What's up, guys? Welcome back to the THP Strength podcast. This is four of the athletes that I train every single day in person. This is Dom Gonzales. He's officially tested a 48 inch vertical.

This is Josh Ruble. He's officially tested a 41 inch vertical on the Vertex. Flight time, maybe 43. Donovan, he's

45.

45 officially. He's had a flight time close to a second, which doesn't really make sense. And Isaiah Rivera, who has tested a 50.5 inch vertical, and his flight time has been point nine nine, I wanna say. Nine nine two. Nine nine two.

My name is John Evans. Like I said, I help people jump higher, run faster, and get healthy. And in this episode, I'm gonna be asking these guys an interesting question, and I'm gonna emcee. But I'm gonna get behind the camera before I do that because it's kind of busy over there.

And while he walks over there, if you wanna get coached by him to make vertical jump gains, click the link in the description or in the pinned comment to get six months free or a diagnosis call to find your vertical jump deficit.

Alright. So the question I have today is based on my experiences at Altus. When I was there, there were tons and tons of world class sprinters. We had guys running in the low tens all the way down to nine eighty three, I think is what Andre was running at the time. We were world class long jumpers jumping over eight meters, and I, as someone who has never achieved any of those accolades, had a very interesting question that I don't know if I would be able to answer on my own in any context, and that was, what does it feel like for you on your absolute best jumping days, the run-in, the push off, the contact, sensationally, internally.

And if you were to give someone advice on how to recreate those sensations or what it feels like for you, how would you answer that? Don, you're gonna go first?

Sure. I'll go. For me, when I have my best jumping days, I feel weightless. I don't really have to think, and it just comes natural to me.

So So do you feel the arm swing or tension or stretch anywhere in your body at any point in the approach? If you were to sit back, take a second.

I would say I feel the heaviest right when I'm about to jump, when I'm loading up. And then once I jump, I just feel weightless and it feels easy.

Do you feel tension anywhere or?

Probably my my back, to be honest. Really? Yeah.

You'll feel it in your low back, upper back?

Mid. Mid back.

What point of the jump?

Yeah. Filipino jump.

What what part of the jump?

Right when I'm jumping. So once my block foot touches down, I feel the most compression. And then it's like, basically, like a spring. I just let go.

And that's what your best jumps feel

like? Yeah.

What are your what do bad jumping days feel like to you?

Bad jumping days feel like I have to really push with my legs on the full approach, and I'm really trying hard with my arms, and I just feel heavy throughout everything.

Alright. Josh Ruble, the only one to hit the J rub consistently, two hand J Rich divert reverse, which we call the J rub. Josh, what do you feel on your best jumping days sensationally for you, and what would you tell someone to try to recreate those sensations?

Kind of what Dom said, it's very effortless compared to like a max fatigue session where you're like, you have to tell yourself to try hard. You don't have to tell yourself to try hard, at least I don't. Sensationally, I would say my block, my last two contacts feel, like, really fast.

They feel quick? Yeah. What is the plant foot versus the block foot feel like?

I don't really know the diff I mean, I don't know how to describe it. But that's

that's the key. How would you describe it if you had to?

It's I feel like I plant them very fast compared to, like, a when I'm fatigued. Like, I feel like, everything feels weight like, it's just everything's faster. So I think I I think I plant faster. I guess I recover, reposition better even when I'm not fatigued.

Do you feel a stretch anywhere at any point in the approach?

No. Definitely my hip on my ultimate step.

On your good jumping days?

Yeah. Especially now with my new recover not recovery.

New His newfound technique. Newfound tech Newfoundland technique. Okay. Donovan, sensationally, what do you feel I wanna talk about for you. What do you feel on the run-in steps?

I took some time to think about this while they were going. John Evans, eight months ago now, nine months ago, described a feeling that me and Isaiah at the time when he described it to us, didn't know if we agreed or not. There is you asking us to try to put it in words is kind of like limiting it. So you described the feeling as a high jump. You've heard people describe it.

