Nathanael: Ladies and gentlemen,
what is going on. And welcome to another video. My name is Nathanael Morton and I
am a sports performance coach who specializes in basketball players. And in today's video,
I'm going to give you two isometric exercises that can skyrocket your vertical jump and take
your vert to the next level. Nathanael:
Before I do that, remember as always, if you comment, jump, J-U-M-P, down below in the comment
section, I will send you a free vertical jump training program. And if you want to take your
sports performance to the next level, $20 a month gets you access to every single program that I
offer. My advanced vertical jump programs with weights, my upper body athlete programs
with weights, my knee strengthening program, and personalized coaching from me, 20 bucks a month.
Link for that will be in the pinned comment and in the description below. But let's get into it.
Nathanael: I want you to answer this question.
What is the very first exercise that comes into your mind whenever you think about isometric
exercises? For most people, this is going to be a wall set, or maybe lunge holds or
something like a feet elevated glute bridge hold. What if I told you that there are two
isometric focused exercises that are way better, that will get you way more vertical jump gains,
than the most common isometric exercises that you guys see on a normal basis.
Nathanael: You'd probably say,
that's why I'm here at this video. Tell me the exercises. So, here are the exercises. Two of the
best exercises for your vertical jump, in general, would be back squats and rear foot elevated split
squats. So what I like to do with my athletes is, we do back squats and rear foot elevated split
squats with an isometric focus. Nathanael:
Now remember, the reason why we do isometrics in the first place is to teach our muscles to
recruit more motor units, to use more muscle fibers in that lift, and so that we can use
more muscle fibers when we transfer these lifts in this training to our sport. So when you doing
an isometric hold like a back squat and you squat down and you're holding the weight there,
as your muscle fibers begin to get fatigued, they recruit more muscle fibers to help with
that lift. And as they get more fatigued and more fatigue, you recruit more and more muscle
fibers. And the more muscle fibers that you can recruit, the higher your vertical jump is going
to be. Because which athlete is going to be able to jump higher? The athlete who can recruit only
half of their muscle fibers or the athlete who can recruit almost all of their muscle fibers,
because they'd done isometric focused training. It's going to be the athlete who is focused on
isometrics during his training and the athlete who can recruit more muscle fibers to be used
in his lifts and in his sport. Nathanael:
So, I do want to point out that wall sits, lunge holds, feet elevated glute bridge holds,
tiptoe squat holds, isometrics like these with body weight that are done for 30 seconds, 60
seconds, a minute and a half, you're doing these holds, this is what you should do as a beginner.
But after you master these isometrics and you become a little bit more advanced, we want to get
into a little bit more advanced technique. Nathanael:
So, here's what I want you to do with your back squats and with your rear foot elevated split
squats. The first thing that I want you to do is, use less weight than you normally use for
back squats and rear foot elevated foot squats. Because remember, you're used to doing those at
a normal tempo, but now we are going down and we are holding an isometric and then exploding
up. So this is going to be more fatiguing, more taxing on your central nervous system,
and you're going to need to use less weight than you normally use until you get used to doing these
isometric focused exercises. Nathanael:
Then once you've lowered the weight down a little bit, there are a few key points, here. Number One
is that you want to actively pull the bar down as quickly as possible, and then decelerate the
bar in your joint angle specific squat. So think about the joint angle that you use to go up for
a rebound, or to dunk a basketball, or to do a vertical jump. You want to be squatting at
that same joint angle. And all that means is, the angle of your hips, your knees, and your ankles.
What is that jump angle? Then mimic that in your training, so that transfers best to your sport.
Nathanael: So, actively pull the bar down, decelerate
the bar, that means stop the bar as quickly as possible in your joint angle specific squat,
pause for four to five seconds, and then explode up as fast as you can. So, there's a few things
there. You're actively pulling it down. You are stopping as quickly as possible. You are
holding for four to five seconds, and then you always explode up on the concentric part of this
exercise. This is the same thing for rear foot elevated split squats, as it is for back squats.
Actively pull yourself down decelerate quickly, hold for four to five seconds and then explode up.
Nathanael: I do want to point out that
this technique works the best with your compound movements like a back squat, or a front squat,
or a rear foot elevated foot squat. I wouldn't do dead lifts. If you want to do deadlift isometrics,
I would grab a trap bar or a straight bar, get into a deadlift position and then pull it actively
against an object that's not going to move like a squat rack that is bolted into the ground and do
isometrics that way for your deadlifts. Nathanael:
But there you have it, guys. After you graduate from your wall sits in your lunge holds and your
most common isometric exercises that you see on a normal basis, realize that you can do isometric
focused exercises like a back squat or a rear foot elevated split squat. And it will take your
vertical jump to the next level. Nathanael:
Comment, jump, down below if you want a free vertical jump program,
and get my $20 a month program. Link will be in the description and in the pinned comment,
if you want to take your sports performance to the next level. I'll see you guys in the next video.
Speaker 2: (music)