A Year in Review - Part Two
Physical learnings from a year preparing to dunk a basketball
Hello, dearest reader!
As promised in my last post, and at the behest of no one, here is part two of my year in review. If you missed the first part, you can find it here. It’s important to be up on that so that you’re not lost with my sophisticated scoring system 🐰
If you didn’t read the last post and don’t care enough to go back to it, I’ll get you quickly up to speed. The premise of this post is part two of a reflection on what I would do differently after a year of trying (preparing? Working towards? Striving? Hoping?) to dunk a basketball. With that out of the way, let’s jump into it!
Training Approach
Rewind to last year. I wanted to dunk a basketball. How does one go about such a superhuman task? My thoughts around trying to dunk went as follows:
I need to be really strong to do this
My body needs to move in ways it never has make this happen
There will be underutilized muscles involved that will be essential (hello, hips!)
There’s a good chance I hurt myself
So, with these thoughts in mind and a chat with a physical therapist under my belt (thanks Dr. Andrew!) I started on plyometrics and followed the Knees over Toes philosophy. This led to a lot of silly-looking jumps and exercises that strengthened muscles like the tibialis, hamstrings, and hip flexors. If that sounds niche and hyper-regionalized, that’s because it is. Weird lifts, weird jumps, weird new muscles! There were, eventually, levels of satisfaction in completed sets of nordic curls like the ones below, and improved progression on the ATG split squat. I’m definitely way more mobile than I was, and areas of weakness are now areas of strength. Growth!
But this post is about things I would do differently, and I think after just a few months of this I could have pivoted to incorporating strength training and seen quicker progress. My squat is great today, and the range of motion is great, but that could have been done a lot quicker. As longtime readers of this ‘stack know, the initial Dunk Day was supposed to be November 30th of last year, and we’re pushing past 10 months of that date. The progress has been slower than a turtle in a weighted vest stuck in molasses. Tangentially, a (former?) reader of Dunk Day recently learned that I was still writing all these months past the original date:
Oh s***, I haven’t checked up on that lol
I thought you stopped blogging after your birthday
Fair enough. A turtle in a weighted vest stuck in molasses. On the other hand, I’ve stayed injury free! Hindsight being what it is, I would tweak this approach and incorporate strength training sooner. That being said, I’m not upset about some impressive nordics, or being able to rock a 30 second L sit, or having greater flexibility than I even new was possible. It also might be time to revisit the training regimen…
🐰🐰🐰
Practice dunking…duh
Jumping in the gym has a lot of benefits, but there is an enormous learning curve for putting the round orange ball through the hoop. I needed to jump way more than I was at a park, using whatever size rim I could find (actually, the shorter the better, who are we kidding) and putting a ball through it. I’ve incorporated this a lot more this spring and summer, but I am just now feeling confident in a foundation with this piece of the puzzle.
For someone that has played basketball since 8th grade, there has been just about zero translation of that to dunking, which is startling. Here’s a good example: I can dunk off my vertical on the smallest rim at one of the local parks (meaning I don’t need to take a running start). But taking two or three steps translates to about a 50% success rate on that same rim, with the running start. But Tim, why? Shouldn’t running add to the height of the jump? It’s like you’re in my mind, dear reader! Turns out the variables introduced with dribbling and bringing the ball up, over, and through the rim outweigh any positives added by that small running start. That’s where the practice part needs to come in. I’ve got large hands for the average person that is my height, but not nearly large enough to palm a ball on the run. There are way more variables than I accounted for. When trying to dunk on a higher rim, having my arms free to swing back and up as I jump adds inches to my vertical, and can’t currently be replicated with a ball. This is a whole new skill in this regard and I have muddled my way through it to get to some progress.
If I could go back in time and do it all over, I’d work this in weekly.
🐰
Here’s a neat picture I took from one of my very first jumping sessions. I find this calming. Should I do a post of my pictures of basketball hoops in different seasons and lighting? I’ve got the source material and somehow a captive audience!
Coaching
Be it general stubbornness, misguided self-belief, trust in available resources, or an aversion to paying money (should this Substack be monetized? Who in their right mind would pay for it?), I’ve done this journey without dedicated, weekly coaching. Now, the resources available to me are vast, with a physical therapist and his expertise readily available (thanks, Dr. Andrew!), YouTube University, and those around me that have done this. I’ve got a map, and some guides to help me course-correct if (when) needed.
Most likely, we can trace this back to a conversation around internet experts that happened in the beginning of this journey. As much as this is a niche, there are plenty of internet experts with all kinds of advice. I’ve followed some of it (say it with me, team KneesovertoesGuy!) and ignored a lot of it. Surely there are legit coaches out there that are well worth the investment and probably would have saved me some good time in this journey. But accountability with this has never been an issue, in part because I told my closest friends and family and now some strangers on the internet. I can’t let my fans down! So I trust the map in front of me and go forward. Coaches are valuable, but today they aren’t for me, for the aforementioned reasons.
🐰🐰🐰🐰
There’s really no seamless segue here, but that’s a solid lookback at a year+ of working towards this goal! I can’t think of anything else that’s missing here, but maybe you have some thoughts or questions. Comments are always open!
And what a bonus for you dear reader, getting another post after the last one was so recent! Dunk Day with the consistency, love to see it.
Thanks, as always, for jammin with me. More coming soon!
I think a trainer might be a good investment. You can always blog about something else after you achieve this! I like the sunset but have to say I prefer the action shots or at least a human in the picture. 😀
Not incorporating strength training definitely slowed my progress. Jumping 1-2 times per week has also been essential for me. I went from never lifting to being able to squat about 2x my bodyweight.
I will also say, hiring a trainer was one of the best things I ever did to work towards jumping higher (despite my extreme aversion to spending money). I think KneesOverToes is a very patient approach (I tried incorporating it, but didn't see it translate to my vertical) that will produce results over a long period of time. I chose to work with THP strength. I don't regret it.
There are several trainers out there that I think have solid programs though (vertical jump protocol, project pure athlete, and jump science all seem legit).