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INTRODUCTION So you want to jump higher congratulations! Looking to dunk over the competition, blow by the defenders and own the air above the rim? You are well on your way by taking the most important first steps already taken by thousands of athletes to improve their athletic performance. As you have most certainly already noticed, your ability to jump is central to your success in your athletic career. Athletic Advantage The Complete Vertical Jump Program will provide you with all the tools you will need to dramatically increase your leg strength, speed and vertical leap over the coming weeks. You can expect this program to enhance your athleticism in the following aspects: Increase your vertical 8 to 14 Increase your first step quickness Increase muscular endurance Increase muscle fiber recruitment Decrease your 40yd dash time by 0.2 to 0.4s.

most athletic movements require a time factor much smaller than the time it takes to maximally contract a muscle. This is where plyometrics come in! Plyometric training provides the environment for eccentric contraction which has been proven to build muscle and power faster than any other contraction. Nutrition is the glue that holds it all together. Your body is a hormonal rollercoaster. No, this is not the sex talk, Im talking about the hormones responsible for the muscle growth and body chemistry needed by every athlete. Without proper nutrition, you will not achieve maximal strength gains and the risk of injury is greatly increased especially during plyometric training. Before we go directly into Athletic Advantage The Complete Vertical Jump Program, we will quickly visit other programs and see why this program has so much more to offer than most programs out there. Also we will work through a detailed description of what happens behind the scenes when you jump followed by a technical look at muscle variety and how it affects your vertical jumping potential. WHATS IN A PROGRAM
KEY IDEAS: Most programs fall short of their promises for one of the following reasons: They over train causing injury. They lack variety to properly change up training to avoid workout adaptation. They do not allow proper rest periods leading to injury. This program incorporates 5 main parts including power weight training, dynamic weight training, plyometric training, nutrition and positive mentality.

Athletic Advantage The Complete Vertical Jump Program is a very powerful tool with all the resources you will need except one. Commitment. Even the best program will do you no good if you dont stick with it. Imagine if Michael Jordan decided to just quit when his high school basketball coach cut him from the team. Because he was committed he pulled through and became one of the biggest legends of the NBA. In order for you to obtain all the gains this program has to offer you must be committed to following each part of this program to the letter. No one part of this program is more important than any other. Each part has a special aspect to offer that none of the others do. This program incorporates power weight training, dynamic weight training, plyometric training, nutrition and positive mentality. Without power weight training you will not have the strength base for any of the other stages of this program. Dynamic weight training incorporates speed with strength to break the power plateau reached in power weight training. Some very strong athletes do not possess the power to dunk a basketball or sprint a fast 40 yard dash. This is because

Why this program? You may be asking what makes this program different from every other program out there. To answer this question, lets first start by taking a look at what other programs have to offer and why they cannot necessarily be as good as promised. Most programs out there offer a single phase program with only one means to train your muscles. These programs generally have you jumping ropes or running stairs until you cannot move anymore or until you over train. These programs tend to produce a dramatic increase in your vertical over the first few weeks but plateau quickly or produce over training and injury. This is because doing 500 repetitions of 6 to 10 different exercises 5 days a week

causes your muscles to adapt to the work outs, adaptation is the number one reason for plateaus in your vertical gains and can only be remedied by changing up work out routines and exercises every 4 to 6 weeks. One component of training that is almost always overlooked is rest. Contrary to popular practice in vertical jump programs, rest is just as important as the work outs you do. It takes 48 hours to rebuild the damage caused by power weight training and plyometric training. Without proper rest your routine will progressively tear your body down until, finally, you will either reach plateau stage or over train. These are only a few of the reasons why most programs out there arent as good as they claim or are at the very least lack the variety to truly tap into your bodys vertical leaping potential. Any program that says it is the ultimate without some element of weight training is wrong. It is true that purely plyometric programs can yield astonishing results but studies and experiments have shown time and again that vertical jumping ability is enhanced most when a training regiment incorporates plyometrics and weight training. Dont be mislead, though, this program does incorporate many exercises and possibly lifts that are found in many other programs. It is the order and implementation of these lifts and exercises that makes this program so successful and powerful. Exercise should always be done working the largest muscle groups first and working through to the smallest muscles repetitively cycling through all muscle groups. This allows your muscles to be pushed to failure more efficiently. That is where this training program differs from all the others. This program incorporates superior-inferior cyclic training techniques which train the quadriceps first, the largest muscle group, and work down to the calves, the smallest of the basic jumping muscles repetitively. This program features a three tiered work out schedule that is broken into three sections. Each section incorporates the 5 main parts to successful training: power weight training, dynamic weight training, plyometric training, nutrition and positive mentality. Power weight training will provide a strength base for your training program. Most of your gains will be delivered by this part of the program for the first few weeks if you are a new comer to weight training and will be responsible

