Nothing riles up crowds and intimidates opponents than throwing down a thunderous fast-break dunk. Prolific dunkers, such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and, most recently, Blake Griffin, dominate highlights with their aerial assaults on the rim. Each benefited from strength training, hitting the gym with zeal.
Powerful Legs and Strong Core
Powerful legs and a strong core are crucial to athletic performance. Training both will help your safeguard yourself against injury and provide your with a platform to generate the force needed to “jump out of the gym.” Tim Grover, owner of Attack Athletics and Michael Jordan’s former personal trainer, is a proponent of squatting to develop lower-body power. However, he adds one caveat: “It’s not about how much you lift. It is all about how fast you can move the weight.” Grover prioritizes proper form and performing the movement quickly. Squatting also forces almost every muscle from the neck to the feet -- and specifically the muscles of the core -- to stabilize the load that rests on your upper back. The training effect of demanding the core to support the body trumps performing endless situps and crunches.
Olympic Lifts
Many athletes shy away from Olympic lifts because they wrongly assume that the lifts cause injury and take too much time to master. While the latter may be partly true, avoiding Olympic lifting may mean leaving inches off your vertical jump. Cleans and snatches, when perfected, can help you become faster and more explosive, making your journey to getting above the rim quicker and more efficient.
Plyometrics
Plyometrics are also vitally important in your training program, because they increase your rate of force development, which is critical to jumping performance. According to Donald Chu, sports physical therapist and author, “Plyometric training is an excellent way to train for the demands of basketball.” Plyometrics can hone your’s ability to generate force and can be performed using cones for lateral bounding exercises and platforms for box jumps and depth jumps.
Workouts
Each workout can be done once weekly and incorporate exercises to increase overall body strength and power, strengthen your core and prevent injury. Workout one can include three sets each of box jumps, hang cleans, back squats, pullups and a plank to pushup. Workout two, taking place at least two days later can feature three sets a piece of lateral bounds, snatches, deadlifts, parallel dips and barbell curls. Repetitions of plyometric exercises and Olympic lifts should be kept low -- about three to five -- to focus on the proper execution of the exercise. Repetitions of squats, deadlifts, pullups and dips can range from two to 20, depending on the athlete’s current training focus and strength levels.
Member Comments