THPStrength

What is THPStrength?

Isaiah Rivera, pro dunker, and John Evans discuss anything related to maximizing athletic performance, and in particular, jump training. Strength and conditioning, jumping technique, weight room practices, and general fitness and health tips and advice are shared on this podcast.

John:

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the t h b strength podcast. My name is John Evans, and I can help you run faster, jump higher, and get your tenants healthy. One of the best in the world at it. And if you're interested in those topics, then pay attention to what we're talking about today.

John:

And if you're interested in getting coached by us, click the link in the description or the pinned comment. Let's get into it. Zay, what are we talking about?

Isaiah:

Deficits. We're going

John:

to find your weaknesses and attack them. Gonna attack your weaknesses. Yeah. Weaknesses. So, essentially, let's let's go ahead and let's define what some weaknesses are in vertical jump training.

John:

Deficits. What are some deficits? What are some deficits?

Isaiah:

What is a deficit? I don't know what you're talking about.

John:

You're deficient. You're unable to do something well that you need to do well to jump high. So if you have a a deficit, it means that there are indices or normative data that we use to indicate how good you are at something. So for example, if I saw a Sprinter and his 10 meter fly time was ten five, right or sorry. His top speed in a 10 meter fly was 10.5.

John:

So he ran a point nine five ten meter fly. And then his his 30 meter is like a four four. Then I know pretty definitively that he's really bad at accelerating, and that is going to be a massive deficit in his sprint training. If it is a jumper and we saw someone who had a squat jump of, let's say, 20 inches, and his counter movement jump was, like, 36, there's gonna be a big deficit there. I have a question.

John:

Yeah. I have an answer.

Isaiah:

Can you have elite level metrics on something and it still be a deficit?

John:

Give me an example.

Isaiah:

My ground contact time okay. I have a 48 inch vertical. My standing vert's 36. My ground contact time is point two nine. All elite metrics.

John:

Yeah. So I would you you kinda have to attack that from, like, a needs approach and say, what is the biggest constraint here? So, you know, if you're at 47 inches, but your ground contact time or 40 what was it? Forty eight? Forty eight.

John:

48, but you're at point two nine, then yes. I would say you still have a deficiency because you need to be able well, what we do know in elite jumping is that for any given jumper, when he's jumping higher, he's gonna have relatively lower ground contact times for him. So for example, if you look at some of my best jumps ever, right, they're gonna be consistently shorter ground contact times than worse jumps for me. So you always wanna see that trend the other direction because that's an indicator that you're using elastic energy better. If you're spending more time on the ground, that means you're leaking energy in the form of heat.

John:

So, yes, in that scenario, that would be the biggest deficit that I would see. And then if you're looking at, you know, a counter movement jump, it's not it's it's a skill in and of itself, so I don't necessarily use that one when you're comparing like, I don't really give a rip about that relative to approach vertical too too much in elite guys because that will grow. You you wanna see a large discrepancy. Yeah. But if but if I'm looking at, like, squat jump versus counter movement jump and someone's, like, squat jump is really, really bad, then and their weight room numbers are really bad, then I would say, yeah.

John:

You've you've got, like, a pretty definitive deficit. So the easiest way

Isaiah:

go ahead. So it's basically if you're a beginner, a lot of those numbers matter more. Like, if like, for a beginner, we might look. And I do wanna get into the exact deficits and categories that we split up here. But if you're a beginner, things like standing jump versus approach vertical matter more because it tells us things about their technique, for example.

Isaiah:

Yeah. Yeah. Versus a super elite guy.

John:

Yeah. Like, the more elite you get, the bigger the discrepancy between those two should grow. But for example, if you have a thirty six inch approach vertical and a 32 inch counter room of jump, then I would say, okay. We've got Something's wrong. Some work to do.

John:

Yeah. We got some work to do because your counter room of jump is pretty good, but your approach jump is is not that good relatively speaking. And, I mean, that's really what separates, like, mega, mega elite two foot jumpers is that when you put them in an approach, they can transfer horizontal energy way more efficiently and way faster relative to their lesser peers. So When do you know Oh, yeah. Go ahead.

