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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.
What's up, guys? My name is John Evans, and I coach four of the current six individuals who have tested a 50 inch vertical. One of them sitting next to me is Isaiah Rivera. He was actually the first person to break into that 50 inch range. Another one that is slowly creeping up on that 50 inch barrier is Dom Gonzalez and Chi.
John:Chi, I won't try to pronounce your last name, but I think it's Indy Bay. Anyways, today we're gonna talk about what these guys did to jump higher in development and also how they structure their dunk sessions today so that they're able to push intensity, increase their vertical over time without getting hurt. So Zay, I want you to start with what you've been doing or what you did last week and what some of the findings were about that.
Isaiah:Last week, I had four sessions in a single week. Started off with the regular jump session, regularly scheduled dunk session on Friday. Monday, came in and did, building up to about 90% effort off two feet, and then it went one foot. Then Friday again, did a max effort two foot. And then later in the day, he did a one foot session.
John:By the way, two of those were planned.
Isaiah:Three of those. Three of those. The first session? The Monday.
John:Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. But the second one foot session was not on radar.
John:That was definitely not supposed to happen. But, yeah, talk about how you felt after doing four dunk sessions in, what, seven days?
Isaiah:Yeah. Destroyed. I was just telling John, because John came up to me this morning and was like, oh, I feel destroyed from from the training. The training's some of the most intense training we've done. We're doing
John:And specific.
Isaiah:Yeah. We're doing jump squats. We've done plyos twice a week. We're sprinting twice a week. We're doing snatches.
Isaiah:Really heavy Power cleans? Yeah. Heavy squatting, essentially maxing out, building up to failure on power cleans. So on top of all this, I did the four sessions. But week one, the reason that week one I did that is we were trying to do a load management setup.
Isaiah:And then at the end of the week, I told John, I was like, never mind. I'd rather just do our normal training setup. So we kinda switched plans midweek. And it's crazy that the intensity of my training went up like crazy during the second week. But because of the four sessions, it feels like I'm deloading this week.
Isaiah:I was absolutely buried, week one, come even after the Monday session because I was still fatigued from Friday. Just absolutely buried, sleepy all day. I able to fall asleep super easily.
John:Did you nap a few times?
Isaiah:I did actually. Yeah. Just really bad. I've had, like, no energy in the evenings. Like, usually, play with my daughter and stuff, and I've just been like just like Dad of the year.
Isaiah:Yeah. So just really, really hard on my body. And and then I told John, I was like, dunking is so much more intense than than training. I don't care how intense the training it is that you're doing. Like, going out and dunking, having a dunk session, like, is insane.
Isaiah:And when you stack those days, it's even more ridiculous. So what do
John:you think? Because we have two major setups that we use. One of them is a load management setup. The other one will oftentimes have guys just jump at the end of the week. Typically on Friday I've actually changed this over the years.
John:Load management, I you pretty much cannot do past like a 38 inch vertical, may maybe less. And then it it has to be very, very short sessions even at that, unless you're super robust. And then the other thing with the other setup, which is kinda like a long conjugate sequence system, is I used to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday wear lifts and jump on Saturday. And I've, over the years, shifted the Saturday to Friday and then moved the Friday to Saturday and put the feel good lift on Friday instead of three Easy hard
Isaiah:hard lift.
John:Sorry, yeah, feel good lift on Saturday instead of three hard lifts and then a jump session. The reason for that is obvious, is that you're gonna be super fatigued going into the session, and I want the sessions to be high quality. This is also why the Jonathan special works so well, because you front load the week, back off, and then you have a really high quality jump session, and you're getting the training stimulus from the actual jump sessions. So one thing that I did wanna cover is how to do this progression over time. Before I do, actually, what do you think is gonna happen to your vertical when you freshen up?
John:From micro dosing.
Isaiah:I mean, it's always worked. Yeah. The accidental
John:The only thing is if he gets knee pain.
Isaiah:What what's the what's the word called?
John:Overshoot? Overshoot? No. No. Functional overreach.
