Nine times out of ten, I’ll scan through facebook for a few minutes, and subsequently wish I would have used that portion of my life I can’t get back on something more productive, like finally learning music theory, attempting my family tradition of wood carving, or visualizing myself actually being able to grow a fu-man-chu.
Sometimes though, I’ll totally redeem myself and come across something completely awesome, which makes me feel the reward of the facebook lottery. This would be something like the following video I came across a few days ago:
Video courtesy of Ma Strength
So we all know that Olympic weightlifters “got hops”, right? Well, sure they do, but I’ve also seen some who don’t, at least nothing that is close to what their explosive strength levels would indicate.
Watching a group of Olympic lifters perform box jumps in the video at hand helps show us where the of Olympic lifting assists (and possibly hurts) vertical jump performance. Vertical jumping up to a box, believe it or not, requires a slightly different skill-set then a standing vertical jump to an overhead target.
Check out the short guy in the above video with the NFL combine vertical. His “load” (bottom) position replicates the starting position of a clean or snatch pull. Guess what, you don’t just naturally start jumping this way. It happens because that is the way your body moves hundreds of times each week, in this case, performing the Olympic lifts. Things that happen in the weightroom have a skill transfer to those things that happen on the field of play, especially when done in volume.
What are some advantages that the smaller jumper has over the bigger lifters, aside from his obviously higher relative strength levels, that lead to his vastly superior vertical?
- Better loading position. The smaller jumper hits a load position with his torso and shins at a fairly similar angle. The bigger jumpers have to load utilizing a more forward leaning torso position. Although this type of jumping strategy can be just fine for standing vertical leaps (I’ve seen guys clear 39” using it), it doesn’t work well for box jumps! In my experience, jumpers who maintain similar shin and torso angles during their leaping are more well rounded, and more “athletic” than those who hit the deep seat position with a very forward torso. They tend to be able to convert forward velocity to their moving jumps better.
- Better use of the feet. Perhaps even more important than the torso positioning, is what happens to this little guys feet during the course of the jump. Compared to the bigger jumpers, whose heels stay “glued to the ground” until the last second (a byproduct of pushing weight through the heel until the last second), this skill works its way into vertical jumping with unfortunate results. On the other hand, the smaller jumper has managed to retain the skill of pushing his heels off of the ground in the second half of the jump motion. Perhaps he has deep roots in another movement/sport background that have preserved his ability to get better force transfer from his feet? Regardless, the smaller jumper has distanced himself from the “rearfoot athlete” that this generation is beginning to see more and more of with the rise of traditional strength training methods incorporated in volume, particularly from an early level of development.
- Faster loading. A unique aspect of watching smaller athletes jump is the deep positions that they can hit, while still being able to reverse the movement quickly and powerfully. This is a skill that larger athletes will struggle to replicate. Obviously, the vertical jumps that are done from super deep positions will be high, but they aren’t all that useful in sport as they take too long to set up. By the time the athlete gets up in the air, the play might be over. Smaller jumpers can hit positions during standing jumps that are totally impossible for their larger counterparts. Check out a bit of what I mean from this video below of a 5’4 athlete with a 38” standing jump. The deep position that he hits is for a tall athlete, and even a shorter athlete without the correct muscle twitch type to be explosive out of that position that requires raw muscle power. Very impressive jump though (and he used the awesome French Contrast method to help him get it).
Final Notes and Suggestions:
I’ll use the last bit of this short article to make a quick point about lifting in general as a means to increased vertical jump ability.
Lifting really has three purposes when it comes to its influence on vertical power:
- Skill development
The role of lifting on skill development is the most immediate, and ultimately the most important of all of lifting’s roles in athletic performance. Although most coaches would just say “lift to get stronger” or “a stronger muscle produces more force”, athletic development is a little more complicated than that. Initially, the skill of lifting transfers well to athleticism, as muscles (and muscle groups) learn more efficient and powerful firing patterns. Beyond this initial (and quick) learning curve, the focus then becomes, how does the skill of this lift help (and possibly hurt) the jumping skill that I am trying to focus on? Clearly things like lifting “through the heels” doesn’t help to build the skill that many athletes are looking for when it comes to building a better vertical leap.
- Hormonal boost
Aside from the whole CNS and skill aspect of things, strength training provides a fantastic hormonal boost to the athlete, increasing circulating growth hormone and testosterone levels. It is for this hormonal boost reason that some coaches will keep the big lifts, such as squat or clean in a training program sparingly during the competitive season of performance. They will keep the lifts in just enough to provide a needed hormonal boost to the athlete, but use them little enough to keep them from tapping into the athlete’s adaptive resources that must be directed towards their sprinting or jumping ability and skill development. For some athletes, this might mean squatting only once every 10-14 days! On another note, this shows an area where lifting doesn’t have to be completely “sport specific” to bring about a benefit. At a low frequency of performance, general lifting isn’t going to negatively influence any sort of skill development, but it can still offer nice hormonal benefits and retain general strength and muscle mass levels.
- Structural development and influence on mass of type II fibers
Clearly there is at least other reason to lift weights for athleticism aside from the skill and hormonal reasons. Yes, lifting does produce stronger muscles, tendons and joints. This is important to the overall product of performance. I will say that the effect that strength training has for the most part is more muscular in nature; if you want to get a strong influence on the important tendons of jumping and sprinting (say the Achilles), you gotta get elastic reps in. Aside from this though, strength training has the capacity to help improve type II (fast twitch) muscle mass when done correctly. Sure, you’ll pick up a few ST’s along the way too (or a lot), but this isn’t terrible as far as jumping is concerned, as long as your lifting is in the ballpark of what it needs to be. Look at a shot putter (and other-wordly athletic beast) Werner Gunthor, former 22.75m shot putter, and also a 6’8 high jumper. The guy only had a genetic distribution of 40% fast twitch fibers. Through the proper training (which involved a bunch of strength work, obviously), he took the cross-sectional area of fast twitch fibers (not the distribution) up to over 70% of his muscle mass. For strength, speed and power, I would say this is a good thing. If you haven’t watched the Werner Gunthor training videos (a highly recommended view), you can check them out here.
Although structure and muscle mass Is important, without the required speed and power training, just lifting for the sake of lifting will leave athletes on the highly muscled, but low skill and elasticity side of sport.
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