I played basketball in college with a 5’10” skinny white boy who, with no step mind you, could jump and touch the top of the square on the backboard. Measuring that would be the equivalent of a 48” vertical leap with no step! He was the star of our team and could dunk over even the tallest of players. He seemed to fly and hang in mid-air. It was incredible! I’ve never seen anyone replicate how effortless he could soar. (Not even Jordan or Vince Carter, both of which I have seen play live and on TV; neither could do what he did and I’ve never seen it since.) Needless to say his jumping was legendary and I demanded to know if it was natural, a genetic freak of nature, steroids (which I ruled out quickly since he weighed only maybe 135lbs) or what secrets did he know or do to get that high in the air! After pestering him for something of his secrets to jumping, he finally gave me the 3 secrets he used to gain his incredible explosive jumping: (And it needs no weights, money, or strange contraptions! To my surprise!)
The First: Running Hills
He told me that he had seen an interview with the great running back Walter Payton where he testified to the outstanding benefits of simply running hills. Payton lived close to a giant hill and every off season his only exercise was running up and down this hill. He stated how running up an incline while trying to sprint as fast has he could had built his legs and tendons so strong it allowed him to almost have super human strength and speed on the football field. Using this principal for basketball, my friend said within the first year of his high school freshman year, his vertical went from a natural 28” to 35” just by running hills. What he attributed also was the concentric movement of running back down the hill. While running back down the incline, his leg muscles, knee tendons, butt, quads and hamstrings were all in use and strengthened by forcing to slow and stop gravity’s pull on his body. This put his muscles in a concentric contraction, that he claims gave him his super explosiveness. He told me he did 3 sets of 10 hills Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. To gain over 10” inches more on his vertical leap before the end of his high school career( which BTW his team won the state championship in ’87) he added the following to his hill running regimen.
Watch Walter’s unnatural ability and explosiveness Running Hills have allowed him to achieve. Especially Watch him jump so high over the line of scrimmage.
Second: Interval sprinting
To increase his vertical leap even higher, he combined his hill running with interval sprinting. Interval sprints is merely exploding out to an all out sprint for maybe 10 or 20 yards, then stopping and walking for another 10 yards, then exploding out again as fast as you can go for 40 yards or so, then walking 10, then exploding and finish with 60 or 80 or even 100 yard dead sprint. What my friend did to add to the effectiveness of his hill running was combine the interval sprints with his hill running. So he would find a 100 yard steep incline hill or so and start at the bottom. He would sprint all out for 20 yards up the hill, then walk 10 yards still moving up the hill, then explode out and run 40 more yards, walk 10, then finally ending with as fast as he could go 100 yards finish. Then jog back down the hill forcing his moment to be slowed by his legs coming back down. He again stated he could do about 10 reps of up and down being 1 rep, combined with the interval sprints, for three sets, every Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays every off season.
Third: Hanging Sit Ups
Here was the exercise I personally saw him do all the time, and he even had me hold his feet sometimes while doing it. What he did was on his bed he would hold his feet down and then with his top half hanging off the side of the bed, he would lower his body til his shoulders hit the ground and then did a sit up motion all the way up. This would stretch out his stomach muscles out beyond the natural sit up position, then he’d explode up doing a sit up with much more degree of movement. Also the mere act of someone holding down his feet caused him to put a concentric flex on his Quad muscles. Here’s the closest video I could find to show how these were done. However, my friend did them on the side of the bed with someone holding his feet down. He also told me he had a rope on his bed at home that he would use to hold his feet down. Try them, they’ll kick your ass real quick.
Bonus Knowledge:
Stretching
He was always stretching out. He believed in being limber as he could be so before and then after his hills and sit ups etc he would stretch out his legs completely. I would see him be able to stand upright and then, with knees straight, be able to place his head down to his knees. His hands could touch all the way under his feet.
The String and a Nut
Another thing he told me was: On his home basketball goal, he nailed a large 16 nail half way into the top of the side of his wooden back board. Then he would wrap a string around the nail and tie a Bolt Nut (Just to add a weight, could also be a fishing weight etc) on the other end of the string and wind the string around the nail until the nut hanged down to about the bottom of the backboard. Without a step he would jump straight up and see if he could touch the Nut or end of the string at whatever height it was. If he touched it, then he would wind the string up one turn and try to touch it again. All off season each time he touched the bolt, he would wind it up higher and higher and leave it at that height until he really had to work hard to touch the bolt. This also gave him a progressively higher target to strive for and a goal to reach. He told me the height of the end of the string was like and Olympic event for him which he would celebrate when ever he touched it and got a new “record” height to try to touch next. Also he would mark the first days height he was able to reach with a black marker just over the side of the nail, then as he would get higher and higher he would mark the ending height before the basketball season started and then unwound the string measuring the difference between the first mark and the last. This instantly gave him how much his vertical leap had improved that season!