Isaiah:

This is this might be a a fun question for you. When do you know if the disc like, let's say someone has a very small discrepancy between standing and approach vertical, call it four inches. When do you know it's a technique issue versus a muscle nervous system tendon property issue?

John:

Well, I think the easiest way is to just look at the technique and look at what your respective number it is. Like, you have to look at it in con you have to look at those in context. So for example, let's say that I'm trying to think of, like, a really good example.

Isaiah:

I have I have a good example off the top of my head.

John:

Yeah. Yeah. Go

Isaiah:

ahead. Jay Clark, I think year one at Duncamp tested 46 approach, 40 standing, which is not too like, that's not a bad discrepancy, but compared to some of the elite guys. Like, you see guys, like I mean, I'm a good example. I get freaking 13 inches off my approach versus standing. Well, not your best.

John:

Your best is 10. Yeah.

Isaiah:

Because you've hit 40. When I had when I tested 50.5, I still hadn't tested a 40. Oh, really? Yeah. I had

John:

a 50 say you were at least 38 during that period. We just we just don't do it. But let's say 12 inches versus six. So I think you have to look at in in that scenario, you have to look at how good is 40 and what did it take to get 40. Right?

John:

So one is the strategy, how often you do it. Jay Clark has a really good strategy. He does it really, really often. The second thing is he's high tides raise all ships. So if you have a really, really good standing vertical and you've got a really, really good approach vertical, then you have to ask yourself, okay, of these two things, which one is more elite and why?

John:

And in his case, his standing vertical is is upper upper echelon.

Isaiah:

Maybe the best. Yeah.

John:

Maybe maybe one of the best. Yeah. So, you know, he you're looking at someone who's off vert, I think, dunked, like, almost 11 feet maybe or something. He's done, like, something crazy off vert. I don't know what it is, but really, really high.

John:

And then you're looking at an approach vertical that's still super elite. Let's call it I think it was 40. Maybe that It's best ever, it's 48. Forty eight five, I think, is his best ever

Isaiah:

Yeah.

John:

I think. I think that was his best ever in 2019. He's either 48 or forty eight five. So, you know, you're looking at two really, really super elite metrics. I think when you break down his in light of all his other numbers, like, we know that he hang power cleans a 150.

John:

We know that he has deep squatted. He's he's deep front squatted, I think, three sixty five. He's a deep barbell.

Isaiah:

Four zero

John:

Four zero five. Yeah. And I think in a deep barbell back squat well, I don't know any, like, power lifts. Yeah. I don't I don't know.

John:

But we know he's super strong. We know that his RSI is through the charts, like, off the charts. We know that his sprint times are off the charts. So when you're looking at all of those things in context, his approach vertical should be higher relative to his standing vertical. Right?

John:

Because everything indicates that it should be. And I think that some of that comes down to his technique and the fact that he's not as fine tuned with it. Right? When you look at you, when you look at some of these other guys that are in the fifties, they have been jumping off two feet considerably longer during their formative years. I think Dak is maybe the exception, but he I mean, even he

Isaiah:

Dak is actually a similar case, though, I think, to Jay Clark where it's I think the standing and approach difference. Like, the Aggrey had

John:

What's his standing?

Isaiah:

Bro, his standing is ridiculous. Like, I think he has on on a jump map, the highest ever recorded. Like, I think he got a 48 on the jump map, which equates to,

John:

like Standing?

Isaiah:

Yeah. Oh, like like, think on a vertex, you could test 42 to 44.

John:

That that makes sense, though. That makes sense. Yeah. Because when you look at his strategy that he takes on a on a two foot jump, he's very bouncy. He doesn't bring in a lot of speed.

John:

He doesn't take a super long approach. Like, I think if, I mean, the way that he generates power is is different. Like, he does it over longer. He does it better over slightly longer intervals where he can load up a ton a ton of energy.

Isaiah:

I mean, his ground contact time was in the point threes.