You don't feel anything, you just do it and it's a reaction of you doing it. That's what it feels like. You don't think about anything, you don't feel anything happen, it just happens. It's a reaction from your your body attempting to do it. On the best days, it does it very, very well.

You just do it. It's a reaction. Like, you don't I don't you don't put an effort to do it. It just happens.

What does it feel like when you don't have that?

It feels like there's no drive. You have to you have to do the drive. But on the days where it happens, you don't have to be like, oh, I'm gonna go do this dunk.

You just do it. Has that changed over the years?

No. It's always been like that. On the days it's good, you just do it. And on the days it's not good, you have to be, like, cut like, aware and tell yourself to do it, and you have to do it. It just happens.

Like, you don't on your best days, you don't think you're not gonna go

do this jump. Just do it. You feel slow. Like I'm not moving fast at all. I just feel slow.

Yeah. Yeah. I know that it is just

We're gonna jump lower.

That's just reaction to the ground. You just, like, touch the ground and it just happens. There's no, like, sensation. Must be nice.

I I'm glad they got to go first because I saw some common themes and certain things they were saying. It, like, was a light bulb for me. Like, I, like, agreed with a lot.

That's that's why I

like it. So one thing that I heavily, heavily agree, I don't think I've ever thought about my technique on a good jumping day. The only the only like, it the best description I can have is I'm having fun. It feels like like I'm playing a video game. Just do it.

Like, you know how to explain. You know when you're playing shooters and, like, you're in the zone, you're not thinking about,

like low state.

How you're, like, aiming or anything like that. So you're like, it feels the exact same. Like, I don't feel

Feel no pain.

Pain. There's nothing hurting. I don't feel sensations in my muscles.

You look you like you don't even pay attention or anything. Like Yeah. There's no sensations. Like, so you that's what I trying to say. Like, you asked yesterday, what are the sensations?

Well, there is none. It's just the reaction.

Can't do it. Having said that

Their mechanoreceptors sensory motor unit just shuts off. He doesn't sense anything. He has no feeling. I could shoot him with a bullet and he wouldn't feel it.

My gun, my hand, but not, like, not to my body either.

Yeah. I I think a big part of that is probably, like, adrenaline has to do a lot with it. Like, you hear people, you know, not like they go through a freak injury, and then they don't feel it because of the adrenaline. But having said that, I think, bad jumping days give you context on what changes.

Yeah.

And I have gone through that extensively this last month because I took time off and then coming back into jumping, low fitness. I was the the gym isn't very high adrenaline. And the this is the other thing that resonated with me was that I have to try. And it goes with, any dunk. For example, a three sixty East Bay.

For when I'm feeling good, that is a dunk that is that's easy. Like, it it it's like the equivalent of me doing a layup. On days where I'm fatigued Forever. I have to force myself just to start my plan. I have to force myself to do the penultimate.

And then this is probably the biggest sensation. I will say the biggest difference. I was explaining this during one of the bad days. It feels like I have tape or, like, glue on my shoes. I jump and I just feel stuck to the floor.

I feel heavy even if I'm not heavy. When I'm jumping well, it's like a like a bouncy ball. Like, I don't I don't even like, you describe what do you feel in your plant leg versus your block foot. To me, they feel, like, the same. Like, it's, like, just really quick, and it feels like I just like I'm like a bouncy ball bouncing off the bouncing off the floor.

Go ahead, Dom.

I feel like a trampoline on, like, my best days when you get that double jump feeling.

Yeah. That's

what You touch the ground and you're just in the air like crazy.

The cool thing the cool thing too about this about this this this question is we're describing it, which is good, because you guys can hear our input, people watching, but you guys also know what it feels like. Every single person watching this, because no matter the level of how high you're jumping, you know the feeling that we're talking about. So you know everything we're talk you could be your max vert could be 25 inches, but on your best day, you know the feeling. It feels the same. It that sensational feeling is the same.

