In the VJB he talks about how important DLing is to increasing your vert. Largely due to the fact that getting a lot stronger on the DL is a lot about increasing your full body muscle recruitment. Build up a strong DL and you are really training your body how to use all your muscles together more efficiently. This helps a lot with jumping since a lot of it is just learning how to use your muscles efficiently to get maximum height.

Or something.

What is the VJB? What you said after that makes sense.

Vertical Jump Bible, im guessing. I was browsing it while wondering whether or not i can jump to win headers better, 5' 9" sucks...

Yes, Vertical Jump Bible. I have a copy but after reading a decent amount of it I don't think it's worthwhile for me to do specific jump training until I'm stronger.

One reason I was excited about your recommendation Cha, was that I do think focusing on DL will really up my muscle recruitment and just give me that experience with the heaviest weights I can handle. So hopefully I can get that base strength and hit an intermediate+ level I'm happy with. Then my focus will likely be more on some jump-specific training and skill training.

For now though I'm continuing to aspire to a blunt instrument for unleashing rebounding hell.

10/14 log

SMR, mobility

Squat:
45x5x2
80x5
120x3
160x2
205x5
205x5 - We lost count on this set and I tried for a 6th accidentally. Felt a bit better after watching the video and realizing I at least got 5 up. But as you can see, my form is less than stellar.
205x5 - no video for this one. I felt it was a bit better form than my 2nd work set. But as you can see, even though I can get 205 up, it's not smooth, there's quite a bit of GMing, there is knee caving. My squat has it all.

I had another guy at my gym (who I've never seen do Squats) tell me I should look up MUCH higher almost at the ceiling. He then put the bar on his back in a HBBS and I politely tried to tell him I was doing different squats and while I can try looking more straight ahead, craning my head up to look near the ceiling may be prohibitively hard on my neck. He also said "you are getting *plenty* low". I'm getting low enough imo, but not that low.

So far everyone has been able to tell me what's wrong with my squat but no one has given me tactical advice has really fixed my issues.....at all. Doing box squats maybe "fixed" things for a little while. Is the solution to just do box squats for a month, then go back to LBBS until I run into issues, then go back to box squats, etc., etc.? At this point I find it really hard to believe it's so hard to find concrete fixes to GMing and knee caving issues.

OHP
45x5x2
50x5
65x3
80x2
95x4
95x4
95x4

I really didn't feel like I could get any of the 5th reps started. But the first three reps of each set seemed very doable. The 4th was *way* tougher than the 3rd each time. Still....I'm happy as the last time I was trying 95lbs I stalled in three sessions and I don't think any of them went this well. I feel I'm close to getting 5 reps up.

10/16 log

My right knee started "hurting" early in the day (late morning). Kind of a hurting soreness on the inside of my knee joint.

I did some SMR before our bball game but not a ton. My knee felt worse after the game and now feels fairly ginger - I want to limp on it a bit but can override that. I definitely could go play pickup bball tonight. But I'm not sure if I should.

I did ice my knee a bit last night and took some Aleve. It doesn't hurt or throb or anything sitting down or standing or doing anything static. The pain happens when I'm stepping down on that leg and only if my knee isn't bent too much (if I jump with bent knees up and down I don't feel any pain at all).

Recommendations on my knee?

We won our basketball game last night pretty easily and were up ~7-10 points most of the way. Part of the reason is that we shot well and the refs called quite a few fouls (most on the other team). We tend to do a lot better when refs call fouls, which I assume is b/c we try to play smart and somewhat physically, but we don't just foul a bunch. I got a few fouls called and was accused of flopping but imo if someone hinges their elbows or wrists while pushing against me, it's just illegal, irregardless of whether the force is enough to actually knock me down.

I took I think 1 shot until the last few seconds of the game and passed up like 3 layup attempts and 2 other shots. It's getting really bad so that I don't even realize when I get the ball that I should be trying to score. Part of the issue is I work hard to get open, don't seem to get it much, so then when I finally do I'm not ready to score anymore (even if I'm in position to score). Part of it is some pressure-anxiety. I try to play super smart and *feel* like shooting is never smart. Which of course is ridiculous. But given how little I shoot and how little faith my teammates show in me (imo) it's hard. They probably think telling me to shoot when I pass it up is helpful but it's not really, what would be helpful is setting me up offensively at all sometimes so I actually feel like I'm supposed to be scoring.