John:

Yeah. That's what I'm saying. So, like

Isaiah:

or, like, something

John:

I mean, you look when you look at his, like, long jump and stuff like that, I mean, he's still he he's an outlier in, like, every regard, honestly. Like, every single every single aspect. And I think it it's hard to say if he were to change his technique if it would be better or not because it hasn't been tested. No one has been that elite And it would be so risky. Movies.

John:

And it would be yeah. Like that. Yeah. You'd to be

Isaiah:

you'd have to tell them, like, hey. Do you wanna hypothetically jump lower and it'll take about two years to find out if it's worth it

John:

or not? That's not that's not gonna be a case. I think when you look at someone like Espinosa, right, like, he's an interesting one where I think there are pretty clear deficits. Right? He's not crazy strong.

John:

His power clean numbers aren't crazy. I've I haven't seen any sprint metrics, but I'm assuming they're not, like, world class. I his RSI, I would imagine, is very good, though. I could I could see his RSI being really, really good. He's got an approach vertical of, what is it, 50.5 or 51?

John:

Something like that? 50.5?

Isaiah:

Officially tested 50, but flight time wise I mean, he's one of the only at one second. I think him and Anthony Hite.

John:

Yeah. So, I mean, he's he's technique is

Isaiah:

He would be an interesting guy to do a, like, a testing barrage with Mhmm. Yeah. And I have a third guy. Actually, one of our athletes, Chi.

John:

Oh, yeah. Chi. I was thinking about Chi as well. I was gonna mention him. So he's someone that has a definitive elastic deficit, big elastic deficit.

John:

You look at everything he does, really long ground contact times, wants to be in a lot of knee flexion, prefers very, very long kind of muscular stretch shortening cycles. He doesn't like to be elastic. If you look at his sprint times or his long jump time you know, long jump marks or triple jump marks, they're not exceptional. But when you look at his off vert, I think it is that maybe on par with Jay Clark and and Dak, and he's a really, really different strategy than both of those guys. So in his case, I would say, yeah, you've got a pretty clear deficit in these elastic qualities and that if you improve your technique and and really, really iron that out, don't do so much off earth stuff, you're probably gonna see some some pretty good results from doing that, at least in the short term.

John:

I think, again, high tides raise all ships. You you always wanna be improving everything all the time, but you might need to spend a disproportionate amount of time in a certain area. Like, when I look at you, you're very balanced. Right? You your strength numbers are incredible.

John:

Your power clean numbers are incredible.

Isaiah:

I'm a z r one. I'm a c a z r one. Yeah.

John:

So you maybe the only downside for you is your sprint times. Right? And and your, like, reactivity, like your RSI. Those are probably the areas where I'd say you have the biggest deficit, and we would work on it more, but we can't because

Isaiah:

If it weren't for my for that meddling ankle.

John:

For that meddling foot. And your, like, TFL, your patella, like, those sorts of things get in the way of, you know, being able to do a true deficit cycle, and we In

Isaiah:

a way, that makes the deficit resilience.

John:

Yeah. Yeah. I would say if anything, that that's probably your your biggest Achilles here.

Isaiah:

Let let's get into in these last couple minutes, let's get through our through our in-depth research. We found out that most of you are trying to get your first dunk. So we have a beginner trying to get their first dunk. We put these in our in our little chat here, from our earlier chat, some deficits. So we we have a strength deficit, a technique deficit, and elastic deficit.

Isaiah:

How do you know if you have those? What tests should you run? And then how should that dictate your training?

John:

Yeah. So I think the first they're gonna they're gonna be kind of in order. Right? So the the first thing you need to look at is your your strength numbers relative to your vertical. So if your squat is below 1.5 in a least parallel, right, back squat, high bar back squat, I don't care who you are, you have a deficit there.

John:

You you're you're too weak. Right? There there is there are gains that are easily attainable, low hanging fruit just by getting your strength up. And then the second would be your your clean. If your clean's at least not body weight, to me, you've got some very low hanging fruit for improving.

John:

I don't care what your vertical is. I don't care what your sprint times are. There is, you know, more capacity in starting strength, your accelerated capabilities, all those sorts of things at really, really low velocities that you're you're just leaving gains on the table with.

