Journey to Dunking at 30 Episode 2: The Foundation

[@adelyabaimu]

So invested in this journey 👏🏼 ⛹🏻‍♂️🏀

[@DevinDeraney]

🔥🏀💪

[@paul_AAA]

Man, you've inspired me a lot. I've got the same atropometrics, age, goal and starting level, with just slightly better coordination due to my amateur basketball background. I don't really care about dunking , but recently I've switched to volleyball and decided to return my previous athleticism improving it when it's possible. Unfortunately, after 3 months of training and increasing my vert on about 5-7inches, I feel like my body is falling apart. Nagging micro traumas, ankles, back, shoulders and mostly knees especially the one after acl surgery. I do decent warm ups, injury preventive exercises, drink vitamins and chondroprotectors, but it's all in vain. And when I looked at my flared knees again after a volleyball workout having an urge to cry and smashsomething really hard, I saw your video. It helped me, because some of my friends and relatives started telling me that it's childish to be serious about your own sport performance after 30 if you're not a professional athlete. Truly demotivating. I have the same microcycle approach (base-strength-power-speed each one 4 weeks) as you, but with some tweaks. Definitely more isometrics because they are life savers. I almost don't do plyos since I play volleyball 1-2 times a week. I have 3 gym workouts: 2 hard ones according to current cycle and 1 easy cardio-rehab day . I never play volley after hard workouts, it's to easy to tear something when you're sore, and vice versa if I have 2 volley workouts I took out 1 hard gym workout, because managing workload is crucial. 4 body taxing activities a week is ok when you're 20, but it's too much after 30 especially if you have 9 to 5 work. Do more videos I really want to see your progress. Wish you good health, resilience and fewer life problems since it's the most important part in our journey.

[@altaiyafitness]

I'm happy to hear that I'm inspiring you to keep working. Pursuing athletic goals at any age is great and will be especially important as we age. Increasing your vertical 5-7 inches in such a short amount of time is incredible. Injuries are truly bound to happen whether we try to achieve a goal or not, so at least when we're able to fight through injuries and achieve our goals we know that they were worth it. Thanks for sharing your own journey. I have a 9-5 as well so I'll look into incorporating managing work, sports, training and other life stressors into my upcoming videos. Let me know if you have any other questions and I'll try and incorporate that into future videos as well.

[@paul_AAA]

@@altaiyafitness Yeah, I was also impressed with my gains, but I think it's not really gains it's just returning to my previous level that I had 10 years ago. Also, during acl rehab my "base" phase lasted almost for 2 years, so I just actualize it during following cycles. And I talked about my one-foot jump, because I'm naturally jumping of one foot, but volley requirement is two-foot technique, and I still suck at it. Btw, I couldn't finish speed cycle when I wanted to deload and do some plyos, because I sprained my knee. As for what I wanted to see. There is plenty information about jumps and jump training. For example, I personally prefer Isaiah Rivera and John Evans channels. MIcrocycles aren't something new for anyone who was into strength training at some moment. What makes your journey unique is your starting point. You are not a professional athlete. You're not a teenager either who can spend all his time jumping. I'm sure you have tons of challenges outside your sport activities. You might have previous injuries that you have to take into account. So for me, knowing how you manage your workload, daytime routine, prevent injuries are more interesting than actual jump training theory. And since you have almost the same body mass, age and height I really want to see your progress and maybe some insights about jump technique that you have on the way up.