for some of the extra gains you will experience over and above other programs would offer. The second component of proper training is not introduced until a bit later in the program, after a sufficient strength base has been established. This is the dynamic weight training phase in which some of the lifts in the power weight training phase are replaced with weighted jumps or explosive lifts that focus more on speed than weight while the lifts that are still present are increased in weight and decreased in repetitions. Plyometric training is the part of this program that you may be most familiar with if you have looked at other programs out there. During this part of the program you will be jumping using different muscles a lot. You will be using your different muscle groups to failure, which studies have shown to produce maximum strength and power gains. Each exercise focuses on a different muscle group until you have fatigued them all. Nutrition is our next stop in this program. This is the part of the program that may take the most self-control. You will be eating a controlled ratio of protein, carbohydrates and fats along with proper hydration to put your body in the optimum hormonal and metabolic zone for growth. Last is positive mentality. Even though this part of the program has no physical development, it is an important element in your training because confidence and mental preparation are a big piece of the puzzle. This benefit can be seen in pep talks from coaches, listening to music or watching your favorite athlete in action. Each of these 5 parts of the program are compliments of each other and their combination is the key to your jumping success! WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU JUMP
KEY IDEAS: Jumping is a complicated combination of movements incorporating three muscle contractions, eccentric, isometric and concentric. These three muscle contractions form the stretch-shorten cycle which is responsible for our jumping ability. Neuromuscular memory is your bodys way of learning to jump.

When you jump you may not give a second thought as to what happens in your muscles, you just run to the rim, lower your body and jump. Simple enough, right? Wrong! Jumping

is a very complicated series of biomechanical events that require coordination, neuromuscular memory and a great deal of power. Lets begin with the run up. When you run up to jump it serves the purpose of adding energy to the system. Having momentum going into the jump gives you extra energy to incorporate into the jump. When you begin the jump you lower your body; this might seem backward. If you want to go up why go down first? To stretch the spring! When you go down you stretch your quad, hamstring, and calf muscles putting increased tension in the muscles. This is known as an eccentric contraction, one of three types of muscle contractions. Eccentric contractions may seem hard to understand because it is a contraction that lengthens the muscle instead of shortening it. It is easiest to think of it as the equivalent to curling so much weight that even if you try your hardest your arm goes down and lengthens your muscle. Just after you stop going down in your jump you stop to reverse direction. This is known as an isometric contraction, which is a contraction in which the muscle doesnt lengthen or shorten. Isometric contraction is by far the contraction with the most muscle tension. This is also the contraction that is most responsible for a quick takeoff. The faster you can switch from going down to going up, the quicker you will leave the ground. The third and final type of contraction happens when you begin to go back up. It is known as concentric contraction and is when the muscle contracts and shortens. This is the type of contraction weight lifters use to body build. These three contractions in rapid succession such as happens in jumping are known as the stretch-shorten cycle. This cycle goes as follows. The muscle lengthens in the eccentric phase. Little sensors in your muscles feel the quick stretch and alert your brain this stretch my be potentially dangerous, contract! So your muscles contract hard trying to reverse the stretch, passing through the isometric phase into the concentric phase. If this transition from the stretch to the shorten happens within 0.2 seconds the energy stored in the stretch gets converted in the shorten cycle and that is why you jump higher with a little run up. If, however, the stretch-shorten cycle takes more than 0.2 seconds, the energy in the stretch is lost. This is why it is so important to do each exercise and lift with maximal speed. This is the main function of

plyometric training, to put a much greater strain on the muscle than would otherwise be possible. What do you think about when you jump. Most people would say, nothing they just jump. This is because when its time to jump your body relies on something called neuromuscular memory. This is what it is called when your brain learns to jump. Through this program you will develop new neuromuscular memory. You will program you legs to just jump, but this time they will learn to do it quicker and with more force causing you to jump higher.

