Meet Me!

I obviously have to say a few things about myself first for this blog to be relevant. I am 21 years old, I stand at about 5'9'' and I weigh 170 pounds. I've been a huge basketball fan for the last 8 years, and that's how I sort of developed an interest for jumping. I kinda see myself as a connoisseur of vertical jumping.

Now... I've never actually seen (in person) anyone with a 50" vertical, and I have no illusions as to what that represents. To put this into perspective, virtually no NBA player, retired or active, has ever displayed a 50 inch vertical. I say virtually, because one guy who played in the NBDL last season could be argued to jump that high. His name is James White; nod in agreement if you know him and look him up if you don't. So basically, I know, maybe moreso than the average guy that this is no easy feat.

But still... I BELIEVE I can get to 50, and not just that, I am DETERMINED to get to 50. And this is where this blog comes in.

You're probably wondering by now how far I am from the big 'five oh', and I think you will like what I'm about to tell you because admit it; this whole 'Road to 50' thing wouldn't be all that exciting if I had a 48" vertical already. So anyways here goes... I am as far as you can be from 50. That's right, zero! I can't jump or to be more exact I shouldn't jump. I am currently grounded by a combined case of patellar tendinitis and chondromalacia patella, or as they are more commonly known; jumpers knee and runners knee. I mean... I'm sure if I made an effort I could probably clear 10-15 inches pain-free, but the point is I shouldn't and I don't so let's just say that my vertical right now is pretty much insignificant.

So as you can see the road to fifty is going to start out pretty slowly. I'll first have to go through some long and painful rehab before we get to the exciting stuff(ok, im lying about the painful part).

Ok, I know what you're thinking; "Why on earth does this guy think he can get a 50 again??" Well even for someone in my position (the whole being grounded thing) I have a few things that make me hold out hope that. . wait, scratch that.. make me BELIEVE that I can get a 50. For one, I wasn't always this vertically challenged. I've actually been able to dunk since I was 15, I was probably about 5'8'' at the time. I estimate that my peak vertical must have been approximately 38 inches, not bad, but still a long way from 50. The 2nd thing is that I've almost never been in shape, at least not since I was 14. And by that I don't mean I've been huffing and puffing everytime I play ball for the past 6 years (although it's happened more times than i'd like to admit) but I've never been in that in-season shape where you can play 30 to 40 minutes of basketball with good intensity. And that people, matters. The third thing is I've never done a squat(yes, NEVER), and though I've tried to follow one jump program on occasions, I've never managed to even get halfway.

So with that said I feel like I’ve got a lot of untapped jumping potential. Back when I had that 38” or something close to it, I used to feel like with some serious training I could get to a 43” or 44”. But ever since my knee injuries, a couple of things happened that changed my mind about how high up I could get. I discovered TFB on youtube, and that really psyched me up, but I was only at the ‘it-would-be-nice-to-jump-that-high stage’. What really did it for me was this guy. It wasn’t just that he jumps the highest of anyone I’ve ever seen, it was more because he had gotten to that point starting with a fairly unimpressive vertical.