Post: #1

Dunking a basketball has been a dream of mine since I was a little kid. I want to accomplish this by the end of 2017. Given my obvious disadvantages, this will be a very challenging goal for me, but I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility.

As I mentioned in this thread, I recently made a commitment to myself to stop playing poker, a vice which had been eating up a ton of my free time and slowing my gym progress for years. It's not just a personal commitment - I banned myself from all NJ casinos for the next 5 years to ensure I don't fall back into it. I'm more motivated than ever to make the most of my free time and accomplish a physical goal I can be really proud of.

Stats

Age: 30
Height: 5'8.5"
Weight: 195 (~16% BF)

Strength

Squat: 4x5 @ 315 (need to test 1RM)
Deadlift: 1 @ 385

Sub-Goals:

• Weight Loss - I need to drop 15-20lbs.
• Strength - I would like break 400lbs in both my DL and squat.
• Plyometrics - I will study and follow the most applicable program from the Vertical Jump Bible
  

Even as fat as I am, I can easily smack the base of the rim with my whole hand and even occasionally graze the bottom of the ring every once in a while. I'm a two-foot power jumper, so I'd be looking to dunk off the bounce. I'd estimate I need another 10-12" of vert in order to put down an ugly one.

I'll be posting some more initial measurements here as well as some progress, workouts, etc.

Would love to hear feedback from any dunkers, especially short and old ones!

Post: #2

I could dunk till I was about 33. I was 6 ft, about 170. Not in a game. Had to hold the ball and run up and convert forward motion to upward motion. Off two like you.

Pretty long time ago. Did it just with playing and jumping a lot, as well as dunking on a low hoop at a friend's house.

Using leg machines did help.

Seems like sports science has come so far since then, there must be proven, specific exercises by now designed to increase your vertical.

This isn't mentioned in your post. Have you looked into them?

You are starting pretty late in life at this. When I was a kid in high school, back in the day, I could just about touch the rim. This was the seventies and we just thought that dunking was for big guys.

Then we saw this picture on the cover of Sports Illustrated of Sidney Moncrief:



None of us could believe it. Here was a guy only a few inches taller than us (6'4") cocking the ball behind his head and throwing it down with two hands like a big man. Look at the joy on his face, taking flight.

It was like seeing magic. This little guy dunking like he was Darryl Dawkins or something:







After that our mindsets changed and we thought, if he can do that, maybe we can at least dunk one handed, and everyone started trying.

Not gonna lie, only some ended up improving their vertical leaps, so there is an element of genetics to it. But there was one kid who was only about 5'10" who went from not dunking to being able to do it in games.

What I would do, if I were you, is research exercises specifically designed to increase your vertical leap, do them, and keep playing and jumping and have fun with it.

Your knees will give out on you soon enough, so take care of them, and have fun while you can. Jumping is fun. Playing basketball is fun.

Shoot for the dunk, and if it happens or not, at least you set a goal, worked hard, and had a good time.

Remember the joy on Sidney Moncrief's face.

Post: #3

Not a dunker here, but a (former) two-foot jumper.

My biggest gains always came from front squatting. Ignore all the "posterior chain" hype online. If you're a two-foot jumper, the power comes mainly from your quads and glutes. Yes, you should train your hamstrings but that's mainly for knee health. So no low bar squatting or box squatting.

Also, the vertical jump is very CNS intensive. It will never improve much if you are lifting/jumping/playing basketball 5 times a week. I would stick to a maximum of 3 days a week of lifting/jumping practice. If you are playing/practising basketball, there's even very little need for dedicated jump training or plyometrics.

For the same reason, I would ditch the deadlift. It gives way too much CNS fatigue in return for the strength gains it provides. The exercise combo I prefer is: hip thrust + front squat + romanian deadlift

And finally, don't forget mobility and tissue quality. Do an extensive active warm up (focussing on hip and ankle mobility) before your training, stretch thoroughly afterwards, foam roll your legs once a week.
Also, walk barefoot as much as possible and roll your feet on a small hard ball to loosen them up.

edit: as debeguiled said, your knees will start complaining sooner or later when you're jumping enough. Don't ignore them and ease down when it happens.

Post: #4

(07-12-2017 12:16 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  I could dunk till I was about 33. I was 6 ft, about 170. Not in a game. Had to hold the ball and run up and convert forward motion to upward motion. Off two like you.

