Short Term Failure, Long term Success

Gained 10lbs and maybe a full inch of vertical...

Last week was amazing. i put in MAD WORK!!

Had possibly my highest jumping day ever yesterday to finish off the week and i want to recap everything that happened. From lifts and reps to mindset and focus.

SOOO going back to previous sunday i hit PR in squats which have been my main lift during this strength phase.

I hit 245 x 8. My goal was to hit 8 reps and then next squat day I'd up the weight.

After i hit the 8, i felt like i might need a deload week since my previous jumping days were worse than usual.

My thought process was thinking, strength went up and jumps went down, that equals lifting fatigue, which would imply i need to rest and deload aka drop weights for a week.

There were more specific details that led me to change my mind. During my recent bad jump days. My standing vert, and one or two step jumps were still getting up pretty well but it was my max approach jumps that felt worse. Talking with Daniel Back from Jump-Science.com he explained how this is more likely just some loss of elasticity than fatigue. This is normal when strength training. He also noted my lifting once a week heavy is not that much volume which is another indicator im probably not fatigued.

After replanning, I decided to rest up just a couple days and get right back to heavy lifting and just keep closely monitoring my jump days.

I rested monday and tuesday, stretching intensely both days. (Mobility/Flexibility has also been a big focus during this phase as i've also learned recently how important it is to increase my atheltic potential) Wednesday i went to 9'10.5" rim with a goal to get some light dunks, get my footwork back on point and feel some more elasticity. That day went poorly. i couldn't even two hand dribble dunk and i felt low even tho i took two full days of rest. This low day wasn't great for me mentally either since the last 2-3 jump sessions the previous week were somewhat low as well.

Now for the BREAKTHROUGH:

the next day (Thursday) my plan was to dunk on 9'11" to warmup for lifting and then squat heavy going for a 10lb increase from last workout (255lbs). As I'm dunking, my warmup jumps felt average as the past week of sessions felt, but i still felt low and it was hard to max jump. I kept pushing and decided to jump as hard as i can and not worry about my lifting because i really needed some good jumps not only to mentally feel like im still atheltic, but also to not let my body fall into the slow, body building type feel. i was also feeling HEAVY at 182lbs! I threw some high tosses and FINALLY had some max jumps. I had a huge windmill attempt i missed but i went FULL AGGRESSION! thats huge for me since its been a while since i felt that on this 9'11" rim. I finally felt like i had some full potential jumps. meaning i jumped as high as i did or pretty close to as high when i started this strength phase. It really felt like if i didn't push myself to the max my phase would've went downhill and i would've gotten worse and worse at jumping and i wouldn't have gained any benefit from strength training.

I left the court reminding myself I HAVE TO PUSH HARDER! THATS HOW I IMPROVE.

right after i started lifting and i started with 185 and then 255 for first working set and hit it x 7! my goal was 6 reps so 7 was huge! did two more working sets of 255 x 4 and 255 x 3. felt like a pretty significant increase. I did single leg deadlifts and chest and shoulders and abs and just had an insane workout pushing myself as much as possible. i feel l.ike those 2 days of rest and light jump day helped me have all the energy i needed to have a day like this.

I rested Friday (stretched of course)

Saturday the plan was similar to thursday but maybe dunk as good at least and possibly better and then do my secondary workout which is primarly seated goodmornings and split squats. I warmed up dunking on 9'11" and my first couple jumps felt crazy high. as in my first jumps of the day where i just touch the backboard with about 20% effort got up higher and easier! felt like it was gonna be a good day even tho i was crazy sore ENTIRE BODY was sore from thursday. ended up not jumping well. didnt really get that high at all and technique started to waiver. very expected tho since thursday was the workout of a liftime.... didn't think too much into and did my goodmornings and split squats.

That night before stretching i thought, i went pretty light today. maybe i should hit a low rim tomorrow and get my dunk technique back to 100. A HUGE FOCUS of this phase is not to let my athleticism and jumping fall at all. if only a little. I thought ok, let me get a good stretch in and if i wake up feeling BETTER tomorrow, then i'll go dunk. if i feel worse i wont. (or at least ill keep it super light)

So stretched well slept ok, and woke up feeling less dead. less body aching all over from full body workout.

THE DREAM DUNK DAY:

Sunday, I headed to 9'9" telling myself dont have any thoughts of anything less than KILLING THIS RIM. i even let my alter ego in my youtube videos do the dunking hahaha. i warmed up by playing one game i actually felt somewhat fatigued i touched the rim once or twice during the game during a dead ball. I honestly was worried i was going to have super dead legs like the giant workout and yesterdays workout were going to catch up to me. late in the game i was fully warm, i got the ball on the right wing saw no one in the paint so i did a hesistation move, blew by my defender and had my chance. Another stepped like he was going to jump with me but i was fully ready fully committed. He didn't jump and i just banged it. prob my hardest in game dunk yet. felt really good cuz i was fully confident as soon as i got past my defender. I was happy with that being my first full jump of the day. After the game i tried to do a drop step dunk and got rim stuffed. i was still worried. then i threw a lob and murdered so then i was thinking well even i jump like this i can have a good day. I ended having probably my best height check ever, weak tomahawk off dribble, hit an eastbay, almost killed a reverse pump the right way and more. Overall it was my dream to hit two hand dribble dunk, Eastbay and game dunk in one day and i did it.

Jumped probably around 43" and had some of my highest jumps ever. all while being close to 10lbs heavier from when i started this strength phase which is a huge piece to consider.

Still mid strength phase my body hurts today (monday) have some minor back spasms that act up when i jump so much.

GOALS:

My goal now is to add in hip thrusts and maybe hex bar deadlifts but continue to increase my Squat. I want to get up to at least 285 x 6. Focus on mobility and eventually be fully flexible. My mindset right now is keep MAINTAINING vertical and athleticism while i keep getting stronger. im going to keep increasing weight and volume until it really takes a toll on me. this principle im following is explained in my podcast with Daniel Back just youtube it or listen on any podcast app.

FAILURE:

Sunday was the day i set out to hit to hit a two hand tomahawk on 10ft off two feet in two months. I didnt really come close to that. But the act of setting that goal led me to where i am now and i've learned way too much from it as you see.

One huge thing is VISUALIZATION. At the start of this phase i hit two hand dunk on 9'11" which i back rimmed for over a year just because i believed. I got my first elbow hang on 9'9" just because i believed. I even hit my first 10ft two hand dribble dunk which i tried for 3 years!!! just because i believed! My training changed a lot after the first couple weeks from when i set the goal so i just have to adjust. Now i full believe i can achieve that dunk but im going to focus on jumping higher which entails getting stronger which may hinder my jumping in short term. Point being its hard to gage when exactly my strength will top out and then my jumping will be its best. Its all about balance and thinking LONG TERM!!!