End Week 2

This week I thought I had some really good workouts.  Didn't miss a single exercise this week.  Played basketball 4 times also. Legs felt pretty good and not overly sore so I was feeling pretty good about measurement time.  Got my vertech machine out and set up, did a good warm-up and stretch, legs feeling good.  Did my first jump which felt great, did each jump 3-4 times and felt pretty good so I went to my spreadsheet to see how I did... No gains... My standing went back to my original number and my other too stayed the same as last week.

Once I get more data I will do a proper line graph chart for easier reading of the entire program.

End Week 1            End Week 2

Standing: 24.5          Standing: 25"

One Step: 27"          One Step: 27"
Running: 27.5"          Running: 27.5"

So, needless to say I'm pretty bummed. I know there are many reason I could have no gains this week. First off, I understand that I am still pretty heavy. The amount of force that my legs need to generate to get my 200+ lb body of the ground is pretty large and I probably wont see the rapid gains like some other lighter people have had. Second, I probably played way too much basketball so my legs weren't as rested as they should have been.

Originally my goal was to finish a P90x/Insanity hybrid that I found, before doing Jump Manual, so I could drop the final 20lbs or so I needed to loose. But as I did it, after the first two weeks, I developed tendinitis in one of my elbows due to all the pull-ups. So I decided to do The Jump Manual first to give my elbow three months off and seeing if I can still loose weight. But I'm starting to think the weight may be more important to my jump then The Jump Manual... So I don't know what to do. I know with the times I did Insanity I always got discouraged the first couple weeks because the losses weren't happening, but by the 4-5 week the weight was starting to fall off. So I think I'm going to keep up with this program and not let one bad week discourage me too much and hope for larger gains in the next few weeks. And I will focus more on my diet and try to loose weight there.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading and any advice any of you may have.

End of Week One

Week one was a pretty good week for me as far as workout. I did almost the entire thing except I ran out of time on my strength and explosion workout and didn't get a few of the exercises in. I am a little worried I don't rest enough. I play basketball 3-4 times a week usually totaling about 4 hours a week. My legs are often a little sore, but I usually feel OK, but not fully rested the next day. It's really hard for me to say no to basketball especially because there are usually other guys depending on me to play so they can have enough guys.

As far as gains I fell pretty good. Lost a little on my standing: .5", but gained .5" on both my 1 step and my running. Nothing real special, but they seem like real gains. I'm actually measuring for week 2 (I started my week on Wednesday to work the best around my schedule). So I will see if I maintain those gains, or gain even more.

I took some video at the park for week 2 of me measuring at a hoop as well. It's a little frustrating though cause the hoop is actually 10'1" (yes, I measured it with a tape measure). So I don't get as high as I think I should. But I will get that up when I get it edited.

Anyway, here are the stats.

Starting Numbers:
Standing Vert: 25"
1 Step Vert: 26.5"
Running Vert: 27"

End of Week 1:
Standing Vert: 24.5"
1 Step Vert: 27"
Running Vert: 27.5"

Starting Stats

I actually started the program more then a week ago.  In fact today is my last day of the second week.  I'm way behind on posting, but I want to make this my official "beginning stats" post.

Height: 5'11.5" with shoes on

Standing Reach: about 7'8"

Weight: about 200lbs

Body Fat%: 17.5

Standing Vert: 25"

1 Step Vert: 26.5

Running Vert: 27

Here is a link to a video showing where I stood before the program.

A while back a few of us did a contest to measure vertical leap improvement.  None of us were great jumpers at the time, but we needed a way to measure accurately so my brother and I ended up building our own vertec type machine.  It worked really well. It has the ability to raise high enough to measure up to like 12.5' and as low as about 6.5"

I will post my first week results as soon as I get a chance.

And So It Begins...

So as I often do, I was browsing the internet looking for fitness advice, specifically in this case vertical leap training when I stumbled upon a few things that really got me motivated to really start doing this. Most of all though, I was inspired by a blog I found http://myjumpmanual.blogspot.com/. This seemed to be a guy in a similar situation to me now. Same height and a little older like me, though I'm sure he would say I'm still young, and has been able to get back to dunking again so it really inspired me to look into the Jump Manual, which I had already been eyeing for quite a while. So if you ever see this, this is all because of you.

I'm starting this blog with many intentions. I hope that it will continue to motivate me knowing that people may be watching. Also I hope that I may be able to inspire someone to go at it, like http://myjumpmanual.blogspot.com/ has done for me. It makes tracking and sharing my progress a lot easier as well.

My fitness life has been interesting the last few years, but first, a little history. Back in high school I played a lot of sports. I played basketball, football and did track where I did pole vault, high jump and the 200m. I was really athletic. I was able to dunk fairly easily back then. My highest measured vert (one step) was 37.5" though my average was closer to 35". I was only about 170lbs so it was much easier to get my body off the ground.

After high school my athletic career was pretty much over.  I got married and went off to college to study computer animation where I sit at a computer all day. I gained a lot of weight.  My highest was about 260lbs before I finally said, holy crap and decided to make some changes. Over the last two years I've lost over 65 lbs, about 40 of that in the last 6 months and about 15% body fat.  I did insanity 3 times and slightly changed my eating habits.  I gained about 4"-5" to my vertical on the weight loss alone. I'm hoping a little more weight loss and the Jump Manual can help me dunk again.

So just for fun, here are some pictures of my progress over the last year or so.  Kinda embarrassing looking back at it. Can't believe how fat I had gotten. Still have a long ways to go (want to get to 180-185lbs), but it helps me stay motivated.