Pretty long time ago. Did it just with playing and jumping a lot, as well as dunking on a low hoop at a friend's house.

Using leg machines did help.

Seems like sports science has come so far since then, there must be proven, specific exercises by now designed to increase your vertical.

This isn't mentioned in your post. Have you looked into them?

I've been interested dunking and increasing my vert for as long as I can remember.

I've bought Jumpsoles:

   

And a number of online guides, jumping routines, squats, etc. I haven't delved too deep into it yet, but the guide I linked to in my OP has a ton of exercises and routines based on an individuals strengths and weaknesses.

I used to give up too easily - I've just never had the focus to follow through on a tough long term goal until recently. Basketball is my passion and I still play 2-3x per week. I would never let this goal cause me to injure myself or take away from playing - however, its a measurable goal that gives me a reason to continue to lift heavy 3-4x a week and keep the discipline needed to cut down to <180lb.

Thanks for your post.

Post: #5

I'm couldn't dunk, I couldn't even play basketball very well, but I had an incredible vertical leap. I was(am) only 5'8" and could touch the rim with my finger tips up until I was in my mid 30's. I also have long arms.

Post: #6

Back in high school I could dunk from a standstill at 6'3"/230. Obviously your challenge is different, but what I found helped me the most was simply jumping practice. Twice a week, usually high intensity and low-to-medium volume. Only a little of it plyometrics, which is very hard on your body and CNS.

Post: #7

I'm 6'4'' and can reach above the rim without a problem. My main issue is that I always loose the ball going up because of sweat, little grip strength or something else. I'm almost 35 now and it just seems impossible now. When I was younger I could dunk btw.

Post: #8

Have you consulted your boy Steve on the topic yet?



Seems like he knows whats up.

Post: #9

You don't need to get that high above the rim. All you really need is two inches and you can kinda finger tip it in the rim. You really probably only 5-6 inches to get there.

-Main workouts you should do are leg and core focused.
-Plyos
-Sprints. Almost everybody I know that sprints fast can jump high and vice versa.
-Hire a coach that can teach you proper form. I remember in track I was practicing long jump for a meet to see how I would do. Did this with a few other people. Our high jump/long jump coach. He gave us all tips and had a trick to make our form right. Everybody increased their long jump 2+ feet in 2 or 3 practices just from proper form.

Good to remember just because you can dunk doesn't mean you will in games. Height was the main reason why a dude like Nate Robinson was good in dunk contests but almost never dunked in games.

Post: #10

OP this is a great read..should help you out in what you need to be doing for the next 6 months.

https://www.si.com/longform/2015/dunking/index.html

Post: #11

(07-12-2017 06:32 PM)Freddy_1 Wrote:  OP this is a great read..should help you out in what you need to be doing for the next 6 months.

https://www.si.com/longform/2015/dunking/index.html

Holy shit. What an inspiring read!

Post: #12

Buy a small trampoline - it's easier that way.

Or second best - you wait for your next incarnation and ask to be 7 ft tall and athletic.

Seriously - interesting goal - at least it gets your T-levels up and you slim down - all good reasons by itself.

Post: #13

Played college ball. Just work out explosively. I couldn't dunk until I started squatting. Squat through your jumping motion. Don't try to do the cross fit squat with your ass in the grass. Jump squats will help. Pair with plyometrics and you'll be dunking in no time.

Post: #14

Saturday Workout:

Went for my 1RM on the squat today around 9am, got 335 for the first time with good form and no real difficulty. Went for 345 and got it pretty easily. Decided not to go beyond that because I didn't like the rack I was using and wanted to be safe.

Aside from a teaspoon glutamine after the gym, didn't eat breakfast until after 12pm (Spinach and fruit smoothie + 3 egg plain omelette). I'm trying figure out the best window for intermittent fasting that doesn't cause me to have an empty tank for my workout.

My most critical short term goal is cutting some of this weight.

Post: #15

Eddie - hire a coach. It shouldn't run too much, since the plan to get you there would probably be 60-90 days. I have one, former Olympian t&f guy that is now a coach. Was in NYC now LA. Can do everything Skype and email.

Post: #16

Hey Eddie,

Good luck with your new goal and let me throw out some of what I know and what I've heard on the topic because in some ways I am very similar to you.