It felt the same my whole life on a good day, whether I on a low rim or

10 foot. Bro. Feels the same.

Me too. Yeah.

It feels the same. My good jumping days when I was six like, I on everything, I feel the exact same as when I had a a 32 inch vertical compared to 50.

So that's everybody here who who's watching this video knows what we're talking about. It's not like something like foreign where you guys know the exact feeling too.

I hit a new dunk hitting a new dunk feels the same as getting your first dunk.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. Maybe I So here's Can I Oh?

Well, go ahead.

No. No. You I'll ask I'll ask it last. It's a good last question.

Well, this is just a a quick follow-up Yeah. Which is if if We'll go back. The sensation of jumping high is a lack of feeling and sensation, what Isaiah said kind of clues us into what don't you feel or what is different on bad jumping days. Essentially, it's the reverse of the question. So what do you notice you don't have on Bad days jumping days.

On bad jumping days? What do you notice you lack in your physical preparedness?

There is a sort of fear and, like, hesitation with my jumps. I don't wanna push as far on my penultimate. I don't wanna, like, try as hard. It it feels like I have, like, a limiter, like a like a limiter on my jumps, and then everything is is heavier and slower. So then to answer the question of what it feels like would be it feels fast, it feels light Yeah.

It feels so that's why

I'm asking that question is what is it when it feels like shit? Nah. But like said,

when you're in when you're

in Exactly.

But

it does queue into what's different.

Yeah. I like I like to describe it like this, like, on really, like, really bad days, like, if there's average days, you feel like fine, like, kinda fine. You just don't jump as high. But like like, the really bad days, like the way I like to say it, I tell John all the time is there's no drive. Like, you know how like some days you wake up and you don't wanna go to work?

Or some days you wake up and you the lift is hard. That's exactly there's no there's no drive. You can't like you can't get yourself to like rev up to the same RPMs in a car. You just can't. It feels like limited.

Like you said, limited was great. Motivation

is low.

Boom. Yeah. Yeah.

I actually have the the perfect scenario to describe this, is testing when you're feeling your best ever. I don't know if you guys have I actually don't think you guys have ever tested on your best day ever. I've multiple I think, like, probably four or five times. I've, like, PR'd PR'd my vertical in a adrenaline in environment. And the unique spot there is when you're feeling amazing, and then you get close to your limits.

Because then you're, like, missing a tab, and then you have to, like, find things. Like, that feeling of, like, effortlessness goes away because when it's a dunk, you can hit dunks with 95% of your vertical. And when you're feeling amazing, it it feels effortless. But when you have to, like, ramp up to a 101% on your best day ever, that's some things that, like, feel weird. Because then I then I have to mess around with, okay.

I'm at 50. What do I do to get to 51? It's like, I run faster? Then I I run faster, and and then the rhythm fall.

Like It's like trying trying less hard and not thinking about it and being effortless doesn't get you 51. You have to change something to get to 51.

Exactly. Exactly. And I will say a lot of times on those testing days, the highest jumps are the when I didn't try as hard. Yeah. But I think if I were to describe a sensation, it's hitting a bull's eye.

It's like

I've always

said. It's like hitting

As

Like, you're like, the rhythm like, the I think it's the timing. The timing of it. It's like and everything feels together, connected. When I mess up the rhythm, everything's, like, disjointed.

I kinda think about, like, water going from, you know, so not maybe not a basin, but almost imagine, like, if you ever gone to a water park and you've been on a water slide, it's like when the water comes in to like one narrow part and then it just becomes this very fast moving stream and it's like that intensified on the best jumping days.

Skateboard ramp.

Yep. All the pressure down. Yeah. But it's like intensifying, all the energy is coming together at the right time, and there's like a moment where you have that peak amount of energy.

So if if if a good jump were to be a skateboard going down like, a u shaped ramp, what a bad jump would be would be imagine the the rear wheels hit and then the front wheels hit, like,

at

the bottom of the of the ramp. Like go up. Yeah. It'll still go up, but it's like versus a good jump is like like

smooth. Fast.