I was really looking forward to playing pickup tonight and getting a bunch of shots up. But now I'm not sure it's smart for me knee.

See Dr K.

I'm seeing him on Wed.

It doesn't hurt too much, more of an achy pain than anything sharp or prohibitively painful. However, I'm planning to play ~2 hours of pickup bball tonight and do squats/bench tomorrow night.

I was going to switch to box squats to help contain my knee cave anyway. It seems kind of weird if that's why my knee is sore or w/e that it took 2 days after my last squat workout to feel different.

Is your recommendation to just do nothing on my knees until my next appointment?

roll the **** out of your quads and IT bands - I'm guessing your problem is primarily quad/ITB adhesions (assuming no structural damage). If you find some sharp pains in those areas, keep the roller on that spot and try to put more pressure on it. Try bending your leg at the knee while keeping lots of pressure on that spot.

roll your calves with something - a ball or the stick or massage them with your hands

roll the bottoms of your feet with the lacrosse ball - at least 30 seconds to a minute

roll your glutes/hips

roll and stretch your thoracic spine

do that quad stretch I showed you

All that stuff helps your knees too. That should hold you over for a couple days. Make sure to tell Dr K about it. He will check it out and assuming its nothing structural, he'll fix it.

I just opened this up:

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...ard_knee_rehab

skip to page 2 - Destroy Your Rectus Femoris

Wow, that "destroy your rectus femoris" looks incredible. When I rolled yesterday (didn't have much time before the game) the only place in my quad/ITB area that seemed junkier than normal was near my actual kneecap right where that guy has the lacrosse ball in the picture. I think there's a good chance that's the issue. I also don't really roll the bottom of my feet so that was really helpful as a reminder.

I'm gonna go at it hard after work and if it seems to improve I'll play on it. Otherwise, I may just play bball anyway b/c I'm a huge risk taker.

Yeah, I plan to mention it to Dr. K, and I always feel better after seeing him, but, I still get that tingley/nervey thing in my "bad leg" when I do the couch stretch or spidermans, and my neck still doesn't seem all that great. Just sayin'.

Tell him everything that's bugging you when he walks in the room.

Almost always when I've had knee problems, the adhesions were higher in the middle/upper part of my quads - that's the rectoris femoris I think. Adhesions in that higher up pull on the patella tendon.

The foot thing - that's for your fascia - that stuff is all connected from head to toe, and sometimes a snag in the foot fascia can affect your knee or even your back or neck.

I talk to him a lot. I mean, he does extra/different stuff based on what I say, but I dno, for the most part I just have that tingley thing in my leg and my neck soreness/cracking/etc. I want to get rid of.

I just lacrossed balled the 'ish out of my lower quad (very close to the patella - I don't really get in too close to any muscles in there b/c the foam roller can't really very well). Man there were some spots on the opposite side of my patella and even right next to where I was experiencing the "sore" pain or whatever.

I barely feel it now when walking around. Imma go try some bball imo.

Btw, maybe you didn't mean to, but that picture has the guy with the lacrosse ball right up almost against his knee. All around in there I def miss. The rest of my quad/IT area I investigate almost daily.

You said the pain was on the "inside" of your knee joint. "Inside" like medial or "inside" like within the knee joint?

I had some similar, dull pain in the medial part of my knee. The solution for me was to narrow my squat stance because I had a pretty wide stance and had a little bit of knee cave. I also used the lacrosse ball on that same spot right above the kneecap. I liked getting it in a painful spot, then actively flexing at the knee.

Haven't had any problems since.

I meant inside as in medial (just had to look that up ldo).

Hmmm, yeah, for some reason I really think it's from squatting even though I can't say I've had much actual pain from squatting, which is surprising given my struggles with knee cave.