I began trying to dunk around 15-16 which if I remember correctly was when I was grazing the rim for the first time. I didn't truly take athletics seriously up until that point, but I had played basketball for a while before that. I was shorter than now at that age, but I am now at my tallest which is 6'1.5'' to be exact. I was probably that height by 17. At that age, which is the end of when I cared about basketball and dunking I was about 195 lbs, not super ripped but pretty lean and somewhat muscular. I also have what I think are medium length arms and lower set shoulders so I have often found that shorter guys than me have a vertical reach as high or around mine for whatever reason.

The furthest I ever got was being able to dunk a volleyball by myself and a basketball with an alleyoop, but I couldn't do this every time I wanted to. I could stand under a regulation rim and without any forward motion jump up and grab the rim with both hands and hang without too much effort, but not so easily that I could do it every single time.

I, like you, am also a two foot jumper so any running to build momentum does nothing for getting me to jump higher. As I'm sure you know most guys that dunk easily use one leg to do so. At my peak lower body strength at that age, which is the last time I really tested my jumping/dunking abilities and when I was 190 lbs, I could do a 1 rpm of 405 lbs on the squat to a pretty low position and come back up with no assistance.

As far as training went I mainly did all sorts of plyometrics for the lower body, and the staple of my routine was unweighted squat jumps (also called frog leaps) where the goal was to squat down and explode upward and forward. I bought the jump soles you mentioned and used them as well, although probably less than 50 times. I also lifted weights a lot, particularly for my lower body. In the weight room I had the strongest lower body of any of the basketball teams in my high school as a sophomore, even including the entire varsity.

None of this directly translated into me becoming a particularly high jumper. I still to this day do not believe a strong lower body in the weight room is what leads to jumping high vertically. Does it help? I'm sure. Are there guys that have beastly legs that can jump very high? Sure. But there are also guys that have incredible lower body strength that can't jump for shit. I had a friend that was about 5'10''-5'11'' that could squat as much as me and never in his life touched a regulation rim.

I have met three VERY VERY good jumpers that I have gotten to know personally and they all told me basically the same thing, and two of them said exactly the same thing. These are guys that never met each other.

1st guy: He was in my high school an older than me. His sophomore year he was on the sophomore team and while he could play well, he wasn't anything special and wasn't known for his jumping at all. By the end of the summer after sophomore year he got a couple of inches taller and suddenly was dunking. He moved up to the Varsity team the next year and was the first guy in the school to go from Sophomore basketball to Varsity (although it was a relatively young school at the time). I think his height peaked at 6'3'', and by that time he could literally jump up in any given scenario and dunk with both hands with ease. Venezuelan guy. He told me that what he did was he would do 1 leg calf raises in his room and with no weight for so many repetitions that he had trouble walking the next day. Like literally don't even count reps, just do them so many times that your muscles cannot physically do anymore.

2nd guy: I met him at a gym where there was a basketball court. He was probably around my height, 6'1''ish, give or take an inch. He had a pretty big gut for a basketball player and if you looked at him you would just think he was a big out of shape guy and that he didn't play sports and wasn't athletic. He probably weight 250 lbs or so at that height. This guy was the most unique jumper I've ever seen. Not that he was the highest jumper, but he literally had a hang time that was unreal. It literally looked like he was floating several feet into the air like a cable was attached to his back and was pulling him up. At that height and weight and shape he could jump from many feet away (although I wouldn't say the free throw line because I never saw it and that would be a stretch) and dunk powerfully with both hands. Like if you saw the guy you would think he never saw a gym, but his jumping ability was like a pretty good NBA point guard's. Like I'm saying for his height equivalent in the NBA he could easily jump as well as the top 50% and maybe into the top 25%. He was a Persian guy that had played junior college ball at some tiny school in California. He told me the EXACT same thing as the first guy. Calf raises on one foot at a time until you have to sit down and ice your calves.

3rd guy: A very short East Asian-American guy. He claimed he was 5'9'', but I would guess closer to 5'8''. I don't want to get specific, but he ended up getting playing time at one of the most storied and historically powerful division 1 college basketball schools in US history. I think he ended up playing overseas after. When I met him he could almost effortlessly dunk with one hand. After a year or two he was jumping up and dunking with two hands like he was 7 feet tall. I don't know how his jumping skills got better since I met him as an 18 year old, but I do know what he told me when he was already dunking easily with one hand back then. He used to be able to jump up and kick the bottom of the net with his toes. He said he practiced nonstop since he was young jumping up and kicking something high like Bruce Lee did in one of his movies where he broke a ceiling lamp by jumping and kicking it.