Isaiah:

Which, by

John:

the way That's the first thing.

Isaiah:

I do wanna do a shameless plug for our training here. A lot of people hear that and think, let me get my squat and power clean up before I start THP. Actually, I'm curious what you what what's your

John:

There's a big problem with that. So the well, the the biggest thing is that you're basically just doing block periodization at that point. You're just doing block periodization. You know, you're you're gonna leave You are going to limit your long term athletic development because long conjugate sequence system, the beauty of it is that it your genetic peak is higher. It takes longer to get there, and you've gotta use, you know, kind of more creative stimuli, but you can keep progressing over time versus if you just immediately correct that deficit and ignore everything else, then you're you're gonna run into issues.

John:

So then you're like, okay. Well, I'll just put sprints in there. Okay. Well, how you do that matters too. You can't just nuke a 100 meter sprints and then do a bunch of deep, heavy barbell back squatting.

John:

Your nervous system's gonna get fried. You're probably gonna get tendon issues pretty quick. So you have to dose those things in the right qualities. You can't just do them to, you know, till the till the cows come home. There's so many other problems.

Isaiah:

Use myself as an example here. From 2015 to 2018, started training with John in 2018, that is what I did. I squatted and I power I I squatted, power clean, deadlifted, and then jumped. And that led to plateau and injury. And it was, like, I say this so many times, but if I would have had training like I do now at, like, age 17, 18, I think I would have got to 50 way sooner and avoided a lot of injuries.

Isaiah:

Yeah. And potentially, my upside would have been higher than it is now.

John:

Did you see the real I sent you that was like, okay, you get $20,000,000, you get to go pick one of your friends. Would you take $20,000,000 to take one of your friends, turn them back into a baby, and you have to raise them from birth until they're 18 years old? And I was like I was like, yeah. I would happily do this. I was like, you're telling me You get 20,000,000?

John:

Yeah. I'm like, dude, you're telling me I get to do I get two easy so I get $20,000,000 to do what I would wanna do anyways? I get to recreate the highest jumper ever in a lab, like, hell yeah. That would

Isaiah:

be wild. You raised you raised me.

John:

Yeah.

Isaiah:

You're my dad.

John:

I'm your daddy. What you done?

Isaiah:

What would you have put me in as a as a wee lad?

John:

Oh, well, we would've done we would've done LTAD. We definitely would've done LTAD. You would've been doing all sorts of activities all the time. You would've been jumping. You would've been running.

John:

You would've been throwing. Definitely would've been in track and field. Certainly would've been in track and field. I would've still probably, like, would have done that until you're about 14 or 15, and then I would have had you jump well, I actually would have had you jumping when you were about eight or nine. You you would have still been, like, lowering, just having fun.

John:

It would have been one of the activities, and there would have been a little bit more of an emphasis on that. And then as you fall in love with it, I think, you know, the it's gonna self select you. The sport's gonna pick you, so you're gonna end up falling in love with that or basketball. And then depending on what your development looks like, because knowing what your nervous system is capable of, I would have taught you all the fundamentals of the Olympic lifts, squatting, pushing, pulling, sprint technique, you know, all the I probably would have had you do the decathlon so you would have had a really, really wide array of movement capabilities, movement strategies. And then as you started to develop and match rate, that's whenever I would have really pushed pushed the gas a little harder in the weight room and stuff like that, assuming that you have, again, a really, really good framework and base of of two foot jumping and even one foot jumping to a certain extent because I think you probably have a lot of gains there that we haven't even tapped into.

John:

And then I would have not pushed you to jump every every single day. I would have had you do that early, early on. And then as you started match rating, if like, as soon as you get a little bit of knee pain, I would've pumped the brakes there.

Isaiah:

You know, actually, I'm gonna say what I would've done with you, just two things before I say the last hypothetical. Let me turn this alarm off. I would've had you lower him and play basketball earlier. Me?

John:

Yeah. Yeah. Would've had me you would I was playing basketball when I was

Isaiah:

in third grade. I would have made an environment that was more conducive.