And the question I'm gonna ask John, this is good, so you can talk now. Even though I'm pretty sure I know the answer, why this is all good that we're talking about And you might know one that I don't know of, but why is jumping the most sensational physical thing you can do? I don't think anything else is as sensational as it. Because the forces are higher. Well No.

They're but they're not.

The forces are higher in in elastic return. So if you were to look at, like, yeah, technically, you were to look at downhill skiing or you were to look at Spring. Skateboarding, even sprinting is lower forces, peak forces, and is from usher forces. Really? So yeah.

But like repeated though.

Yeah. So it's, you have about of maximum, maximum effort in a condition where our body produces more force. So for example, if you were to look at weight lifting. Weight lifting doesn't have a counter movement. You're not dropped from a two foot box with a bar.

The high jump and two foot jumping, you're two foot jumping, you're probably running, running six meters per second. You're lowering your center of mass immensely, multiple, like, you know, in in long jump, you might lower it three inches. It's not a lot. In dunking, you're gonna lower it a ton, a ton more. And so you have to then take that energy and not just land with it.

That's different. You could do parkour and you could see crazy forces, but you're not doing anything with that energy. It's just dissipating. Jumping, you're taking that energy and you're using it to create more lift propulsion. And that's why shot put, you don't have that.

I mean, you do to a certain extent. Jab, you're taking energy across. I mean, it's crazy on the shoulder, but your legs are a hell of a lot stronger. And so if you look at track, is basically the peak of what you can do with the human body, musculotendinous units, you've got shot put, you're not running 10 meters per, or eight meters per second into a jump. Long jump, you're running 10 meters per second, and then planning with one leg and propelling yourself, you know, almost 30 feet, that's a pretty crazy feat.

And so when you're looking at two foot jumping for height, it's an iteration of that. Is it as intense as something like triple jump or long jump? Probably not, but you're still it's it's intense in a different way, it's definitely up there. Jumping as a whole, if you were to put it under an umbrella of jumping, it's gonna be far higher than throwing, than running, than even change of direction. Those are hard in different ways, but the the amount and the magnitude of the forces and the ability to take that force from either forward to upwards or downwards to upwards, a depth jump, something like that.

There's a reason shock training is depth jumps. Right? We don't see guys do bottoms up squats for it. We don't see them do bottoms up bench press or something like that. They're doing a depth jump.

And throwers will do depth jumps, and hurdlers will do jump depth jumps, and athletes in other sports will do depth jumps. Why? Because you have to use the energy. The potential energy at the top of the box turns into kinetic energy, and you have to turn that back into energy on the up phase. And so the forces are a lot higher.

You're seeing more deformation across the lower extremities at the knee and hip, maybe more than anything else. Sprinting, you're not gonna see those deformations even upright. You're gonna see at the lower leg, but even one foot, you might have more deformation in the Achilles and lower leg.

Do all those reasons I guess what I was trying to ask is why is jumping the hardest thing to repeat often? I feel like you can do everything you just mentioned more often and better. Jumping, you can't do it as often.

Because the forces are higher.

That's yeah. So everything you is much.

You can't. Like, you could do iterations of it. Track guys sometimes do that, but they pay the they pay the price. If you try to triple jump three days a week, you're gonna bruise your heel. You're gonna start to get tendon pain.

You're gonna start to get joint pain. You can't handle the forces on repeat. But if you're a thrower, you can throw every single day in some Force or less? Yeah. Almost any of those, you know, events.

Pitching, you technically could throw every day. You might not throw hard every day, but you could do it every day. Jumping is something where, you know, the wheels will start to fall off if you did an iteration of jumping at a 100% every day at at the volumes that you do for other things, like running or sprinting. Sprinting is maybe the next closest, and that one you can do. I've seen guys sprint four days a week at max intensity.

You can't you cannot jump max intensity four days a week at really any volume. You probably can't even work up to a 100 effort. No. That that's

not what I'm saying.