John:Functional overreach. There we go.
Isaiah:Yeah. The the accidental functional overreach is always.
John:Yeah. Always work. Isaiah doesn't have self control, and then he just shows up and, like, jumps 50,000,000 times more than he's supposed to and then backs off, he always feels better, which is great. Yeah. I love that.
Isaiah:It it works when I come in feeling healthy and then stop before I get hurt as well. I mean, right now, my left leg is, like, somehow
John:Yeah. I wanna talk about how you structured it because I don't I think people are gonna think you went out and jumped left. Right? So talk about how
Isaiah:you structured
John:each session.
Isaiah:Okay. Friday okay. Friday came in.
John:Was the nine to eight session. Right?
Isaiah:With all Yeah. So this is how I structure my sessions currently is I will do my ISOs, do my jump dynamic flexibility circuit, then I'll do a very robust warm up. If you've watched my training video, like the last training videos I posted on my channel, I've I've posted the warm up in there, but it's very long warm up. Like, I'm like in a full sweat by the time I'm done with it. And I'm usually in the turf area doing the warm up.
Isaiah:That way I'm not distracted by like dunking or like getting tempted to to over over jump. And then while I'm still in the turf area, I think you've seen me do this. I don't I don't know if you remember that.
John:Just Talking
Isaiah:about box jumps? Yeah. I'll go do drops. I'll build up box jumps, and I'll do standing jumps. And I don't walk into the court until I can dunk is basically what I try to do.
Isaiah:Because if not, I'll get too excited and and start it too early. So now I'm in the court. It's probably been around thirty minutes by this, probably around twenty minutes by this point. I'm jumping 30 inches probably, which is 60%. Yeah.
Isaiah:30 inches. That's why I said 30. I'm like, how much does the tape from it have done? Which is 60% effort, which I want you guys to keep in mind. You brought this up in your video about Dom.
Isaiah:A lot of shorter guys will try to keep up with guys like like me and Donovan, for example. When we're using way lower effort to dunk, we're at that same effort someone Dom's height might only be touching rim when we're like windmilling or something like that.
John:And it's a lot less fun for the shorter guys because you have to watch people who at their best, might be able to compete with or at your best and their best, you know, you can kinda hang in a session. But then you're forced for another fifteen or twenty minutes to be doing, you know, essentially what is like, if you think about it, you're at the point you're dunking when you walk in, Dom's touching the net at that point. So like, you're dunking for fifteen to twenty minutes while Dom has a thirty minute timer set of still warming up. Right? By the time you guys are both at a 100%, you'll be at the same point, you know, in in terms of your verticals, but you've been dunking and doing behind the backs and East Bays and stuff like that for, you know, fifteen minutes
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:When Dom Which will get to the point of like doing one handers or two handers.
Isaiah:Which I empathize with because when I do events, a lot of times when I've come in and I'm like dealing with some kind of injury, I have to warm up slow. And I see, these, like, elite guys essentially first jump. They're like East Bay. Like, they're usually really excited as well too. So I empathize with that.
Isaiah:But I've seen so many short guys get hurt in warm ups because of that. Like, I've seen it
John:Austin used to do that a lot.
Isaiah:Literally literally every short dunker I've dunked with has I've seen get hurt because of trying to keep up with with taller guys. But once I'm there, I I stick to one rule. Or I guess, like, a a set of rules. And it's if I feel You have a code. I do have a code.
Isaiah:So I won't make more than, like, a 10 to 20% increase in effort jump to jump. And I only will make that jump if I feel no pain. So I'll do a dunk. Did I do I feel pain? If no, try try 15% harder if I feel no pain and keep going until I reach a 100.
Isaiah:If I feel something, like something small, I'll stay at the same intensity. If I ever feel a three, ideally, I cut it there. Like, if I feel a three, like, just cut the session. If I'm, like, at an event or something like that, something that I'm getting paid to dunk at, then it's like, alright. Three means back off, and then, like, restart the process essentially with a couple of levels down.
