First Entry

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Greetings,

As my first post, I would like to share a little bit about myself and what the purpose of this blog is. I have been involved in some form of physical training for sports for the past 12 years, the primary expression of which is an increased ability to defy gravity. I have always been gifted with an above average leaping ability, or perhaps it was just the fact that I was tall when I was younger and my primary goal seemed to be to jump and touch things in the school rooms that no-body else could reach, developing my motor pathways at a young age. Regardless, with just playing basketball, running stairs and doing wall sits and other primitive weightlifting, I acheived my first dunk at the height of 5'11, 3 weeks out of 8th grade.

Throughout high school, I tried various jump improvement programs, until I discovered solid gold in "The Science of Jumping". I improved my 1 and 2 leg jumps about 5 inches in 3 months with this program, which was far above air alert, or anything else at the time was able to bring about. I was now able to pull off most dunks (except between the legs) at a height of 6'0". By my senior year, with some intelligent training, and more strength training, I had increased my leaping ability enough to allow me to bring my head within 1 inch of a basketball goal and touch 2 inches above the top of the square of a basketball hoop.

It was also during high school that I started high-jumping. Going into track with the intention of running the 400m and staying in shape for basketball, I was met with a pleasant surprise with our school's recent investment, high jump mats. My first practice I did 5'2 off a dusty elementary school floor, and reached 6' by the end of my freshman year of high school. Coaching myself, I took this up to 6'8.5" my senior year. (I did not grow in height at all between those 4 years, just gained 20 lb) In college, I increased my best jump to 7'.25" or 2.14m. I also took my triple jump from 42'0 (12.75m) to 46' (14.01m) within the course of a year.



Entering college, I had very high hopes for my track and field performances. During my first two years, I struggled due to other commitments in my academic major (athletic training/sports medicine) because I was not always able to practice with the team. My best high jump over these two years was 2.05m, or 6'8.75. Although this jump probably marks an average improvement of a high school jumper (high school high jumpers don't always improve much their first year or two, or at all!) I switched majors to exercise science my junior year, and in the process, pushed my high jump up over 7 feet and my triple jump over 14 meters.

Now at the age of 23 and post-collegiate, I hope to go above and beyond the 7 foot barrier this coming training season. I also hope to have a job coaching track someday, and I really feel like this is the thing that I have been called to do in this lifetime. Along with the coaching portion, most of what I will be posting will be related to the biomechanics or physiological aspects of training for either high jump, or a great vertical leap in general. I am currently pursuing my masters degree in human performance at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, in hopes of advancing my knowledge as well as improving my chances of securing a collegiate coaching position in the future.

Well, thats about it for now, I'll shortly be posting my philosophy of high jump technique, which is quite far from your traditional ten step-15 feet from the crossbar ideology.


Joel, BA, CSCS