Like, sprinting, you could work up to a 100% effort four days a week, or throwing, you could do it, you know, quite a bit. I don't know what the exact magnitude is.

That's why I was asking about the the sensations the sensations. Because, like, sprinting, you could work out what you said, but jumping, like, your body wouldn't allow you to get up to a hundred percent four days a week. You could you could not you could not do 50.54 days a week. You I I mean, sprinters

probably can't springers probably can't hit, you know, 12.2 meters per second four days a week, but they're gonna get within a closer Within. Yeah. Closer The percentage. The percentage of their of their max. And I mean, it's just all of those, we're looking at the freakiest of freaky performances.

Like, you know, skill work is the more skill dependent something is, the more you can hide physical capacity. If you're just shooting a basketball, could do that thousands and thousands reps. It's low force. You know? If you're doing a step back shot, same thing.

It's a low force. You could do hundreds and hundreds of reps of that every single day. Even playing defense in basketball, you're not it's not at the same magnitudes, right, that you're gonna see the even getting a rebound most of the time, not at a peak intensity. It's more timing position.

Well, I'll ask this second, but I think it's because of the it is just a perfect storm of the things that affect tendon load. It's like speed, the tendon getting stretched to the length and position, repetition. It's like all those things in one. Then what I was gonna ask is how many contacts are in a typical sprint, like like a 20 meter sprint that we just did?

Depends on the person. I think Usain Bolt took 43 strides in a 100 meter dash. Right? So that's I don't know how many contacts you'd have. I would say you're probably around, for what we were doing today, up to

Ten, fifty?

Yeah. Maybe. Something like that. I'd have to count exactly.

And where where I was going with this is compare a typical dunk session where you might be doing 30 to 50 jumps, trying as hard as you can, and you have the approach, and then it's like two contacts at the end. And then I think the range of motion and then with how short of a time it is on the ground, I think that's what makes it You have super intense. Because I put hypothetically, if you just built up to one max jump, I think you could build up Maybe. To

that. But even that's like a hypothetical, like, maybe.

Yeah. Yeah.

You're an elite jumper, like, maybe you could, maybe.

I know

a lot

of people couldn't. Dom couldn't, Josh couldn't, Donovan couldn't couldn't. You maybe could for a week Yeah. And then you

would probably start to fall off. Also, come how come if jumping is harder, how come, like, on our good days, like sure, we might have like one jump where it's 50.5, but then all the other jumps are at like 98% and we can do it. Isaiah, on his 50.5 testing day, he could have jumped for an hour and a half or two hours and they all would have been 95% plus. But like sprinting, you can't you can't run nine five all day three times during a day. You can just do it once.

So why how come jump you can repeat this?

Well, actually think I can't do that with jumping. I think, like, I think I don't think I can do that with jumping. I think with jumping, I can sustain it for, like, five jumps.

No. No. No. No. I didn't get 3.5.

I said, like, 3.5, and all the other jumps in the day are, like, 47, 48. Like, what you can do it for, two hours. But a sprint if you if you say Bolt runs nine five eight, if he does, like, two more sprints, he's not even gonna get close that. So what how come we can do it for like a long period of time in a in a single day? Why can we keep doing it?

Is also mega intense. I mean, that's one, but the time interval

it would seem that sprinting is more intense in this case.

It is more intense

per Per one?

Per extension flexion extension pattern. But if you're looking at sprinting, you're doing let's say Usain Bolt takes between or around 40 strides in a 100 meter dash, you're doing 40 jumps in 40 little single leg jumps or little single leg long jumps

I see.

Across nine to ten second range. Right? So, yeah, it makes sense that he's not gonna be able to do that. And the frequencies, the the other thing is time. You what will happen and what research shows is that as you jump more, your jump technique will change across a session to get the same outcome.

You'll use a different movement strategy to get the same outcome or close to the same outcome. And sometimes, that's a negative consequence where your technique changes and you learn bad habits and you get worse. And they see that very, very common in jump studies where they look at jumping. The jump strategy changes even for a broad jump. So when you're looking at the 100 meter dash, there's only one way to run really, really fast.