Isaiah:And then from there, once I'm at a 100% effort, I set a timer for twenty I think I'm at, like, twenty or twenty five minutes. Yeah.
John:You probably started at ten, but it's slowly built up over time.
Isaiah:I I try to add, like, five minutes. I'm actually at a point where I'm like fine sustaining it. I think that's a sweet spot. Past that, it starts I think affecting my training quality. And then once that timer goes off, it I try to be as disciplined as I can about stopping.
Isaiah:The most I'll add if I'm feeling amazing still is like five, maybe ten minutes.
John:Yeah. And usually at that point, you'll start to decline and it's like, yeah, don't really wanna dunk anymore. And I try to police this quite a bit. With Dom, he's mastered this over the last probably three months, and it's made a world of a difference. His training quality's higher, he's trended upwards in terms of health, because he's stopped, you know, trying to pace himself off these other guys, having to warm up in half the time, and then forced to jump max effort before he's ready.
John:Because your muscles, you know, your tendons, they need to be compliant. They have to have fluid in there, you have to be relatively warm in the tendons so that it's able to be you know, compliant and stretch and store energy. But then you also have to be able to be really, really stiff and store a lot of energy at the same time. So you're warming up that, but you're also warming up the nervous system. You're letting it slowly build and that's really important in any warm up, even in the sprints that we do and stuff like that.
John:I mean, we'll take five reps of progressively faster sprints before we're really at 100% and even then we start at shorter distances before we progress out. So you have to be very cognizant of how your body's feeling and have a good, what would you call it, temp on your, not temp on your body, like a good pulse, that's the word I'm looking Yeah. You have to have a good pulse on how you're feeling. And I do the same thing with with my sessions as a one foot jumper. One foot jumping is really intense.
John:It's intense on your hamstring, it's intense on your glutes, it's intense on your knee. So you have to spend, you know, twenty to thirty minutes of like dedicated time before you really go a 100%. And you can ask Isaiah, last session I felt absolutely terrible. But after thirty minutes, I finally was like warm enough with these low effort jumps where I could really, really push intensity and ended up having a great session. And so, backtracking to how I would do this over time.
John:If you're under the age of 12 or 13, yeah, you can get away with jumping every day. I mean I would actually encourage you to jump every day from the time you're probably 10 until 13 or maybe 14, depending. But once you really start maturing and your vertical starts to get higher or knee pain sets in or something, I strongly encourage people, get on a load management set up and then progress into once a week. Know, and the load management set up really isn't just jumping twice a week, it's doing specific lifting and the protocols that we have for load management to get the tenant healthy, then move into normal training. That's probably the best way I've progressed it over time, is building guys back into normal training and keeping the intensity of the sessions high once a week.
John:And that has, yeah, I think it's one of the biggest things I've learned probably this year is is not managing jump sessions, but I would call it like perfecting jump sessions and knowing like the warm up, understanding when to cut it off, timelines for different people, and not having guys warm up too fast or too slow or whatever else. It seems like And
Isaiah:it's so individual too. It is,
John:but it seems like twenty to thirty minutes like that range is like doing a general warm up. Like Austin's a little bit different. He can
Isaiah:Well, I think specifically for guys that are above like 42, 43. Like, give me
John:an example of who you're thinking of.
Isaiah:Like, all the elite guys.
John:No. But, like, a specific warm up you're thinking of.
Isaiah:Oh, the twenty to thirty minute. Like, what we just explained where it's like
John:Some guys take less
Isaiah:than Extensive warm up and then dunk max effort for twenty to thirty minutes.
John:Oh, was saying warm up. How how long do you think the
Isaiah:Oh. Like the build up jumps?
John:Yeah. The build up. Like, what do you I think it should stay around twenty to thirty. Some guys can do it shorter, but they shouldn't.
Isaiah:Every I mean, every time I've taken my time, I feel better.
John:And I've seen guys blow themselves up by going too hard too soon. Because they try competing with you when you're still warming up and they're hyped and they're amped.
