Weights and plyometrics

andrasita30 · February 2016

I have a complex goal. Im a 35-year-old male. I used to play basketball and used to have a good vertical leap. That was 15 yrs ago.
Goal 1: losing weight
Goal 2: get lean build a little bit of muscle
Goal 3: jump high again

I'm currently doing the following training
Day1: upper body pushing exercise
Day2: squats, deadlifts and plyometrics
Day3: rest
Day4: upper body pulling exercise
Day5: lunges, plyometrics

I'm also doing intermittent fasting and on a calorie deficit

Am I doing the right thing?

nordlead2005 · February 2016

Sounds to me like what you are doing will work.

You may consider doing one of the beginner lifting routines that have you squatting 3x/week while losing weight. (Starting strength, StrongLifts, ect...) Id keep the jumping volume low so as not to interfere with strength training until you can squat 1.5x your weight. This would probably speedup increasing your base leg strength which will help your vertical leap.

andrasita30 · February 2016

Thanks for your reply. 1.5 times seems to be a lot. I'm 6ft 183cm and 205lbs 93kg. I'm in week 3 of doing the above training and feeling great. I just don't want to get injured and don't want to be inefficient with my programme. I've done full body routine for about 2 months and plyometrics is the reason I'm now doing this routine. I lost about 8lbs 3.5kg in 4 weeks since being on intermittent fasting and doing this programme. Shall I carry on or would you still recommend beginners strength training 3x squats/week?

rileyes · February 2016

I get better at jumping by jumping. The compound lifts can add power to your plyometrics. You could try supersetting the two. @Sam_I_Am77 may be able to help you here.

nordlead2005 · February 2016

1.5x squat isn't really as much as you'd think. I was 220lb at 5'11" back in January 2015. 1 year of lifting 3x/week (on and off, life/injuries happen) and I can lift 3x5x270lb and I'm now 171lb. That puts me at 1.57x and I'm doing sets, not singles. An estimated single puts me at ~1.75x, and going back through my records I had an estimated 1.5x after 10 months. It could have been done faster with a more focused 10 months (I didn't start losing weight until 5 months in).

Anyways (i'm not an expert, just have a mild interest in jumping due to having to cover a guy who is ~4-5" taller than me in ultimate), here is a more long out reasoning for my suggestion.

Jumping is the ability to display power rapidly. While (as rileyes says) you get better at jumping by jumping, the fastest way to increase power is to lift heavy weights (which is what you are doing). Improving squat directly helps with increasing your power, and indirectly helps with your ability to display the power rapidly at lower weights (in other words, without the barbell), so again makes sense to increase your power up to a basic level first. From what I can find in my reading 1.5x is a good level. The appeal of the beginner program is that with 3x/week squat and constantly increasing weights it is the fastest way to improve your leg strength that most people can maintain. Right now you have 2x/week leg training. Sure, you could go to squat every day, but there are diminishing returns and it would probably interfere with you playing basketball and jumping in general.

This isn't to say I wouldn't do jump training while I am at it, but I would make sure I am not hindering my strength work while laying that foundation. Do standing jumps, running jumps, box jumps, etc... You probably get a decent amount of jumping in just by playing basketball though (yes, I'm assuming you are playing basketball), so again, I would keep the extra volume low so as not to interfere with building that base level of strength. Where this level of volume is I have no clue, as it would be dependent on your recovery rate and how much you are doing.

One of the reasons that this takes the back seat to strength training is that jumping may increase your ability to display the power you have rapidly, it won't do as much for increasing your actual strength. So, if I have to pick one to give priority if I suck at both, the answer would be lifting first. Once you reach the point where you've got the strength, increase the jump training and switch to maintaining your strength. If you wanted to continue to improve you could then investigate if you need to increase speed (add more plyometrics) or power (add more strength training).

Yes, there are other lifts you can do (olympic lifts often involve explosive force), and other training (plyometrics, band training, etc...) you can do, but since it has been 15 years it makes sense to nail the basics first (strength and general jumping).

Should you switch your training up? That is up to you. There are many paths to get there. Your current approach is both targeting the power and speed aspects required for jumping, and therefore will work.

Sam_I_Am77 · February 2016

andrasita30 wrote: »

I have a complex goal. Im a 35-year-old male. I used to play basketball and used to have a good vertical leap. That was 15 yrs ago.
Goal 1: losing weight
Goal 2: get lean build a little bit of muscle
Goal 3: jump high again

I'm currently doing the following training
Day1: upper body pushing exercise
Day2: squats, deadlifts and plyometrics
Day3: rest
Day4: upper body pulling exercise
Day5: lunges, plyometrics

I'm also doing intermittent fasting and on a calorie deficit

Am I doing the right thing?

Doing all of this on a calorie deficit makes the getting stronger and improving jump more challenging. It's doable but you may hit a wall fast this way.