Everyone does it the same exact way.

Oh, I I I see.

You can't. You could I could jump 35 let's say my vertical was 41 or 42 off one foot on my best day ever, my best jump in the session. I would just change my strategy slightly. I'd spend more time on the ground.

And you might

I'd run a little slower.

Nine forty.

And I might jump 39 or 40. But I'm not you can't you can't can't go from change the kinetics and kinematics of sprinting to get a better outcome or close to the same outcome. Can't use the muscle or more speed. You can't you can't spend more time on the ground and run a nine fifty eight. That's not how you run fast.

You can't do that. And I think that the frequencies are also a big You part of have way more flexion extension patterns, and the the signals coming from the brain are a lot faster even though the peak forces are lower. It's just the timing is

was way saying it. That Josh made

a great point. Well, I'm not a racer, but I feel like if you would use a different strategy in running, you'd just quit running. Like, you'd see, like, you'd be

getting dusted. You'd be

single leg bounding.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You'd bounding. Like, let's say you were racing and you saw this guy in front of you and like this is like your tenth sprint or whatever fifth sprint, you're like gas, you're like, oh, I'm just gonna stop.

Oh, you

just gonna quit.

But you can like like what you said the other day, you can like see you can see yourself losing already.

But with jumping, there's a lot more.

You don't see yourself like, oh, I hit a windmill again. Yeah. But I'm using a different strategy.

Well, also Now

I'm using a different strategy to run,

but Also, I'm just not realizing. I'm comparing apples to oranges. I'm talking about dunking. What we should be talking about is sprinting and vert testing. That's the set sprinting, there's no sport element.

It's just it's a test. And invert testing is what sprinting is for jumping. There's no element of sport There's

no skill. There's no there's no technical Yeah. Component that can or skill component that can hide your

physical So actually, that changes my answer then. So then Isaiah only can do a 50.5 inch probably once on a day. You couldn't get point five and wait five minutes and do

it again.

No. Shut up. Shut

story, like, this is, like, probably two months ago or something like that. He said he said dunking is not jumping or, like, something along the lines. And he was making the point that they're, like, separate things. Up. And I I've seen that a lot, like, recently when I've realized how little of a burqa it actually takes to hit a lot of the dunks that are out there.

I was low key, like, lowest of keys. I didn't realize it. I was comparing, like, hot like, track, like, a 60 meter, 100 meter. It's like football and vertical jump testing and dunking. They're two separate it's not the same.

Just because Isaiah test his word. Dunking Isaiah could hit a three sixty

East Bay with 41 inches. That's what I'm saying.

Name me. It's like comparing like basketball and

On the day

And dunking. Yeah. Yeah.

On on the day, this literally just happened. This is not a lie. Like, we just happened. To to be fair, I do have an eight three reach. But I tested a 40 inch vertical jump.

I might have touched above the bell, 41, whatever. We'll call it 41 for the viewer's sake. I touched 41, and I off backboard under both on the exact same day five minutes later. Like, it's it's two completely separate things. So I guess I was way I was way off of my comparison.

This is a running

That gets into a deeper conversation too for sure. So Yeah. This is a good place to cut it off. This is a great conversation. I actually really enjoyed this.

So we'll see you guys next time. If you're interested in coaching, do go, Donovan? Tspstrength.com. Sign up. Yep.

And Isaiah, what's that thing we're doing? That thing with the weeks?

The challenge?

Yeah. What is that?

If you go to tspstrength.com, there's a button that says free diagnosis called click it, apply. You're gonna get on a call with one of our team members. They're gonna run a deficit analysis on you, see what you need to get better, then they're gonna put you on the best program for that. And if you gain two inches of vertical in those six weeks, six week program, it'll be completely free.

Last thing, comment if you wanna see me, Josh, Dom, and Isaiah spar. See you guys.