you can use, in a smaller time, the higher you go.
Heres some more information. In your body, you have two types of muscle fibers. Fast twitch, and slow twitch muscle fibers. Fast twitch are used for things like sprinting, jumping, lifting. Slow twitch are used for stuff like jogging. So, it would make sense that to train your fast twitch muscle fiber to dunk, you would need to do weight training, and jumping. Don't think that since you went out and ran 2 miles you used your legs alot, and your going to be dunking soon. You may have just wiped out a days of weight lifting benefits.
Jumping uses a multitude of muscles. Almost too many to train it may seem. The most obvious and important being the hamstring (quads). Your lower back, arms, calves, glutes are also used. Many people think the key to a good vertical is your calves, wrong. They are about as useful as your arms. You may be confused by why your arms and back are so useful? Well, you swing your arms up, and as discussed, the faster you do that with more force, the more power you create.
I hope thats enough about your jump, except for one last thing. Realize, your genetics limit you. If your 5'7'' I'm sorry, but most likely you wont be dunking (still a chance, always try). But the truth is, you'd be amazed at what the body can do with simple, consistent training.
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I am breaking vertical jump training down into 5 sections for you to understand. Each is very important, and each shares key to success.
Weight Training - Plyometrics - Rest - Nutrition - Flexibility
Weight Training -
Weight training is a very good way to build up fast twitch muscle fibers. Many athletes, especially basketball players, don't realize the benefits of the gym. When I started going to the gym (granted I was, am still am, a weakling) I gained 3 inches within a couple weeks. Of course that slowed, but its just an example of a source that is often left untapped. There are a few lifts that are considered the best for a vertical jump. The main two being the squat, and deadlift. The squat is great, its almost a perfect lift for a jump. It will be your friend if you want to keep going up.
Plyometrics -
Plyometrics is basically the work of practicing your jump, and pushing it to its limits. If you play basketball for an hour, that is considered a great plyometrics routine. Even better is lowing the hoop, and stretching your dunk out as far as you can. There are also tons of work you can do with a box(jumping off it and up, jumping onto it repeatedly). Plyometrics is the most hard section to stick with, cause your sweating buckets if you get a box, some weights, and jump over and over. So be prepared, its fun.. but hard.
Rest/Nutrition -
I'm putting these two together. They are both short, and important. You will make no gains if you do not rest enough. You can train, train, train, but that doesn't change the fact that your body needs to build its muscles are you sleep and rest. On a rest day, you can do some light cardio, and it will be hard to stay still, but rest is the most overlooked aspect, and after rest you see your best results. Usually its every other day you rest (assuming you train hard) but after a few weeks you might take 2 or 3 days off. Nutrition is very much the same, your body can't build any muscle, and you yourself won't be able to perform unless you eat well, and most importantly take your vitamins. Protein powder is great also, as your muscles feed on protein, but its expensive, and results definitely can be obtained without it. So I'll skip it.
Flexibility -
You are limited by flexibility, and you can gain surprising results from just being flexible. The best way, is obviously, stretching. Stretch your legs, back, arms, but don't overstretch anything. The fact is, you will stretch a lot just doing your plyometrics, so in my opinion, you don't need to take it too far, but its good, and prevents injury.
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Now you are probably looking for a training regimen. Unless you want to piece something together on your own, knowing your body, its ok. But, here is what is regarded as the best vertical jump program out there. The author is also very intelligent, and provides multiple programs depending on your body. Just download as a pdf and it contains tons of jumping information aswell.
Good luck to you all, and any questions just ask.
[url]http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showpost.php?p=166555011&postcount=7[/url]