Yup, that's what I did for like 20 minutes before eating something quick and heading out to bball, . It definitely better. But during bball it felt worse and now afterwards it feels similar to how it did after bball yesterday. It's certainly not that bad. But seems a bit ginger and I definitely didn't go as all out as I would have otherwise.

Good to hear. I really need to fix my knee cave somehow. I thought I was narrowing my squat stance but maybe it's not all that narrow. I'm probably either gonna skip squats tomorrow or perhaps just do a bunch of really light warmups and do box squats at a relatively easy weight - stopping if I feel anything in that area.

10/17 log

Went and played in my organized pickup "league" (not really a league ofc). I definitely paced myself a bit and definitely tried to not put too much abuse on my knee (and left a bit early after only 4 games). I went 3-1, and just lost the last game where I really should have taken over at the end and almost did (couldn't.....make.....post.....shots).

I played well on defense, and had a bunch of really nice assists (I also forced some TOs though, I now understand how easy it is to get addicted to threading the needle as a PG). I missed a bajillion layups and a few other shots but at least I was forcing myself to put it up. I for sure rush my shot unnecessarily or kind of spaz out probably b/c I'm worried I'll get blocked. I missed a couple of fast break layups mainly b/c I tried to put it up in rhythm rather than just stop abruptly and go up strong. I really am a two foot set jumper if I haven't had a chance to dribble around and get a good *feel* going. I can only make the in rhythm weird angle shots if I set them up myself.

Just as a potentially entertaining aside. This "older" guy was there (40s?) who imo looked like Kevin Mchale (proportions for sure) and had a mustache so really felt like he was out of the 80s. AND he had several of McHale's moves. I mentioned this to him and he was like "calling me old?" Lol. Obv it was a huge compliment and then they botched an inbounds pass to him (which I poked to a teammate) and ofc remarked that it was too bad there was no Bird on his team. He complimented me after the game a couple of times. I think he thought he'd get more going on me as I gave up 2-3 inches but, we all know McHale was nothing without Bird, amirite, .

Next time I'm really going to concentrate on taking my time and being more deliberate if I need to be if I don't have a really good angle/setup to put up a shot quickly.

9-2 on the season imo and running pretty hot. Anyone know what kind of sample I need to try and extrapolate how valuable I am in that pickup game? I guarantee even with that record, I would not be the first, second, or third player picked. But I'm pretty sure only 1 guy may have a better record and it's b/c he was on my team last time for every game (big reason I kept winning lol) but wasn't here this time.

the easiest way to determine your value in a pickup game is pretty much look at every player and think if you're better than them as objectively as possible. You're still probably going to be a little biased, so then if you have a friend in the group who plays, maybe ask him to rank his top 5 or something.

The knee caving is caused by hip issues.

Do lots of goblet squats imo. Make sure to shove your knees out. Doing them to a box is good. Make sure to try to fire the glutes and hammies to get you moving off the box.

McHale was definitely helped by playing aside Bird, but he would still be a hall of famer had he played anywhere else. McHale was one of the best low post scorers of all time and a great defender.

Captainwacky - well, yeah, I can do that although I have no friends in the pickup game, .

There's no way to really be objective imo when judging myself against other players. I think I do a better job than most being objective (which isn't a great sign imo to start with), but, we (humans) aren't built for being too accurate with that kind of analysis. If I had to pick I'd take myself extremely high in this game, even if just for the WIM. But, there are a few other guys maybe I'd take? (depends on if I would be guarding them or not, lol).

Cha - I know, I know, I was joking/trolling.

10/18 log

~1.25 hours of SMR. Can't imagine what people at my gym think I'm doing but it was fairly glorious, pretty much hit everywhere I know how to hit atm with a lacrosse ball/foam roller.

Mobility

Box Squats
45x5x2
65x5
100x3
135x2
170x5
170x4
170x3

I know I said I was maybe going to skip squats. But, then I didn't.

I hadn't done box squats in quite a while and I think my old PR was 165. I felt my knees were very solid on reps 1-4 of the first work set, with a little bit (very little compared to my drunken knees on my last squat session) of cave on my last rep. On my other two work sets I quit after reps where I could tell my knees weren't perfectly solid anymore.