MUSCLE MAKE-UP
KEY IDEAS: Human muscle comes in two types, Fast Twitch Type IIB and Slow Twitch Type I. Most people have nearly a 50/50 concentration of both types. Type IIB contracting nearly 3 times faster than Type I allows speeds in excess of 25mph in sprinting athletes and is the chief muscle fiber trained in plyometric training.

When you look at professional basketball players or Olympic jumpers, their legs are skinny. Have you ever wondered why they jump so well with such thin legs? The answer is simple if a bit hidden. Its not the size of a muscle but the type which determines the ability of an athlete to jump. This brings up the important reality that jumping potential is largely a genetic issue. Notice I said potential not ability. Training will help you increase your vertical dramatically, in this program by 8-14! This earlier stated fact just shows that genetics has a great deal to do with how a person with or without training will jump. There are two types of muscle present in the human body, fast twitch type IIB and slow twitch type I. Slow twitch type I muscle is aerobic meaning it uses oxygen to function and is capable of burning fat as fuel. This is why running distance is such a good fat burner. Fast twitch type IIB muscle on the other hand is anaerobic meaning it does not use oxygen to function and uses chiefly carbohydrates as a fuel source. Fast twitch type IIB muscle contracts at a rate approaching 25 milliseconds whereas slow twitch type I muscle contracts much slower at about 75 milliseconds. People with a higher percentage of fast twitch type IIB muscle will make better sprinters or jumpers. For example, running at speeds in excess of

approximately 8.5 mph utilizes almost exclusively fast twitch type IIB muscle. Speeds in excess of 25 mph can be reached under propulsion of fast twitch type IIB muscle as is achieved in the Olympic 100m and 200m dashes. The majority of people have an about even makeup of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers with gifted athletes tipped slightly toward fast twitch. It has not been proven that training increases the number of fibers in a muscle, all we know is that plyometrics is proven to increase the dramatically the size of existing muscle fibers. These fast twitch type IIB fibers are the type you will be building during this training program. STRETCHING

elbows push you legs down until you feel a stretch in your groin area. Hold for a count of 15. Do this three times. CALF STRETCH Lean against a wall putting one foot back. Hold that foot flat and lean forward until you feel a stretch in your calf. Hold for a count of 15. Do this three times to each leg. SHOULDER STRETCH Put one arm horizontal against a wall, shoulder on the wall. Rotate your body away from the wall with the arm still flat until you feel a stretch in the chest-shoulder area. Hold for a count of 15. Do this three times to each shoulder. POWER WEIGHT TRAINING

KEY IDEAS: Warming up and then stretching your muscles prevents injury and can actually increase your vertical leaping ability in only 20 minutes a day.

Before every workout, whether it be plyometrics or weight training, it is very important that you properly warm up and then stretch. You can properly warm up by jogging or jumping rope for 5 minutes. This gets the muscles warmed up properly and gets the blood flowing. Besides just warming the muscles up, warming up and stretching can increase your vertical by 1 to 3 inches in 20 minutes as compared to jumping cold. You should then spend 15-20 minutes stretching all major muscles. Here are is an example of a proper stretching routine. QUADRICEP STRETCH Sit on the floor in a hurdler position, one leg extended forward and the other knee bent with the ankle back near your buttock. Lean back until you feel a stretch in the top part of the leg. Hold this position to the count of 15. Do this to each leg three times. HAMSTRING STRETCH Sit with your legs in front of you apart with your knees locked. Reach for one foot until you feel a stretch in the back of the leg. Hold for a count of 15. Do this for each leg three times. BUTTERFLY STRETCH Sit with your legs bent and soles of you feet together. Place your palms on your feet and elbows on the inside of your knees. Using your

KEY IDEAS: Power weight training provides a strength base for the rest of this vertical leap program. This section contains mainly Olympic lifts as well as upper body lifts as nearly 10% of jumping power sources from upper body impulses.

