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.