Vertical Training's Letter Of The Day: S

When I study a subject, I like to get the big picture first - the overview and then

break it down into smaller bite sized chunks and study each one in more depth. We alredy know that vertical training involves lots of inter-related elements that function and interact together; there's no single magic pill. Let's take a look in a little more depth at the ones I call "The Big Four".

There's lots of components to jump training, so I thought I'd lay some of them out in a simple way for you to use in your own endeavours - whether it's in workout time off the court, or evaluating a new programme. Oh and by the way, they all start with the letter "S". (Told you it was simple.)

Strength

Strength and Speed are actually linked, but for the sake of breaking them down into useable chunks of information, I'm going to keep them separate. The bottom line is that strength training increases the diameter of your muscle fibre. Larger muscles are able to contract with more force, and yes you've guessed it, more speed.

There's a catch though; the best performance improvements come from more strength but with equal or less body mass. Think about it - gaining strength but putting on weight (i.e. the wrong ratio of muscle fibre to body fat) you just negated the effects of the increased strength. An increase in muscle size is probable. More belly fat isn't, and should be avoided. Aim for an increase in strength with some increase in lean muscle mass; this isn't Mr. Universe.

Speed

We already touched on this, but to re-iterate, you must work on contracting your muscles quicker in order to drive more force back through the ground for an explosive take-off. As I said - increased strength is one way to do this. If you remember our friend Newton from your Physics class, he said that Force was equal to Mass times Acceleration. Mass is equivalent to your body weight and acceleration is the change in speed that you achieve at the moment of take-off. Five points if you made the connection again between strength and body mass in vertical training.

Suppleness

Supple and flexible muscles expand and contract quicker. (See how this stuff all starts to link up?) The looser and more pliable your muscles are, the quicker the expansion and contraction, the more force you can apply to take off and the higher your vertical jump! Muscle movement is always achieved through the complementary action of two opposing muscles - the working muscle and the antagonist.

This essentially means that as one contracts (gets shorter) one must expand (get longer). In the case of a vertical jump, the Quadriceps at the front of the thigh have to shorten and the hamstrings have to lengthen. An increase in flexibility of the hamstring results in an increase in speed of elongation. Think of a rubber band, and how quickly it snaps through the air.

Supplementation

If you're involved in serious vertical training (and I assume you are if you're still reading) then you know that there's an optimal balance of protein, carbs, fat and fibre in order to keep the body fuelled and maintained. With the modern food chain being what it is however, adding a helping hand in terms of vitamins, minerals and performance enhancements (legal ones only) will speed up the performance improvement process.

It's a huge subject, and too large to tackle here. But I'll leave you with one question to ponder; What quantity of protein do you get through in one day? Most athletes I speak to just don't get enough. If you weigh 170 and you're eating under 100 grams of protein per day, it simply isn't enough.

by: Glenn Devey

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