Vertical Jump (VJ): This is definitely a display of power as another poster mentioned. You can improve your VJ through Squatting, Deadlifting, and of course by doing different jumps. You also need to have good mobility so you can quickly move through the range of motion and get the triple extension properly.

You didn't really get into your programming so it's hard to really comment on what you're doing. I would say that with every training session start with some kind of plyometric jumps, namely Tuck Jumps or Box Jumps, or Squat Jumps. Do anywhere from 1 to 3 sets of 8-10 reps. If your squat session is heavier in-nature then do something like a set of squats, 20-sec rest, and doing a set of 6-8 Tuck Jumps. What the data suggests is that one's Type II muscle fibers are highly active after a set of heavier squats or even deadlifts, so those muscles get good benefit from doing a power movement directly after the strength movement.

Actually, I will at least comment on your split. Your 35 and on a calorie deficit trying to lose weight and you have a 4-day split. I would simplify this considerably.

- Day 1: There's no reason you can doing upper body pressing and pulling in the same session. Do a set of bench press and then do a set of chin-ups or lat pulldowns.

- Day 2: Do Squats and some accessory work like Lunges here; don't dedicate an entire session to Lunges

- Day 4: see my Day 1 comments
- Day 5: Cut this

This is incredibly general and leaves out other training variables but just from a training split perspective I would go more like...

Day 1: Upper Body Pressing & Pulling. One big pressing movement, one big pulling movement, a couple accessory exercises. Do some power work before hand in the form of Med Ball throws or jumps

Day 2: Squat and a couple accessory exercises. Do some jumps after each squat set

Day 3: Military Press & Deadlift with a couple accessory exercises. Before you train do some med ball work or jumps.

This leaves you with 4 days to rest and or do some conditioning and gives your knees a rest, since you're a basketball player this is important.

Of course the above is very generalized and it's important to look at your training variables (sets&reps, load/intensity, tempo, rest, frequency) over a course of months rather than just a day or even a week. There are a lot of good programs out there that will remove your decision-making from the equation which is honestly what most of us need. I think it's often better to let somebody smarter and more experienced than us to tell us what to do so we can just focus on the important stuff.

- StrongLifts / Starting Strength: To me these are about the same thing; it's okay to throw in some jumps as I indicated (start of session or after squat sets)

- Beyond 5/3/1: Good training method, sets you up for long-term training whereas the above has more of a time-limit to it; this can be used for life.

- Juggernaut 2.0: I've been reading a lot of Chad Wesley Smith's work over the last couple months and I really like how he sets up his training. He's very athlete focused, that's what his organization does, and his program is very well thought out with everything from Strength work to Speed and Agility work. I highly recommend buying the "Juggernaut 2.0" manual. This can also be used in the long-term.

- Westside for Skinny B a s t a r d s: Coach DeFranco is also along the lines of Chad Smith in that he is very athlete focused, emphasis on strength, speed, conditioning, mobility. Checkout his site and he has a YouTube channel as well.

-Kelley Sterrit: Checkout his YouTube page and even his book "Supple Leopard". He is an expert on mobility work and I've even turned to him when I ran into issues with my own mobility. He has some different approaches to what has been more common, his videos are worth it.

Edit: I had to space out *kitten*, I guess that's a bad word?

andrasita30 · February 2016

Thank you guys for all the detailed comments. I'll look at the above articles.
In the meantime what are your thoughts about 2 days upper body push and pull compound excersises and 2 days leg and core weights and plyos. Should I also have HIIT once a week on a rest day or is it too much? I don't want to overtrain nor undertrain. There are way too many routines out there which is quite confusing

jimmmer · February 2016

Check out one of Joe DeFranco's WS4SB templates.

It's basically designed to do what you want - if you couple it with a caloric deficit.

Sam_I_Am77 · February 2016

andrasita30 wrote: »

Thank you guys for all the detailed comments. I'll look at the above articles.
In the meantime what are your thoughts about 2 days upper body push and pull compound excersises and 2 days leg and core weights and plyos. Should I also have HIIT once a week on a rest day or is it too much? I don't want to overtrain nor undertrain. There are way too many routines out there which is quite confusing

It's more than just selecting a few pushing exercises and few pulling exercises while throwing in some jumps and stuff. There are many variables to consider. Do yourself a huge favor and do not try and make your own program, follow something that is built and proven. I don't mean this disrespectfully but you don't understand program design and I think you'll do yourself a disservice by trying to do it on your own. Professionals like DeFranco, Chad Smith, etc have been doing this for years and have been quite successful; I would stick with what they've done or find a trainer with a NSCA - CSCS or NASM - PES to help you.

andrasita30 · February 2016

Thank you for your suggestions and support.

Weights and plyometrics

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