As was outlined earlier in this program, power weight training is the key to a sufficient strength base for true improvement in your vertical leap. This is true not only in vertical leap training but also in all sports. Power weight training will be responsible for the bulk of any mass gain during this program. These lifts consist mainly of the Olympic lifts of power cleaning and squatting also including bench press, shoulder press, bicep curls and hamstring curls. You may wonder why there are so many upper body exercises incorporated in a vertical training program. About 10% of a vertical leap is generated by arm and upper torso movements, therefore considerable attention is given to upper body power. Following are descriptions of the power weight training lifts. POWER CLEANS Position the weighted bar directly in front of you with your feet shoulder width apart. Bend at the knees keeping your head up and back straight and grasp the bar at shoulder width. When you begin the lift, lift with your legs keeping your back straight. As you straighten your legs, shrug your shoulders and flex your calves to pull the weight higher, faster. Concentrate on speed. When you have shrugged your shoulders, drop down under the weight

snapping your arms under the bar, elbows forward. Stomp your feet as you stand upright in one motion. You should end with the bar resting across your chest, collar bone region, supported by your arms. This is one repetition. SQUATS Position the bar on your shoulders and grab the bar with your hands. Lower the weight keeping your back straight until your thighs are parallel to the ground. Be sure to go down far enough. Then reverse and stand back up. This is one repetition. Concentrate on slow down and quick reverse and up fast. LUNGES Position the bar on your shoulders and grab the bar with your hands. Step forward with one leg and lower the weight until your knee almost touches the ground. Bring the weight back up. Do this again stepping with the other leg. This is one repetition. This exercise can also be done with dumbbells. HAMSTRING CURLS Lay stomach down on the leg curl machine. Put your heels under the lifting pad and curl the weight through the full range of motion until your heels touch your buttock. Straighten you legs out in a controlled fashion. Concentrate on speed. This is one repetition. BENCH PRESS Lie on your back and grip the bar at about shoulder width and lower the bar until it touches your chest. Without pause lift it back up to the top concentrating on speed. This is one repetition. BICEP CURLS Hold the curl bar or dumbbells at your sides. Curl the weight through the full range of motion. This is one repetition. Do bench press and bicep curls in a superset fashion. This is when you do one set of each back to back with no rest. Weights during this phase should be such that you can only do the prescribed repetitions. If you can do more reps than prescribed increase the weight and vice versa. DYNAMIC WEIGHT TRAINING

KEY IDEAS: Dynamic Weight Training is the link between Power Weight Training and Plyometric Training incorporating lower weights with quick movements.

Quickness! This is the key to vertical jumping. What good is an athlete that can squat 500 lbs. but doesnt have quickness? Nothing! Dynamic weight training is the bridge between power weight training and plyometric training. It is the work out that loads weight with speed. During your dynamic weight training phase of this program you will be introduced to a few different lifts that now focus on speed with lighter weight. These include step-ups, jump squats, shoulder raises, dips and chin-ups. Here is a description of these lifts: STEP-UPS Stand with the bar on your shoulders. Grab the bar with your hands. Place one foot on a step or stool 8-12 high. Step up onto the stool with one leg and drive the opposite knee up then step back down. Repeat this with the other leg. This is one repetition. Use approximately the weight that you used on power cleans. JUMP SQUATS Stand with the weight on your shoulders. Grasp the bar with your hands. Bend at the knees to a squat (thighs at 45) then explode up, jumping as high as possible. This is one repetition. Attempt to do jump squats and squats as a superset if equipment allows. Use the weight of squats for jump squats. CHIN-UPS Hang from a bar both palms toward you. Pull yourself up until your chin is even with the bar. Go back down. This is one repetition DIPS Suspend your body from your arms on the dip box. Lower your body, bending at the elbows and shoulders until your upper arms are parallel to the ground. Come back up. This is one repetition. SHOULDER RAISES Sit down on a chair with lighter weights in each hand. 5 -15lb. dumbbells will do. Bring dumbbells out wide and to your sides. In a quick motion bring them up diagonally and

