Measuring Our Vertical Jump
Over the course of the last two days we have been working on taking our measurements for our summer vertical jump experiment using the programs Vertfreak101 and Vertical Mastery.
We measured four variations of the vertical jump, including the following: Standing still with no steps off of two feet, two steps allowed off of two feet, and running one legged jumps measured for both right and left foot takeoffs.
Here are my results, at the stats of 6 foot 7 inches tall and about 210 pounds, estimated 11-13% bodyfat:
Standing still, no steps, two footed vertical jump: 27 inches
Two footed vertical jump with two steps: 27 3/4 inches
Running One-Foot Vertical Jump (Right): 29 3/4 inches
Running One-Foot Vertical Jump (Left): 30 inches
Notes: My two footed vertical jumps have really caught up to my one-foot jumps from weight training this year I would assume, in the past my one-foot jump were always atleast 5-6 inches higher than my jumps off of two feet. Also, I was SHOCKED that my right foot one legged jump was within 5 inches of my left, let alone nearly the same. I rarely jump off my right and it feels awkward when I do, but the numbers don't lie.
Here are the results of my partner, with stats of 6 feet tall, 170 pounds, estimated 11-13% bodyfat:
Standing still, no steps, two footed vertical jump: 28 3/4 inches
Two footed vertical jump with two steps: 32 1/4
Running One-Foot Vertical Jump (Right): 26 1/2 inches
Running One-Foot Vertical Jump (Left): 28 inches
Notes: There is a sizable disparity in his one legged jumping ability compared to his two footed jumping ability, and his two footed with two steps vertical is significantly higher than all the others.
This is how we measured:
Using an adjustable basketball hoop we set it to a height at which it was exactly 115.5 inches from the ground to the bottom of the backboard and exactly 124 inches to the top of the rim. We took a drywall T with ruler measurements on it and taped it to the side of the backboard so that 24 inches of the ruler from the bottom part of the "T" were hanging down, essentially giving us a 24 inch ruler to measure our reach on. We set the backboard so that my coauthor who is much shorter than myself at 6'0 tall could only touch the bottom, meaning there was exactly 24 inches from the top of his reach to the bottom of the backboard. Then when we measured my reach (I am 6'7 tall) i hit the ten inch mark on the ruler, meaning I had 14 inches between the top of my reach and the backboard.
Then we taped posterboard to the backboard, so that it was exactly squared to the bottom. By using charcoal on our fingertips, jumping up and touching the white posterboard, and observing the marks, we are able to measure our vertical leap exactly. For example, if my coauthor touched 10 inches up on the posterboard, his vertical would compute to 34 inches (10 on poster board + 24 from reach to bottom of backboard. Easy as pie. 3 trial jumps were used for each of the four vertical jump tests.
The cool thing about this is that we will be able to recreate the exact circumstance with the hoop, and using the same posterboard we will be able to easily see if we have gained any inches on our vertical jump or not when we retest.
Tomorrow I will post pictures, to help you visualize this a little better, but the plan worked perfect and turned out very well. We also took videos of all of the tests that we will get up as soon as possible (had to order a special cord to hook my camcorder up to my laptop). We will post those as soon as possible as well. Along with videos of the vertical jump measurement tests, we also took some videos of us dunking at a local park today which we will also post. We tried about 10 different indoor gyms with no luck getting in, so hopefully we can get some footage of us dunking in a gym soon. I am not a fan of jumping repeatedly on cement/blacktop, it seems to be a lot harder on the legs than a basketball court.
EDIT: PICTURES POSTED IN THIS POST (VIDEO COMING ASAP)
Check back tomorrow for added pictures explaining the tests and showing the results, as well as in the next week or two for footage of us both dunking.
And within the week we will both be starting the Vertfreak101 and Vertical Mastery programs, so check back for our daily logs and progress using the programs. It should be an interesting, fun, and informative summer! Hopefully by the end we will have increase both our verticals by a sizeable amount relative to where we are at now and be doing some dunks that are way more impressive. Time will tell!