John:

Yeah. I would have yeah. That would have made me successful in basketball. Yeah.

Isaiah:

Yeah. Yeah.

John:

I think that would have been good, like, where I'm at.

Isaiah:

And then I would have told you to, like, lower him earlier, and then I would have told you to avoid deep squatting.

John:

I never would have I should

Isaiah:

have I would have done things that don't that weren't bad for your hips. Yeah. Maybe stretch it a bit. Is what if in that in in this hypothetical life, I don't have the mind to be elite.

John:

So that's the that's the great equalizer. So I probably would have inserted some childhood trauma, you know, maybe got divorced, become an alcoholic. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe maybe like a subtle drug addiction, but not like too crazy.

John:

No. I'm kidding. Beat beat you over my knee a little longer than I should have.

Isaiah:

Alright. Let's let's finish these these deficits these deficits. So that's that's the the forced deficit. Okay.

John:

So that's the

Isaiah:

forced deficit. Conjugate it, not just spam it.

John:

Yeah. I don't think I don't think spam it would be good. And then I think that the the next thing that I would well, the way that you put it here in the notes is is a little bit kinda different. So then once you do that, right, I would look at, okay, what happened to your vertical? And or I guess not after that, but let's say someone came in and they they meet that first, you know, requirement.

John:

Do you power clean at least body weight, are you squatting at least 1.5 body weight? Okay. So if you've if you've done that, then, you know, to get you into the system, I'd say, okay. Well, what what is your vertical and what is your and I would also look at those things. But then I would say, okay.

John:

What's your vertical? What's your RSI? What are your sprint times? That's probably the three things that I would look at. If your sprint times are really, really slow, like and we have a couple of guys on the training like this where their fly times are, like, one like, Nick Ross, he was kinda like this.

John:

Right? His fly times are one ten. His RSI is, like, two two, and his vertical is, you know, maybe, like, 36. I'd say, okay. Well, you've got you've obviously got decent enough technique, right, jumping, but you're really slow and your RSI is really, really bad.

John:

So, you know, you should at least, at those numbers, your squatting body weight or sorry, squatting 1.5 times body weight, power cleaning your body weight, your vertical is pretty good but your RSI is trash, then I'd say we we've got an elastic deficit here. We've gotta we've gotta turn that up. That's gonna be the the biggest rock that we can move, you know, and Mike always used to say this to me. He said, figure out the biggest problem and it will usually solve all the other ones. So if, you know, you your technique is already kinda sorted, your strength is already sorted, well, that's that's pretty clear cut.

John:

Now let's say that your RSI is high. You've got incredible squat, you know, incredible power clean, and your vertical is really bad. That's almost always gonna come down to technique. That is like the final thing where, okay, it's it's very clear to me that your technique is bad because you can jump really high with good technique and not meet those metrics. Right?

John:

Like, I think when you do meet those net metrics, if you have good technique, that's, like, the perfect scenario. That's someone like Tobin. That's someone not necessarily Nate, maybe maybe, like, early on Nate. Right? Like, his vertical was disproportionately better than his his strength numbers and his reactivity and stuff like that.

Isaiah:

Yeah. So when you someone's gonna level up,

John:

like That's when you know. When when they have good technique and their numbers are bad and they jump high, that's like, oh, dude. This is this is easy. You know? I can kinda just bring everything up together.

John:

I can bring your elasticity up. I bring your strength up. I can bring your power up together. And then, yeah, that'll that'll come up.

Isaiah:

And that's what I have seen with every elite guy. It's almost always perfect technique, jumps high, numbers are trash.

John:

Yeah. Yeah. Like even, you know, what's kinda interesting is even Travis had on paper, like if you look at that short penultimate step, it doesn't look good, but he did two things really well. He's really good rhythm, he's very low and he's very fast. And so if you do all those things and your vertical is really, really high, well, okay, his strength numbers were trash.

John:

Right? And he wasn't healthy. His elasticity was mediocre. So it's like, okay, let's get the strength there first while we're kind of touching on the elasticity as much as we can reasonably. And then once you get to that point, you're probably gonna be at a point where, like, your elasticity will naturally come up.

