After having a disappointing showing with no progress at 4 months I was a bit disheartened - but in the last week things have changed and I am now dunking!!! Thats right, I changed up a few things in my workout and it has paid off. I can now take off one footed and dunk with my right hand with a full size basketball. I am stoked.
How did I do it? The biggest change was reducing the weight I was squatting with and focusing on being explosive - actually jumping with every rep. I had been doing my top squats at 205, I reduced that to 135 and have been doing 3 sets at 12 reps instead of six sets of 15,12,8,6,6, and 4. I also lowered my weight for deadlifts to 135 as well and focused on being explosive there. I haven't re-tested my vertical yet but I will do it at the 5 month mark in two weeks. I am also goin to a new training program - variety is key to training and making gains - so I am using the LL Cool J platinum fitness program now with some plyo's thrown in as well as extra cardio and specific training for the upcoming white water rafting season.
Injury Update: I still have some degree of shin splints. I did one 3 sets of depth jumps one day last week. I am keeping with that and staying very light on plyometrics. I also have a bit of an achillies tendon issue in my left foot - I think it is related to the fact that I jump from my left foot to dunk right handed. I need to focus on soft landing from the dunks. So for the next week or two I am going to try dunking left handed which will give my left leg a break. I have two Volleyball doubler headers this week, thankfully one is on the sand, but in addition to that I need to keep up the aerobics for my 10K run in late May. So cross training will be the order of business this week to keep the load low on my lower legs. I am also doing shin exercises 2x a week now to help strengthen the muscles and tendons responsible for shin splints.
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