touch them together. Bring them back down. This is one repetition. ABDOMINALS You have surely done ab crunches before. You will be doing many repetitions and to ensure that you evenly work all abdominal muscles, you need to do more than one type of ab exercise. The 4 main exercises you will concentrate on will be Regular Crunches, Side Crunches (Crunches on your side), Leg Lifts (Legs straight, hands on your stomach) and Crossovers (Crunch touching opposite elbows to knees). Do all repetitions evenly between these 4 exercises. Make sure you do dips and chin-ups in supersets as you do the bench press and bicep curls. Weights for this phase are to be lighter. About to of power weight training weights. PLYOMETRIC TRAINING
KEY IDEAS: Plyometric Training is a relatively new concept in the US responsible for dramatic improvements in all sports. It concentrates on developing starting strength and explosive strength through quick elastic

plyometrics causes excessive strain, it is important to warm up thoroughly before every session and to only do the prescribed repetitions and sets and no more to prevent injury or overtraining. Following are the descriptions of the plyometric exercises used in this program. LATERAL JUMPS Start on one side of a cone or obstacle 18-24 high. Jump laterally (side to side) over the cone continuously. When you touch the ground instantly jump to the other side. Concentrate on speed, the less time on the ground the better. Each time back and forth is one repetition. ANKLE JUMPS Using only you calf muscles, flexing at the ankles and keeping your knees straight, bounce up and down concentrating on getting off the ground as fast as possible and as high as possible. Each touch on the ground is one repetition. RIM JUMPS Stand under a rim or against a wall. Jump as high as you can touching the wall or backboard. As soon as you touch the ground jump back as high as you can concentrating on hitting the same spot on the backboard or wall each time and getting off the ground quickly. STEP JUMPS Put your right leg on a chair or platform about 18 high. Using only the right leg jump as high as you can scissoring your legs in the air landing with your left foot on the platform now. Do the same with the left leg. Each jump is one repetition. SPLIT JUMPS Stand with one leg a few feet forward of the other. Lunge down until your front thigh is parallel to the ground and back knee is almost on the ground. Jump using both legs as high as possible. Scissor legs in the air landing with legs in the opposite position. Jump again. This is one repetition. SKIP FOR HEIGHT Im sure you have skipped as a child before so now do the same except skip and get as high as you can on each rep. Concentrate on driving your knee on each skip.

exercises.

Plyometric training is probably thought of as a training technique that had been around as long as people have been lifting but in the United States plyometrics is a relatively new concept. The first to use plyometrics in the US was Fred Wilt, a former Olympic runner in 1975. It was first used in the Soviet Union for Olympic jumpers as far back as the 1950s. Plyometrics was partially responsible for his dramatic improvement in the 100m dash when he went from 13.0s at age 14 to 10.0s at age 20. Plyometrics gets its name from the greek roots plio and metric meaning more and measure. Plyometrics concentrate on two key aspects of training: starting strength or instantaneous recruitment of as many muscle fibers as possible and explosive strength or maintaining that recruitment through a resistance. These two aspects, especially the first one, are the main determinants of vertical jumping ability. Plyometrics is the training consisting of loading muscles quickly and firing them just as quickly. This type of training will be the primary means of vertical gain after the first four weeks. As

CALF RAISES Stand on a step with one heel over the edge. Lower your body on that foot and then raise your body as high as you can on that leg. Do the prescribed reps for each leg. BOUNDING This is just a pronounced stride except you are concentrating on getting high as well as far driving and holding each forward knee. You may use either a single arm approach as in running or a double arm approach in which both arms go forward at the same time each time you bound. SINGLE LEG HOPS These jumps are similar to rim jumps only with one leg at a time. Each rep, go down to a squat and using your arms jump as high as possible. Reset and do it again. Do the prescribed reps for each leg. These cause extreme muscle fatigue and will not be done every time. ACCELERATIONS Sprint, accelerating to max speed then accelerate to full speed and back to max speed. Each time you hit max speed is one repetition. Many of these exercises you will be doing will involve a large amount of reps. It is very important that you continue to perform them to the last rep and with as much force as you can, especially toward the end of the program. There will be many times when you will feel like you are only getting a few inches off the ground and it is doing you no good. It is not necessarily the height you jump but the amount of muscle fibers you recruit when you do. These exercises will be increasing your vertical even when they feel worthless. NUTRITION
KEY IDEAS: Nutrition is the fuel for competition and recovery. A 3 to 4 ratio of protein to carbohydrates is optimum with protein needs dictated by the amount of activity an athlete undertakes.