The box was probably a hair over parallel but very close - I'm not entirely sure but I cheated it higher rather than lower.

Bench
45x5x2
80x5
110x3
140x2
160x2 - wider than past grip (index finger on outside of break in knurling rather than pinky on inside)
135x5 - 1 finger wider than past grip
160x2
160x2
165x4 (the last rep was a bro rep though but "it was all me" so w/e)

Yeah, so I dno what to make of this. I really think if I can get to Cha's relatively soon and make sure bench is that day it will be very helpful. Going with a wider grip seemed v different and easier on my warmups but then I didn't feel comfortable with it on my work set. Then I think mentally I was a bit shaky and had no spotter and just quit on two sets that obv should have been more than 2 reps each.

So ofc I decided to put on more weight than I've ever tried to bench before and got 3 very solid reps, maybe could have grinded the 4th but had a bit of help to get it up. So I dno, I think my technique or confidence in it is not great. I really should be able to WIM more on bench imo, I feel while my technique isn't amazing, as long as I keep my elbows in, it will be hard to hurt myself doing it (vs. squats or DLs) and should be able to WIM away.

I am starting to realize having a coach makes a huge difference for me to so I could get immediate feedback and also could have more mental stability and not get as down on myself as I do in-session.

lol

I have some ideas for basketball season programming changes for you. It seems like you want to lift Tues, Thurs & Sat, then play hoops Sun & Mon, right?

Correct. I'm trying hard to schedule evening things for Wed/Fri b/c of this.

I'm very excited about any programming ideas you have as well, .

10/20 log

Deadlift day baby! Week 4 out of 10.

SMR & mobility

DL
145x5x2 - man, these weren't ridiculously easy, I was worried right at the beginning
195x3x2 - my grip didn't feel great on the second one of these
225x2 - was able to do this without straps surprisingly well
265xf - After setting up the bar didn't really move when I pulled lol. When I stood back up I felt lightheaded - like if I've been lying down for a while and get up quickly. Not a serious case of that, but the exact same thing
265x1 - my plan said 275x1, but since I was going for 280x2 that seemed high.
280x1 - I was supposed to get 280x2. I tried the second rep twice but was feeling for sure significant back rounding when trying to move it so just gave up. My g/f said she could already see my lower back rounding on both attempts but my first one was good with a bit but not a lot of rounding.

Not sure if this means I fail the program or not but Imma keep going.

Speed DLs
235x3x5 - Man these were tough, even with the straps on. It seems I can either break my knees early and the bar will hit them on the way down, or I can break them after the bar passes, but then my back rounds (from my g/f who watched). So atm those are my 2 choices, lol.

Circuit x 3
RDL - 115x8
DB row - 55x8
Neutral grip pullups - 5
GMs - 70x8

Made it through but man my grip on RDLs barely made it through but I wasn't willing to resort to straps for 115 lbs.

So, I did actually lift 280 1 time today. And sitting on 265 (which I did get twice last time) I was for sure worried about getting it. I think my next two weeks don't involve reps at 280 or above so I maybe can get to week 7 intact, .

In other news, I have a trip planned to the Cha59 home gym spectacular for Saturday. And will be changing my programming per his advice to:

Sun - bball
Mon - bball
Tues - squat/bench or squat/OHP with a bit of accessory work
Thur - DL day (see above)
Sat - Core day:
1) goblet squats
2) GHR
3) offset step ups
4) offset RDL
5) chins
6) 1/2 kneeling cable press
7) standing cable rows
8) 1 arm DB OHP
9) 2 or 3 of the following (the list has a lot more on it and I don't know what half of them are, but I guess I'll find out Saturday!):
offset farmer walks
ball rollouts
cable chop
PNF d2 flexion
jacknife on ball

My bench & OHP can't progress any more slowly given they're not super high yet, so I'll see how this goes. Any feedback is appreciated.

That's something you should fix.

Nice job on getting the 280 up.