The bulgarian split squat is a variation of lunges. If you haven't looked at the lunge article yet I suggest you take a look at it. A bulgarian split squat will allow greater range of motion of the leg muscles. A greater range of motion translates to...
Vertical Jump Program Ranking Change
Some of you may have noticed that I have switched the positions of my top 2 vertical jump programs. Originally, the Vertical Jump Bible was ranked #1 and The Jump Manual was #2. However, I have recently decided to switch The Jump Manual to the #1 position for a few reasons.
First, some of the visitors to this site have told me that the Vertical Jump Bible was a bit difficult to follow since they were novice athletes and had very little training experience. This was especially due to the fact that the program does not have video explanations of each exercise and training activity. Trying to figure out how to do an exercise just from some text and one picture can be a bit difficult, especially if you’re new to the whole jump training thing.
Second, the Vertical Jump Bible does not offer the option of one-on-one support. Once again, this can cause a big problem for novice athletes who might need a little help when they first get started with their training. It’s always nice to have a helping hand around when you need it.
And finally, I like the fact that The Jump Manual offers a specific satisfaction guarantee. What I mean by specific is that the author, Jacob Hiller, says he’ll guarantee 10 inches in 6 weeks or your money back. Now this is a pretty crazy guarantee in my eyes since it would be awesome just to gain 5 inches in that time…but it’s nice to have concrete numbers to work with when it comes to a guarantee.
The first two problems that I mentioned about the Jump Bible (lack of video and one-on-one support) are taken care of by The Jump Manual. You must understand that I am in no way saying that the Jump Bible is an inferior program. They both provide superb training information and give excellent results. What I am trying to say is that The Jump Manual offers some extra benefits that can really help make it easy for athletes to understand exactly what they need to do in order to jump higher, especially the novice athletes. I feel that this is a big benefit over the Jump Bible.
Anyway, go ahead and have a look at both The Jump Manual and The Vertical Jump Bible and see what fits you best. And please let me know how your training is coming along by sending me a message. To do this, go to the “About” page and use the contact form at the bottom.
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Update
Hey guys. Sorry for the lack of updates to this site. I’ve been incredibly busy with my neuroscience studies, laboratory work, and work at the hospital. I’ll try to get some more posts up here in the coming weeks.
If this is your first time at the VJR website…welcome! Hopefully the information I’ve posted so far has helped at least some of you. Keep checking back for more updates. If you want to be informed of updates to the site, click on the orange icon at the very upper right hand corner of the site. It will take you to the RSS feed for this site. The RSS feed keeps track of all the posts made at VJR. You can subscribe to it and you’ll get periodic updates when anything on has changed.
Best,
Pat
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Sample Vertical Jump Workout | Plyometric Workout
I thought I’d take some time today to post a sample vertical jump workout that you can do right at home. This workout assumes that you do not have any weights to work with. Therefore, it will be based on plyometric exercises rather than weight lifting exercises. If you’re already using weights to help improve your vertical jump (or just to work out) you can supplement your training by adding in a routine like this once per week.
Remember that training your body more than 4 times per week can actually do more harm than good due to overtraining. If you’re doing weights, you can do 3 days of weights and 1 day of this workout mixed in.
I have to make the disclaimer that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to increasing vertical jump. So with that in mind, try out this vertical jump workout and see how it goes for you. If you’re not seeing results, try switching up the exercises and/or reps to give your body something new to try. Just remember to keep working hard to achieve your goal…you’ll eventually get there!
Plyometric Workout:
- Ankle Bounces Sets: 2 Reps: 50-75
- Tuck Jump Sets: 2 Reps: 15
- Slalom Jump Sets:2 Reps: 50
- Standing Broad Jump Sets: 2 Reps: 5
- Low Squat Ankle Jump Sets: 2 Reps: 25
As the weeks go by you should be trying to add more reps and sets to your exercises. Remember that in order to increase your vertical jump you need to progressively add more effort to your workouts. For example, if you do 50 reps of ankle bounces the first week, try to do 60 reps the following week.
Anyway, I hope this helps a bit and I hope you enjoy this vertical jump workout! Keep checking back for more updates.
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Help With ACL Tears
The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) seems to be one of the most commonly torn ligaments in the body. This is especially true amongst athletes who play sports like basketball, soccer, and football. Any sport that requires quick changes in direction and has the possibility for collisions with other players is a potential threat to the health of the ACL.
The ACL is important for the control and stability of the knee. When people injure this ligament, they often complain of a loose knee joint that may slightly dislocate from time to time. This is frustrating for a lot of athletes, but an ACL injury doesn’t mean that your athletic career will be changed forever. In this article, I’ll try to explain what you can do to prevent and recover from ACL injuries.