Based on all of this, although I can't confirm it from personal experience, it leads me to believe two things help vertical jumping and particularly dunking most, and they are intense calf work and understanding the mechanics.

I was told by several guys that I knew that I could easily dunk if I just figured out how, and these are guys that were dunking themselves. I would suggest, as far as mechanics go, that you gradually get used to dunking larger and larger objects. The best way I know is to start with trying to dunk a tennis ball and when you accomplish that to move on to a volleyball, and then on to a basketball. One problem I had with a basketball is that it is large and heavy, so because my hands weren't too big I would have needed another few inches of jumping ability to dunk with basic ease.

Aside from that I would do the calf raise thing with no weights that these guys recommend. If two phenomenal jumpers that I don't think were genetically too predisposed to jumping like that told me the same exact thing and never met each other I would imagine it contains some truth.

Also another poster mentioned sprinting and how he never heard of a good sprinter that couldn't jump well and vice versa. I completely disagree with this based on personal experience, others I have seen, and theory. Personally I was a better sprinter than jumper. I never ran track, but I played sports with guys that were our 100m sprinters that did well in the district and we raced a few times. I was slightly beneath their level to where I could have probably done a leg of the 4 x 100m with them. None of these guys could jump nearly as high as me because they never focused on jumping (they were football/track guys). Then I know of guys that could jump out of the gym and seemed to be running in slow motion at all times.

I do agree that explosive running and jumping are certainly related, but they are different. To me, based on my experience, saying jumping and sprinting are directly related is like saying a guy with a strong upper body in the gym will have a strong lower body. Does a strong upper body normally go with a strong lower body? Sure. Most guys that are particularly strong are generally better than average throughout their body. But there are many guys with only one or the other as well. Yes, working out any muscle does contribute psychologically and chemically to growing others, but not as directly as doing specific training for one or the other.

I am not saying don't sprint, all I'm saying is if you want to jump focus on jumping. I am sure Usain Bolt can jump higher than just about anyone on this forum, but I doubt he could within a year of training break an olympic record on the high jump, and we are talking about a legend at arguably the most explosive events in sports.

Post: #17

7/17:

After pigging out like a slob at my company picnic Friday night, I promised myself I'd start intermittent fasting Saturday. I've done well since. I weighed in at 190 this morning compared to 197.5 on Saturday morning. I drink a ton of water and had been eating a ton of salt - even still I'm shocked that I could shed 7 full pounds of water weight in two days.

Hit the gym this morning to shoot around. I was able to touch the front of the rim after about 8-10 warm up jumps. My form looks nothing like the guys I see in the vertical jump training videos, so I would guess it is far from ideal. I'm still 15lbs overweight and haven't done explosive jump training in 8 years.

If I stay committed and train smart I don't think this is impossible.

Post: #18

(07-15-2017 05:25 PM)StackGsMan Wrote:  Hey Eddie,


None of this directly translated into me becoming a particularly high jumper. I still to this day do not believe a strong lower body in the weight room is what leads to jumping high vertically. Does it help? I'm sure. Are there guys that have beastly legs that can jump very high? Sure. But there are also guys that have incredible lower body strength that can't jump for shit. I had a friend that was about 5'10''-5'11'' that wasI

Heavy squats done on the regular will FUCK you vertical up bad.

Recovery time for a good lower body workout for me was it least 5-6 days. I was squatting 160kg on 5 x 5s and while it felt great I lost a good 6 inches off my vertical leap. My center of gravity felt lower and I actually felt fucking fantastic getting up and down the court (felt faster than ever) but my elevation had gone completely.

I stopped doing squats for a few weeks and my vertical came back. Weighted step ups and jumping rope with ankle weights improve my vertical from about 25" to 33" inches running off of one foot. My standing vertical was only 22 inches.

Post: #19

I have not read the whole thread, but at 6'3 and 200 pounds I still have the dream of dunking one more time in my life. I am 50 years old... I began dunking at 6'3 and 170 pounds. I could dunk off of both feet and off of one foot. the best way to impriove my one foot dunking was very simple--- RUNNING... I ran one summer every other night for about 40 minutes and by the time I went back to school I could jump like crazy and dunk with ease... I improved my vertical 2 foot jumping by jumping and touching the back board with one hand ten times in succession. the trick was to be in good control of my body. Eventually I kept doing sets of this and began touching it with two hands... it worked but took a bit longer than dunking off of one foot...... good luck