Nathanael Morton: Ladies and gentlemen, what is going
on? Welcome to another video. My name is Nathanael Morton and I am a strength and conditioning coach
who specializes in vertical jump training. In today's video, we have another collaboration
with the one and only Kneesovertoesguy. You guys loved the last video that we did together,
so we are doing it again and if this video gets 2000 likes, we will do a third video. So go ahead,
click that video right now and comment jump down below in the comments section if you want a free
body weight vertical jump training program. In today's video we're going to give you two more
exercises that you can use to increase your vertical jump and it's going to be a little
bit of a twist. Kneesovertoesguy is going to teach you jump balance and the importance of
keeping your body balanced and symmetrical and being able to dunk off of all approaches, being
able to dunk off of all plants. Then I'm going to take you through depth jumps and I'll teach you
why I like depth jumps and why it can help you increase your vertical jump as high as possible.
Nathanael Morton: So the first thing is going to be me teaching
you depth jumps, and then the second is going to be Kneesovertoesguy teaching you jump balance.
Let's go. Depth jumps, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the best exercises that you could do to
increase your vertical and jump higher, but a lot of people get this wrong. So what I'm going to do
is give you a rundown of how to properly do depth jumps and show you how to incorporate it into your
workout plan. The purpose of doing depth jumps is to absorb and redirect force. This is a reactive
speed and reactive strength exercise. So think about it, if I am right here and I just squat
down, okay, there's going to be some force, but if I get up on this box and I dropped from the box,
my body has to absorb more force than if I didn't drop off the box. That is the purpose of dropping
off the box in the first place. Nathanael Morton:
Now that we know the purpose is to absorb and redirect force, what you want to do is you want
to hit the ground like a bouncy ball. I got one of my dog's toys here. I'm sure he's going to
react as soon as I drop this, but you want to hit the ground like a bouncy ball and bounce back up,
okay? What I mean by that, is when you hit the ground, you want to bounce back up as fast as you
can. Spend the least amount of time on the ground as possible. So one mistake that people make when
doing depth jumps is they get down and then they go all the way down and they jump up as high as
possible. What you want to do is hit the ground and just immediately jump up as high as possible.
So hit the ground it's like a bouncy ball. Nathanael Morton:
Next, the person who gets the most out of the depth jump is the person who can utilize
their stretch reflex and their stretch shortening cycle. As you go down and you absorb that force,
you are utilizing your stretch shortening cycle. If you zoom in
cameraman on these U's And then this V over here, this is a beginner athlete.
He spends more time on the ground then an advanced athlete. An intermediate athlete
is able to utilize that stretch shortening cycle faster. Then an advanced athlete,
it looks more like a V and they actually just hit the ground and jumped back up as fast as possible,
being as reactive as possible as they can. That's point number one, absorb and redirect force,
bouncy ball, least amount of time as possible. Nathanael Morton:
Then you want to make sure to follow the proper progressions. Don't just go out and do
depth jumps after you watch this video. There are four progressions that I like to put my athletes
through and the third progression is actually depth jumps. We never get into depth jumps
until we do the first two progression. You want to progress through the proper progressions and
through the height of the box. SJ stands for shock jumps, then we have shock pause jumps, and we have
depth jumps, then we have double depth jumps. Nathanael Morton:
So let's start with shock jumps. You're going to do shock jumps from a six inch box, okay?
These are also called drop jumps. They're called force of [inaudible 00:04:10] jumps. All you're
going to do is drop down and absorb the force, absorb the shock that it has on your body. Then
after you do a six inch, we'll say three sets of five reps twice a week, then you would move
to a 12 inch box. Then you drop down, you absorb the force on a 12 inch box. Then
you would get on an 18 inch box. Absorb the force there, okay? So those are shock jumps. That's the
first progression of a depth jump. Nathanael Morton:
Then after that, you would get into shock pause jumps. This is the same thing as a depth jump,
except you're pausing in the middle. You drop down, you pause,
jump up, pause, okay? So that's a shock pause jump. You would go to here, drop down, pause, jump
up, pause, okay? Shock pause jumps are second. Then you would do the same thing, six inches,
12 inches, 18 inches, 24 inches, 30 inches, okay? Then if you're like Kneesovertoesguy, you could
drop off of a ladder and [inaudible 00:05:16]- Nathanael Morton:
Next we have depth jumps. So when you drop down, you want to hit the ground like a bouncy ball
and unlike the shock pause jumps, you want to hit the ground and jump up as fast as possible.