ACL Tear Prevention
Since an ACL tear is often caused by a twisting of the knee, it would be a good idea to wear some sort of compression sleeve on your knee to reduce strain. This is especially true if you’re starting to notice a little bit of pain in your knee even if you haven’t been injured. Any pain is a sign of weakness that needs to be supported so no further damage is done.
Also, make sure that you are aware of the way in which you’re landing a jump when you’re actually playing a sport. Try to absorb as much impact when you come down by bending at the knees. Never come down straight-legged as this puts a tremendous amount of pressure on your ligaments and knee joint.
What To Do If You Tear Your ACL
As you probably already guessed, an ACL tear can really put a damper on your athletic abilities. If this sort of injury is left untreated it can have serious consequences in the future such as constant joint pain, random dislocation, and limited movement. Here are a few things you should do to give yourself the best odds for a full recovery.
- Always be sure to rest the injury. This may seem obvious, but sometimes tears aren’t always noticeable when doing simple things like walking. This may lead you to believe that you can just take off running, only to find out that your ligament was actually badly damaged and is now completely torn since you decided to go for a run. The best thing to do is to just take it easy until you’ve seen a doctor.
- You should probably get an MRI if a doctor recommends it. This will help diagnose if the ACL is completely torn or just partially. Sometimes doctors will recommend surgery for a ligament that is completely torn…which leads me to my next piece of advice.
- Make sure you look into a physical therapy program before deciding to have surgery if you’ve suffered from a complete tear. You don’t want to go through a surgery if you don’t actually need it, and a physical therapist can give you some insight as to what your options might be.
- If you’re experiencing swelling at the joint you should put some ice on it. This will help reduce the swelling along with the nagging pain you might feel.
- Wrap the joint with a compression sleeve or other type of medical wrap to help reduce pain. Pressure on a injured joint can help keep it in place and reduce any excess movement that might cause further injury.
- If you have a complete tear, you’ll probably need some sort of brace that is a bit thicker and stronger than medical wrap. Braces can be a bit clunky, but they will help tremendously in the long run.
- If you want to move your leg to test your joint, make sure you do it slowly. Start by moving it when you’re sitting down so your weight is not on it. Then, try moving your knee while standing once you’re comfortable.
I hope these tips help a bit. Be sure to talk to a doctor as soon as possible after a knee injury to find out exactly what you need to do. The outlook for an ACL injury is judged on a case by case basis, so it will be up to you to find out what sorts of things you’ll have to do to make a full recovery. Until then, use the tips above to help prevent an ACL injury and reduce any pain that might accompany one.
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Sprained Toe Symptoms And Treatment
A toe sprain is one of the less common sports related injuries, but it can be just as much of a nuisance as any other sprain. As with any sprain, the treatment follows several easy steps. The main problem with a toe sprain is that it’s hard to rest the toe, especially since you probably won’t be using crutches for an injury like this. But if you follow the tips below your sprain should heal in a timely manner.
A toe sprain is usually caused by an overwhelming stress that has been placed on the ligaments and tendons. These are the fibers that allow your muscles to move your limbs. When you stretch them too far you will often get tearing or extreme stretching of the fiber. Toe sprains are often caused by stubbing it on another object, landing in an awkward position, or straining it through a sudden change in motion when running/walking.
The symptoms of a toe sprain are like any other joint sprain. Check out this list to help identify whether your toe is sprained.
- Swelling/bruising of the toe joint
- Pain when the joint is moved
- Limited motion of the joint
If you have any of these, you’ve probably got a sprain. If your toe is in an excruciating amount of pain I would recommend that you go to a doctor. Unbearable pain could be a sign of a broken bone. If you think you just have a sprain, follow the tips below.
In one of my previous articles I mentioned the acronym, R-I-C-E. This stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. I’ll cover each of these below.
Rest – This is a pretty obvious one. When you have a sprain, the last thing you want to do is move the joint. This could cause further damage, thus prolonging the injury period. Be sure to keep your toe still for at least a week after the initial injury.
Ice – Put ice on the injury as soon as possible. Ice prevents swelling and excess pain. Use the 20/40 rule with ice. 20 minutes with ice on, and 40 minutes with ice off each hour.
Compression – If you wrap the joint in a bandage, or with tape, you’ll find that the pain should decrease a bit. This is because the extra support of the bandage keeps the joint from moving unexpectedly. Try taping your injured toe to the one next to it (similar to taping injured fingers). This will help keep everything in place.
Elevation – This one isn’t quite as important for toe injuries, but it can never hurt to use it. Keep the injured foot elevated to keep blood from rushing down and pooling near the injury site. This will prevent swelling and pain.
As I’ve mentioned in other articles, you can use some sort of painkiller if you wish to help reduce any excess pain you might have. You should also make sure you have shoes with strong support for your toe to help prevent further injury. That’s about it for a toe sprain. Hope this helped.
