By Sean Connolly
I was playing ball the other day, and I usually play with this guy who’s in his late 30’s who coaches a high school basketball team. Now, I’m faster and a little bit stronger than him and he still manages to out-jump me on every rebound. To be honest, I was sick of gettin’ embarrassed.
So, I tried to bring up why he jumps higher than me even though he’s like one inch shorter, but of course my pride came into play. I didn’t want to ask an advercary how he’s better than me. So, I initiated a conversation about the practice regimens he gives his kids. He starts talking about it, you know the same old same old…sprints, lay-ups, and passing. I start asking if he’s got any big guys, he said no, none at all. I laughed and said they must suck, to which he responded we went undefeated last season. There’s my opening. I asked him, ‘don’t your guys just get roughed up on the boards if they’re all short?’ He said ‘no, I got a secret. It’s something my dad taught me when I was a kid, and growing up I was usually the shortest but I could jump the highest.’
So here’s what he told me…
He said to do two types of vertical jumps in succession straight for like a minute and do about 5 sets a day.
- The first one you bend your knees and your hips and hold it for like 5 seconds before jumping, and then jump as high up as you possibly can.
- Then when you land you do the same bending but jump up immediately and then when you come down you do the jump where you hold it for 5 seconds, and so on and so on.
So, that’s it. I’ve been doing it for about a week now and I haven’t seen anything drastic yet but I haven’t played in a while. I think I should be able to get out and play sometime this week and hopefully I’ll see some sort of results, or at least get one rebound over this guy.