It's also a little tough on a six inch box, because it's not really that high,
okay? Then you would move up to here, okay?
Then you would go to an 18 inch box, 24 inch box, 30 inch box,
and then a ladder like Kneesovertoesguy.
Nathanael Morton: Moving on to point number three.
Point number three is that this is a very high intensity exercise. With any
high intensity exercise, you want to go low volume, okay? So think about if you're doing
a very intense back squat, let's say you're using 95% of your one rep max on a back squat and you
are trying to move it as fast as you possibly can. Two sets of five reps is a lot different than
five sets of two reps. Five sets of two reps is the rep scheme that you should actually use for
any high intensity exercise. If you do two sets of five, you're not going to be able to get five reps
at 95% of your one rep max. So the same thing goes with a high intensity exercise like depth jumps.
Nathanael Morton: You don't want to do 10 to 15 reps
of depth jumps in a row, okay? You want these to be high quality repetitions, because we are
also training our stretch reflex, our stretch shortening cycle and our nervous system. We want
our nervous system to do these in a fresh state. We don't want to be fatigued when we do our depth
jumps. We want the muscles, our nervous system, and our body as a unit to be as effective and as
efficient as possible on these depth jumps. Nathanael Morton:
Once again, the purpose is to absorb and redirect force. This is a reactive speed, reactive strength
exercise, act like you're a bouncy ball, hit the ground and explode as fast as possible.
Least amount of time on the ground as you can. Utilize the stretch reflex and the stretch
shortening cycle by doing something like three sets of three reps or five sets of two reps,
okay? You want to keep the reps lower and the sets higher so that you can get the efficient
reps. Then follow the proper progressions, shock jumps, shock pause jumps, depth jumps,
and double depth jumps. I actually didn't show you what that was. A double depth jumps after
the depth jump is when you hit the ground and then you go up and you immediately go up again,
okay? That's a double depth jump. A double depth jump will look like this.
Okay? So it's just two in a row, okay? Nathanael Morton:
Then remember, high intensity, low volume, okay? Don't do high volume for depth jumps. For me
personally, I feel a little rusty on depth jumps right now, because I'm not doing depth jumps in
this phase of my training, okay? I only do depth jumps in my concentric phase, my peaking phase of
my training. So you don't have to do that, but that's what I like to do. I like to do a max
strength phase and I do a strength speed base and I do a peaking phase. During that peaking phase,
I add these depth jumps, okay? If you do them all year round, your body's going to get used to them,
it's not going to have as much effect. Nathanael Morton:
It's like caffeine, you drink three caffeines every single day, your body gets used to it.
But if you do it once a week, as soon as you do it that once a week and you drink that coffee,
now you're buzzing, okay? Same thing with depth jumps. If you do it all year round,
your body's going to get used to that. If you do it once during one phase,
instead of all phases of your programming, your body's going to react to that much better. So
there you have it, depth jumps. Kneesovertoesguy:
Just as depth jumps are proven, so is jump balance. We have a study of long jumpers
showing 70% more jump gain when they work on their long jump off either leg and we have another study
on landing and planting mechanics showing that a weaker plant or land makes you 70% more likely
to have a knee ligament tear. Now let's trace five examples through history, starting with
Derek Rose. He only planted through his left leg, because a two foot jump was a left right plant
and a one foot jump was a left leg plant. Moving onto the second example, Michael Jordan also
planted off one foot through the left leg, like Rose did, but off two feet, it was a right left
plant. So this created a sort of balance. Then the third example, Kobe Bryant, he has the most career
dunks off all four plants. He would take off his right leg, his left leg, left right plant, right
left plant. Then the fourth example is LeBron, wait a second. LeBron only goes off his left leg,
doesn't that disprove jump downs? Kneesovertoesguy:
No, it's one example. LeBron has the most muscle mass coming from the ground up, whereas someone
like Xi'an is built more from the top down. LeBron has the most muscle mass coming from the ground
up of any basketball player in history and was already getting head over the rim at 18 years
old. So if that's you, well, maybe jump balance could help you be better than LeBron. So you see,
you don't have to have this, but what did this do for me? The fifth example. For me, well,
I went into my 20s having never grabbed the rim. Now I'm going into my 30s dunking all four plants.