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How To Treat Knee Sprains
A sprained knee can be a huge problem for any athlete. This type of injury is extrememly common in sports like football and basketball where quick changes in direction are a pivotal part of the game. A knee sprain is often caused by a twist of the upper leg while the foot is firmly planted on the ground, or another player simply falls on your leg at a strange angle. However it happened, you want it gone. Here’s how.
Taking care of a sprained knee, or any joint, requires four simple steps. A friend taught me the simple acronym R-I-C-E to help me remember the steps required for treating a sprain. Those four steps are rest, ice, compression, and elevation. You can always use this acronym for future reference if you happen to get hurt again.
Let’s get down to the steps.
- Rest – This is a pretty obvious one, but it is also one of, if not the most important step of the R-I-C-E sequence. It is important that you keep as much stress off of your knee as possible during the healing phase. If you try to walk around before you’re completely healed you run a high risk of re-injuring the joint. If you want to test your knee, take a seat and try to move your leg around at the knee joint to see if there is any pain.
- Ice – So far, I’ve mentioned ice in all of my sprain/injury articles. Ice is important for reducing the swelling of your knee as well as reducing the pain that comes along with a sprain. Use the 20/40 rule for ice. 20 minutes of ice applied, followed by 40 minutes without ice each hour.
- Compression – Believe it or not, putting a bit of pressure on a sprained joint like the knee can help reduce the pain. The reason for this is that the pressure helps provide extra support for the joint and keeps it from moving in any unusual or painful directions. I would recommend picking up a knee wrap/brace if you don’t already have one. If you watch the NBA a lot, you’ll actually notice that a lot of the players have compression sleeves around their knees. This can really help prevent further knee sprain complications.
- Elevation – This one is the same as the rule used when you have a sprained ankle. Raising the injured knee up in the air a bit will help reduce the swelling while simultaneously reducing pain. Just make sure your leg is solidly supported so it doesn’t move or fall from the raised position.
Of course, you can always throw in some medication like Ibuprofen to reduce pain and swelling even more. But for those of you who aren’t big fans of pills, just stick to the tips above. Also, remember that your joints will probably get pretty stiff by the end of your recovery period since you haven’t moved them much. Try sitting in a hot bath for a while to help loosen yourself up. This will make it much easier to get back to your normal state in a short period of time.
Hope this helps a bit, and best of luck with your recovery.
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Sprained Wrist Symptoms And Treatment
Listed below are some of the most common sprained wrist symptoms. The most important thing you’ll want to do after you hurt a wrist, or any part of the body, is make sure that it isn’t broken. A broken bone that goes unchecked can cause serious problems later on in life. Limited movement and regular pain are just some of the things that you’ll have to deal with if you leave a broken bone to heal on it’s own.
A lot of wrist pain is often caused by an over-stretching of the tendons and ligaments that run down the wrist and into your hand. These are the tough fibers that control the movement of your extremities. You can often see them moving as you wiggle your fingers. Many people will fall and instinctively try to catch themselves, thus causing their hand to bend back farther than it should. This in turn pulls the ligaments much farther than they should ever be pulled.
A sprained wrist is separated into levels of severity. These levels are called Grades, and they go from 1 to 3.
Grade !: Mild sprain – the ligaments are stretched beyond normal, but they are not torn and no serious damage was done.
Grade 2: Moderate sprain – ligaments may be slightly damaged, and pain is quite pronounced but not unbearable.
Grade 3: Severe sprain – ligaments may be completely torn, and level of pain is extremely high.
If you think you’ve sprained your wrist, there are a few things you should look for. These symptoms should help you decide whether it’s just a sprain, or something more serious.
- Skin is bruised around the site of injury.
- Joint is beginning to swell.
- Moving the wrist is painful, often more so in one direction compared to the other (example, moving up hurts more than down).
- Strange sensations like tingling near the injury site.
The movement part is crucial when deciding whether you have a broken wrist or not. If you can’t move your wrist at all, or if it hurts no matter what direction you move it in, it is likely broken. You should report to a hospital immediately if this is the case.
Sprained Wrist Treatment
Once you’ve decided that your wrist is sprained and not broken, it’s time for treatment. Treating a sprained wrist is like treating any other joint injury in the fact that it relies mainly on rest. It is extremely important that you don’t move an injured joint such as the wrist for at least a week after the injury, or until the pain is gone. If you accidentally bump your wrist on something or twist in the wrong way, you could turn a small ligament tear into a complete separation.
You should also put ice on the injured wrist immediately after you hurt it. This will minimize the pain and swelling. Use the 20/40 rule for best results. 20 minutes of ice on the injury, followed by 40 minutes without ice, each hour. Continue this until your pain begins to die down, or until you find a splint to put your arm in.