John:

Your RSI is gonna be better. Your sprint times are gonna be better because you've been sprinting. You've been doing all those things. Plyos have been bled into the program progressively. Now if you're just trying to nuke it, if you're someone who's super strong and you cannot do a countermovement jump, right, your squat jump's really good.

John:

You pause. Even let's let's even say your squat jump is really, really good and your and your counter movement jump's good, but you have no ability to, like, jump off an approach, that's surefire every time gonna be Yeah. Technique. Like, every single time.

Isaiah:

I I wanna put extra emphasis on the point that when we say good technique, most people probably think long penultimate. But when we're talk when we're saying good technique, it means, are you accelerating? Are you lowering?

John:

Well high efficiently.

Isaiah:

Yeah. Are you getting a lot of inches compared

John:

That's probably the easiest way to tell is do you jump really, really high when you had an approach? That's the easiest way to tell if you have a good technique or not. If you jump really high with an approach, like, had an approach and you jump really high, you have a massive deficit between your counter movement jump and your approach jump, that's, like, pretty clear cut. Your technique has to be you have to be doing something right. Right?

John:

There's no like, obviously.

Isaiah:

Like, I don't think I've ever seen someone that has good technique have less than, like, six inches of difference on approach versus standing. I don't think I've ever seen that. And when you

John:

look at one foot, it's, like, even more apparent with these these deficits. Like, you know, I think one foot is, like, really, really easy usually to diagnose because, like, you're almost always gonna have a crazy deficit. You're always gonna be more elastic. You're gonna be really good at RSI tests. You're gonna be really fast.

John:

You're gonna have a really, really good approach vertical, but then you're gonna be weak. You're almost always gonna be weak, especially in a half squat. You're gonna be really bad. You're gonna be bad in a deep squat. You're not your power clean probably starting out as bad, but then that number will come up really, really quickly.

John:

And those guys are, like, the scenarios where you've got a major strength deficit versus the reverse is, like, the power lifter kind of weight lifter, bodybuilder emphasis where, like, if you have and, typically, if you have that build, you've got both an elastic and technical deficit almost every single time. Like, you've probably never really jumped and you have never done fast stuff. You know? That's like you're you're just always in the weight room doing slow stuff and, like, even just running, like, tempo work could be be good for you. And Isaiah and I have talked about this too with me is, like, the things that make me better is not necessarily in the weight room.

John:

Like, I've kinda milked that to the tenth. You know? Like, I've RDL'd three eighty five, maybe four zero five or one or two. I've done hip thrust over 600 to 700. I've calf raised over 600 double leg.

John:

I've power cleaned two forty five. I've deep squatted three fifty, like and my hips are, like, trash. Even in quarter squats, I've done I don't even know. What have what have I done in that? Have some absurd amount of weight, infinite weight on the belt squat.

John:

So, like, strength is obviously not the deficit. My RSI is even, like, pretty good, like, on any given day. But

Isaiah:

it's the it's being able to try.

John:

The health deficit. Yeah. It's literally just being able to try consistently. That's, like, the bigger thing in staying healthy enough to do that. So, like, you could also find

Isaiah:

that if you were to, like if we were to get you to a point where you're healthy enough to try max effort and you and then we said this last podcast, you stack sessions.

John:

Well, I think I still need to Yeah. Like, you're at I still need to train. But

Isaiah:

You're at 40. Well, what I was gonna say is that puts you, like, in the low 40 somewhere. Mhmm. And then I think if you wanted to push past that, then it's like, alright. The numbers that you're good at, we're gonna make you elite at.

Isaiah:

Yeah. Even even better. Woah. And with that, guys, we're making John elite this year in 2026.

John:

Yeah. If you guys are interested in coaching, click the link in the description. We will do this deficit for you. We'll figure it out. We'll be able to look at your jump technique and your weight room numbers.

John:

And we pretty much just look at your jump technique and tell pretty quickly in sprints. I can pretty much just look at technique and tell. If you're interested in that, click a link in the description or the pinned comment. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Ciao.

John:

Bye.