It provided a route for me to try jumping as hard as I could, but by staying balanced,
I didn't then run into the yo-yo of injuries that even the pro-dunkers who I don't jump as high as.
They're constantly yo-yoing with these injuries. Kneesovertoesguy:
I've even personally helped some of them by getting them to jump balance and they would
get the noticeable reduction of knee pain and increase of jump height. Plus, I've been a real
team sport athlete through all this process and I started dunking after all the pro-dunkers.
So I'm still going up, I haven't plateaued. Could I get there? Perhaps, but I can definitely help
people get the ability to dunk, be able to do it in games and to be able to be a part of a team
and not be yo-yoing up and down with injuries. Kneesovertoesguy:
Now going right into application. You don't even need a ball or a hoop or anything, but what you do
need to do is film yourself from a side angle and from a front angle. The first thing I noticed with
my jump as a left right jumper, is I noticed that my left knee was really going over my toes a lot,
causing a lot of pressure here, but then not so much on the right side.
My muscles were developing imbalanced and just by bringing my right left plant, so I've
now hit even on a [Vertech 00:12:12] with each side, that was my first discovery. I was only a
two foot jumper. It took longer for me to realize, if I want to be the best at basketball,
I need to also be a one-foot jumper. Kneesovertoesguy:
So while I've hit 42.5 inches off each right left and left right, simply from studying
myself in slow motion, I've now just touched into the 40 inch mark off the left leg
and off the right leg. More importantly, that's led to me feeling even a little bit more athletic.
So I think if you're in a sport like long jump, no, I don't think you need to do two foot jumping.
If you're in a sport like volleyball, no, I don't think you need to do one foot jumping, but I would
say for basketball or if you're a wide receiver, it would be a good idea to have all four plants.
Kneesovertoesguy: Now you can practice by yourself,
no ball, no hoop, nothing. Once your plant feels good, pain-free, you're visually getting as high
and your form looks the same, then I would say to start working on your dunks. So let's say
your go-to dunk was LeBron style, inside dribble, boom, right? You would get a lot of athleticism
benefits and injury prevention benefits out of now practicing this side and trying to get it to be
a mirror image. It's that simple, I don't have anything fancier for you. That's what I've
done. I actually have also done depth jumps too. Those are the only two jumping things
I've done. I'm really looking forward to seeing how Nathan teaches the depth jump, because the
depth jumps think about it, right? Kneesovertoesguy:
Let's say I realized at one point, okay, if I've gotten now to a 30 inch vertical,
but my buddy with better genetics has had a 40 inch vertical for the last five years,
just because I matched his weight room numbers, doesn't mean my tendons will be as elastic as his.
I realized that, okay, now if I drop from a little bit higher and a little bit higher,
and so on, so I have not over done it, the depth jump gets into a lot more risks. You need to
really pay attention and have a coach to guide you through that process. Anyways, I hope that helps.
I'm an open book and it's the truth. What you have in this video right here with jump balance,
plus depth jumps has contributed to me being maybe the only guy to go into his 20s, having never
grabbed rim and now going into his 30s dunking all four plants. For every one of us, having
a potential to jump, perhaps greater than has been predicted before. Thank you for your time.
Nathanael Morton: All right guys. So there you have it, depth jumps
and jump balance and why it is very important to include both of these in your programming
if you want to stay healthy and increase your vertical jump as high as possible. Once again,
like this video. If we get it to 2000 likes, we'll do another video like this, another collaboration.
Make sure that you share this with everybody you know, and then comment jump down below if
you want a free body weight vertical jump training program and I will see you guys in the next video.