the saying you are what you eat? Well its 100% correct. Your body breaks down from training and attempts to rebuild itself using what its given. If it doesnt receive a proper balance of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat) it will not rebuild properly or function properly. Eating correctly puts your body in the metabolic and hormonal zone to build muscle and perform as its trained to. Sports nutritionists have determined that the most important ratio in your diet is that of protein to carbohydrates. It is thought that for every 3 grams of protein you need 4 grams of carbohydrates. So how much protein is needed? There is a relationship between activity and protein needs which is outlined in the table below:
Less than 1 hr. exercise daily 1 to 2 hrs. exercise daily 0.7 gram s per pound 0.8 gram s per pound

More than 2 hrs. exercise daily 0.9 gram s per pound

As is shown in the above table, you will need to know your lean muscle mass. This is what you weigh minus the weight of body fat. You can have your body fat tested at many fitness centers or even possibly at your own high school or college. If you do not have access to this test it is a good approximation to assume the average athlete has between 10 and 12% body fat. Lean body mass is calculated as follows: (Body Weight) x (100% - Body Fat %) Example:
With an athlete that weighs 185lbs. and has 10% body fat (185lbs.) x (100% - 10%) (185lbs.) x (90%) 167lbs. lean muscle mass

In this program 0.8g/lb. lean muscle mass is enough. Protein requirements are found as follows:
(167lbs) x (0.8g/lb.) 133g Protein daily

Why nutrition? What is so important about how you eat? The answer may be quite surprising. Everything! Have you ever heard

And using the 4 to 3 ratio of carbohydrates to protein, carbohydrate requirements are found as follows:
(133g) x 4/3 178g Carbohydrates daily

Fat is used to build hormones and other for other vital body functions but is not as linked as protein and carbohydrates are so monounsaturated fat intake is arbitrarily set at 1 /3 of carbohydrates. Using this multiplier we can find the fat intake as follows:
(178g) x 1/3 59g fat daily

Carbohydrates should be mostly from fruits and vegetables not breads and grains. Breads and grains should be treated like condiments because they have a high glycemic index which when eaten will spike insulin levels taking you out of the optimal zone for growth. If you are interested in finding the caloric intake of your diet you can find it using the following table:
Protein Carbohydrate Fat 4 calories per gram 4 calories per gram 9 calories per gram

If you have decided that losing some weight is in order, you should take the extra calories from monounsaturated fats and leave your protein and carbohydrate intakes alone. The caloric intake of this program is rather low already and therefore there should be no need to reduce your intake any further. If this nutrition regiment proves to be too few calories for you (you find yourself fatigued easily or have a lack of energy) revert to a 2000-2500 calorie diet composed of 30% protein, 50% carbs and 20% fat. POSITIVE MENTALITY
KEY IDEAS: Confidence, Belief in Yourself, Goal Setting, Visualization and Motivation are the five components of positive mentality that use your mind as a powerful training tool to achieve your athletic goals.

The final component of this program is one that is limited literally only by your imagination.