Isaiah:Deload session at Waterford, I felt better coming in. Felt worse during the session because I rushed that build And up jump then session at Goldenrod, I felt way worse and jumped better. Because I took I forced myself to take my time with that.
John:Yeah. I think it's it's super important. So to sum this all up, to have really, really effective jump sessions over time following this progression, we know that it's really, really intense. It's probably more intense than actually training, but it is training in and of itself. We call it like the big weekly celebration, like I'm excited to dunk tomorrow, I'm sure Isaiah's excited tomorrow.
John:Make sure that you're not blowing yourself up early in the week, and that during that session, you're building up for twenty to thirty minutes. And then you set a timer for those max effort jumps of start with five and and jump upwards.
Isaiah:Do wanna this. Did wanna add this. I think all the guys, including myself, have made a lot of progress. Like, this is probably some of the best shape I've ever been in. And I attribute it to just staying consistent with that session length.
John:Mhmm. And
Isaiah:the the thing I'm like most surprised by is how my tendons are feeling better week to week. And when I think about it, I'm keeping the the variable of the dunk session constant. Usually, that's so variable for people.
John:It's funny too because early on, I used to try to explain that to you, and you'd be like, I have to dunk for two hours or three hours every other day Yeah. Or every third day or whatever. And I'd like, dude, you can't.
Isaiah:But it's so basically can't. Even if like alright. Let's let's take into a like, before they average probably hour and a half, I would say, my sessions, even the variation between some days going two hours or some days going one hour, those thirty minutes, even though it doesn't seem like a lot, for example, when a group session happens, it plays such a huge role in the training quality, how your tendons respond to it.
John:And You just can't recover. You just can't recover in time for a meaningful session on Monday.
Isaiah:But what's cool is over these last few months, the session length has stayed constant, but training is intensifying. Because it's easy to build in, like well, easy for us coaches at THPS.
John:That's right. Which if you're
Isaiah:interested, you can click
John:the link in the description or pinned comment.
Isaiah:It's easy for us to build in progressions for the plyos, the Olympic lifts, the squatting, and, like, we're becoming more robust athletes through that. And where people mess it up is, that variable of the session is not Blow it up.
John:Because it's
Isaiah:it's Doesn't matter how good your progression is if you're Yeah. Randomly having thirty minute longer sessions.
John:Yeah. And if you're on our training, like, I would implore you to shorten the level of max ever jumping to five minutes and increase it slowly over time. Like, you could even if you're at twenty or thirty minutes right now, try try a week where you warm up for twenty or twenty five and go for five first. See how your training week is. Oh, my training week was way better.
John:Every week just add five Yeah. And just add five minutes.
Isaiah:And you're gonna find the
John:sweet You're gonna find the sweet spot and it's probably not much past, like as a one foot jumper, the most I can do is like fifteen minutes of max ever jumping. And that's because my rest is a little bit shorter, I'm running further a lot of the times, like Isaiah's noticed that too, where he'll start to drop off because it's so neurally sensitive. Two foot, you can bump it up a little bit more. Think Isaiah, like you said, you're at twenty, twenty five, maybe 30?
Isaiah:Yeah. It it's range between
John:Right now though, where you
Isaiah:at? 20.
John:20 max effort. It but it
Isaiah:ends up being 25 to 30. Yeah. I said it One more.
John:One more time. One more jump. One more jump.
Isaiah:One more jump. To be fair, I think that's part of the reason I set it at twenty. Because you know you're gonna I know I'm gonna wanna extend it. If I set it at 30, I'm probably like
John:You're gonna even extend it for a
Isaiah:I do it knowing I'm gonna extend it.
John:Yeah. Well, that's the video, guys. I hope it helped. Remember, jumping is the best way to jump higher, so this is incredibly important if wanna you improve your vertical over time.
Isaiah:Important video.
John:Yeah. Probably. And if you wanna get training, remove all the guesswork, and have the best individualized progressive program for vertical jump, go teachmestrength.com. We're the best in the biz, and I stand by that. We'll see you guys tomorrow.