That leads me to the next important item; the splint! A splint can be a bit cumbersome at times, especially if you have to write or type a lot. However, they are very helpful for reducing pain and the chance for further injury. Make sure to keep your splint on at all times, even when you go to bed. You’d be surprised how quickly you’ll get used to wearing it. And besides, a couple weeks of wearing a splint in exchange for a lifetime of normal wrist function doesn’t sound too bad to me.
So, the main things to remember when treating a sprained wrist are ice and little movement. Just give your wrist some time to heal before you go out and do anything crazy and you should be fine.
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How To Treat a Sprained Ankle
Almost every athlete has experienced the sharp, searing pain that accompanies a sprained ankle. If you haven’t, consider yourself extremely lucky. Here are a few tips to help you out when you do get a sprained ankle.
You should always begin treating a sprained ankle as quickly as possible. This will greatly reduce the amount of time for recovery. For those of us in the middle of our seasons, time is of utmost importance. If you treat the ankle right away, you’ll be back on your feet in no time…literally.
The first thing you need to do is assess how much damage has been done. If your ankle is beginning to immediately swell up like a balloon, you’ve probably done a good amount of damage. Have a couple of friends hold you up while you try to put weight on your injured foot. If you can hold yourself up, try to walk around a bit. I’ve had ankle sprains that felt awful at first, but I was actually able to walk it off after about 20 minutes. If you’re not this lucky, keep reading.
At this point you’ve assessed that you can’t walk. Congratulations! What you need now is some ice. The ice will ease the pain and reduce the swelling. You should keep ice on your ankle several times a day for 20 minutes at a time. More than this can actually cause tissue damage due to the cold. It’s rare, but you can never be too careful.
When you’re icing your foot, be sure to keep your foot elevated. Rest your foot on something soft and keep it up in the air. Not straight up of course, but just at an angle. This will help minimize swelling and reduce the pain of having blood rushing down to your ankle.
This is a pretty obvious one, but you should remain off your feet as much as possible. Also, always keep your foot wrapped so you don’t accidently whack it on something and twist it again. I would recommend using some of that tan medical wrap. It seems to work pretty well for holding your ankle in place.Every once in a while you can try to put a little weight on it to see how it’s coming along.
Once you’re finally healed (which could take a couple weeks) you should look into getting an ankle brace. These things really help prevent further sprains. Just make sure you buy one that isn’t too stiff. If it is, you won’t be able to run well.
That’s about it. Treating a sprained ankle isn’t really that hard, it just takes time. Rest is the most important thing to have. Your foot should remain stationary at all times for at least a few days. You’ll definitely know if it isn’t staying put when you get a shooting pain in your ankle! Good luck, and hope this helps a bit.
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How To Treat A Jammed Finger
A jammed finger can really put a damper on your day. This is especially true if you’re an athlete who needs his or her hands to perform well in a game of finesse. Here are a few things you should do to help treat a jammed finger.
First, you should take a look at whether or not you can even move your finger. It’s likely that the joint will be swollen, but if it is so painful that you can’t move it (or if it is crooked) you should definitely head over to the hospital just to get it checked out. A broken finger can’t usually be fixed at home, at least not that I’m aware of.
Once you’ve assessed whether you can move it, get some ice and wrap it around the joint. This will help reduce the swelling and some of the pain. You should hold ice on your finger for 20 minute intervals each hour until the pain has decreased. If your pain is at a manageable level, it’s time to grab some medical tape.
You’ll use the medical tape to hold your finger in place. Your injured finger should be taped to a healthy finger that is right next to it. The healthy finger acts as a splint to hold your injured finger in place. You should also take a pain reliever like ibuprofen to help with the pain and inflammation.
That’s about it. The best thing to do now is just relax and try not to move it much. A jammed finger could take a couple weeks to heal if it is a really bad one. But if you use the simple tips above, chances are you’ll be ready to get back on the field much sooner than that.
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Ankle Bounces With Medicine Ball
Ankle bounces, with or without weights, are great for increasing your vertical jump. The repetetive motion conditions and strengthens your legs for the jumping motion. If you’ve already been doing standard ankle bounces, try doing them with a little extra weight.
One easy way to add a little resistance is to use a medicine ball. This will provide more resistance for your calf muscles to overcome which will initiate new muscle growth. It will also greatly increase your endurance since it will be difficult to hold the medicine ball over your head while performing the exercise.
To begin, find a light medicine ball (5-10 lbs) and hold it over your head. Your arms do not have to be straight. in fact, they should be bent a little to help reduce strain on your elbows. Once the ball is over your head, start bouncing on your toes repeatedly with as little knee bend as possible. Try to get as high as possible with each bounce.
For clarity, the video for regular ankle bounces is provided below. The exercise is the same, but you’ll be adding a medicine ball to the routine.
Ankle Bounces Video
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