Positive mentality is the icing on your proverbial vertical jumping cake. Mentality is one of the most important elements of your athletics that you can control. You cannot always control the physical condition you are in but your mindset will make or break your performance, period! Have you ever walked into a situation with full confidence and realized how easy it was to perform; or when you are up in a game, how easily things just come to you. Sports announcers call this momentum, but it all comes down to the same thing, mentality. Belief in your self is the key to success. Dont let people tell you that this program or any goals you have wont work or you wont make it. As soon as you stop believing in yourself you will have a hard time following your dreams as well as this program. One thing that I have learned through the past few years is that if you dont believe in yourself no one else will either. The first and most important point to positive mentality is belief in your self. Now that you have anchored your dreams firmly in the rocks of confidence, you need to find yourself a goal. In this program goal setting will help you have a sense of purpose and give you something to measure progress against. There are two limitations you should impose on yourself while goal setting. 1) Dont set your sights too low. 2) Dont set your goals too high. If you set your sights on increasing your vertical 4 inches over the course of this program you are making it too easy on yourself. You will either slack off because you think you are right on track or you will reach your goal too early and endanger your chances of reaching your potential. On the other hand dont set your goal as increasing your vertical 24 in 15 weeks. Plyometric training is a miraculous tool but 24 in 15 weeks is just plain ridiculous. Setting your goal too high will instill a false hope in you as well as set you up for disappointment when you dont reach your goal. No program in existence will give you results like 24 in 15 weeks so dont think this program is sub par. A good goal to set for your self is 12 in 15 weeks. This will put you in a range where you will have to work for your goals but will yield reinforcing results steadily throughout your 15 week program. The next mentality tool you will need is one of imagination. Visualization is a process in which you use your imagination to trick your subconscious, the place where confidence is based, into believing you have done something

repeatedly that you may have never actually done. Visualization is something that takes nearly no time at all and can be done lying in bed before you fall asleep. Alright heres the Athletic Advantage visualization exercise: 1) Lying in bed close your eyes and visualize a rim in front of you. Imagine the feel of the floor and everything around you. Position yourself in front of the rim. In your mind imagine a mark a couple inches above where you think you can touch. Visualize yourself jumping up and touching that mark. Visualize the muscles in your whole body firing in order quickly and your body rising to that mark. Do it again 10 more time, more vividly each time. Remember the feeling of exhilaration from doing this and say to yourself I did it 10 times. Repeat steps 2 and 3 a few times.

2)

3)

4)

Do this exercise every night before you fall asleep attaching a number to the heights you imagine jumping. This exercise has a parallel with hypnosis and will help you boost your confidence and motivation. The last piece of positive mentality is motivation. There are going to be times during your training that you wont feel like doing your work out or you will feel lazy. These are the times when having a source of motivation will help you press on. Good examples of motivation are basketball games, highlights, dunking contests or athletes excelling at anything you enjoy. Next time you are feeling a little lazy or unmotivated pop in a tape of Vince Carter highlights and imagine yourself doing some of those same things in a few weeks. You will find motivation to be your best friend some days.

During the course of this program you will be testing and retesting your vertical leap to track your progress. This will continually reaffirm that you are making gains regularly in your vertical leap. Every week on Monday after the weekend of rest and before you do any training, you will test your vertical leap. This can be done more than one way. There are vertical testing machines that you may have access to in which you set to your reach height and then you try to jump as high as you can touching multicolored strips at certain heights. If you do not have access to one of these, here is a method that works very well. Stand in front of a wall or backboard. Using masking tape, make several small tape loops, about a half inch long or so, so that you have a loop that is sticky on all sides. Stick one loop to your middle finger on the hand you will be reaching with. First you need to make a mark at the maximum height you can reach without jumping. So reach up as far as you can flatfooted and slap the wall sticking the tape loop to the wall. Now take another tape loop and stick it to that same finger. This time without a step, jump as high as you can and slap the wall again, depositing the tape at the height of your jump. Do this three times. Measure the distance between the lowest tape mark and the highest tape mark. This is you vertical leap. INJURY
KEY IDEAS: Injury is always a possibility. If you sustain an injury stop training immediately and consult a physician.

FOLLOWING YOUR PROGRESS

KEY IDEAS: Testing your vertical leap weekly when fresh will allow you to track your progress as well as give you confirmation that this program is actually working.

There is a chance that during this program you will sustain an injury of some sort. Because I am not a doctor I will not give much advice about injury except that if you think that you have sustained one, stop the program immediately and consult a physician. If you develop pain in your muscles or bones after a few weeks in this program, chances are you are suffering from over use. This can be alleviated by rest and icing. Dont be worried about stopping the program because you have an injury. You will sustain far less damage to your vertical leap by stopping and correctly treating your injuries than by trying to train through them and hurting yourself severely. For the first week or so of each phase of this program you will experience soreness. Proper

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stretching and warming up before and stretching and icing afterwards should take care of it. If, however, you experience continued soreness through the next few weeks, stop immediately and consult a physician. Disclaimer: As with any training program, this program incorporates repetitive exercises that have the potential to cause injury. Athletic Advantage and its creator bear no responsibility for the condition and health of the athlete(s) using this program. RESULTS As in any sport or discipline the old saying practice makes perfect rings truer than ever. You must remember this. If you do and practice what you preach you will reap the benefits that you dream of achieving. If you continue with this program and follow it to the letter you can expect to be dunking over your competition in no time. This program will have you high flying above the rim giving you an extra 8-14 on your vertical in 15 weeks. I have no doubt in my mind that if you are still reading this you have what it takes to put to use the valuable resources you have in front of you and inside you. You will be hands and shoulders above the competition soon. Good bye and good luck with your new and improved athletic abilities.

Attention: Because of the extreme nature of this program it is recommended that you be at least 12 to 14 years of age before beginning. HOW AND WHEN Staying energized will require you to follow the nutrition phase of this program closely and get at least 8 hours of sleep. You will have best results if you break your meals into 3 meals and 2 snacks daily with plenty of water. Try to train a couple hours after a good meal. This will ensure enough energy to complete the exercises each day. When doing your weight training remember to use weight that allows you to do only the specified number of reps while at the same time concentrating on speed of each rep. Power Weight training is to be done twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays except on weeks 7 and 12 when you will not be lifting and on weeks 14 and 15 when you will only be lifting on Thursday. The lifts should be done in the following order: Warm Up and Stretch, Power Cleans, Step-Ups, Squats and Jump Squats, Lunges, Hamstring Curls, Bench Press and Bicep Curls, Shoulder Raises, Chin Ups and Dips, Abs, Cool Down and Stretch skipping over the lifts you dont do in a particular week. Plyometric training is to be done 3 times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays except on weeks 7 and 12 when you will be resting. During plyometric training you should take no more than 2 minutes rest between sets for the first 6 weeks and no more than 3 minutes rest between sets for the last 9 weeks. The exercises should be done in the following order: Warm Up and Stretch, Single Leg Hops, Lateral Jumps, Calf Raises, Rim Jumps, Skip for Height, Step Jumps, Split Jumps, Ankle Jumps, Bounding, Accelerations, Cool Down and Stretch skipping over the exercises you dont do in a particular week. Single leg hops are to be done only on Fridays of the weeks they are assigned except during week 15 when you will be doing them on Mondays as well. Your workouts are outlined in this book, Athletic Advantage The Complete Vertical Jump Program, as well as on your separate Jump Program Card. Follow the workouts exactly and in 15 weeks you will be amazing everyone with your insane dunking skills.

LETS GET STARTED Now its time to start training. The next 15 weeks will be an intense series of muscular break down and rebuilding. Make sure to drink enough water and stay energized. Athletic Advantage will teach your muscles how to jump over the next 15 weeks. You will do so much jumping that your body will reprogram what is called neuromuscular memory. This is your brains learned, almost subconscious memory of how to jump. This program will get so intense that there are two extended breaks in which you will take a complete break from all training incorporated in the program to encourage muscle rebuilding and recuperation. (Weeks 7 and 12).

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After you have completed this program you will want to retain your gains. You can do this by doing the workouts for Week 8. Take a week off before this as Weeks 13-15 are designed to give your muscles maximum breakdown. If you plan to do this program again it is recommended that you wait several weeks. This will allow your body to recuperate properly for the next 15 weeks of intense jump training. Congratulations on your new ups and good luck!

MY VERTICAL LEAP IMPROVEMENT GOAL

During the next 15 weeks I intend to increase my vertical leap by ____ inches! My goals also include ________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ .

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