Get Up!

[Yelena Isinbayeva]

This post will be a departure from the serious business of throwing heavy objects in order to address a matter of incredible importance – dunking a basketball.

Show me a man who has not fantasized about being able to dunk a basketball while watching an NBA game and I’ll show you a…well, I won’t show you anything, because there isn’t a man who hasn’t fantasized about being able to dunk a basketball. This desire is hard-coded into every man’s DNA. There is a specific region on the Y chromosome known as the “Shaq Sequence” which has been handed down from father to son over the generations since way back when we were living on the African savannah. Now, I’m sure that there have been some unfortunate souls born over the eons with a tragic defect in their genetic code that resulted in no dunking desire, but apparently they have been selected out of the gene pool. (I mean, what self respecting female would chose to reproduce with a non-dunker, with so many rim-rattlers available.)

Not only is the desire to dunk deeply programmed in our psyches, I feel that it is every man’s responsibility to try to dunk if at all possible. We owe it to our heritage and we owe it to our gender, because after all, in this era of equal opportunity for the sexes dunking remains as one of the last virtually all-male pursuits. Sure, there have been scattered instances of female dunking in recent years but they typically are performed by freakishly tall women with no vertical jumping ability, weak half-over-the-rim attempts, or efforts that might not stand up to rigorous gender testing. Having a sound genetic make-up and a strong sense of gender pride, the desire to dunk is as much a part of me personally as is the desire to dominate my television’s remote control.

Not surprisingly, I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t want to be able to dunk. I do however, remember when I first thought it might be a possibility. I was playing 3rd string guard on the Atkins “Tornados” junior high basketball team back in the 9th grade…all 5’ 9” of me. I had some serious “ups” back then. At 5’ 9”, my reach was probably only about 7’ 8”, but I had a standing jump that would allow me to touch the basketball rim, plus maybe an inch on a good day. This would make my standing vertical jump (SVJ) about 28”-29”. With a running start, I could get a couple more inches and actually grab the rim and hang on. But alas, getting up to 10’ 3” is just short of what is needed to slam one home, especially when one can’t palm the ball. I figure 10’ 6” is the minimum needed before one has a realistic shot…10’ 8” would be better still.

Fast forward 40 years, and I am now at my full adult height of 6’ 0” (but probably starting to shrink). My standing reach has increased to 8’ 0”. The 28”-29” SVJ I had back when I was 13 years old would now elevate me to the 10’ 4”-10-5” level…add just a couple of inches as the result of a running start, and dunking would be a…well, a virtual “slam dunk”.

So what are the odds of my being able to develop a 28”-29” SVJ at the age of 53? At first glance I would have to say they are somewhere on the order of leaving Las Vegas with money in your pocket, buying a winning Lotto ticket, or having Keira Knightley ask me to rub suntan lotion on her bare bottom. (I will now take a short break to ponder that last thought.)

OK, I’m back. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, Keira Knightley…No, no, no…Dunking! OK, I’ve determined that I need a 28”-29” SVJ, but last weekend my SVJ was a wimpish 18.5”. So that makes the math pretty easy – I just need to add 10” to my SVJ. No prob, right? Wrong!

Although I just knew it would never happen to me, I’m here to tell you from first-hand experience that when you get older, beginning particularly after one’s late 40’s, your “shit” doesn’t work like it use to. “Stuff” in general takes longer to get going, it ain’t as strong as it use to be, and it doesn’t last as long. And if you try to do some of the things you did back in your 20’s…well, you’ll pay the price for days and days, not to mention the humbling “reality check” that leaves a more permanent bruise on your ego. (Don’t get too upset about this last part though, any reality check bruises you suffer in your early 50’s will be more than over-shadowed by those to come in your late 50’s and 60’s.)

The good news about my SVJ is that just 3 months ago it was only 17”. This is undeniable proof that there is improvement “out there” to be had. The question is only whether there’s 10” more improvement to be had. Having acknowledged that athletic potential declines with age, it might be good to know just how much it has declined since I was 13 years old. The surprising answer may be, “not as much as one might think”. The WAVA age-grading tables indicate that a 53 year-old has only about 80% of the potential in the High Jump of someone in their 20’s. But what is the potential of a 13 year-old as compared to someone in their 20’s?

Let’s assume that a 13 year-old has 90% of the jumping potential of someone in their 20’s (it sounds reasonable to me). So, if a 13 year-old can jump 1 “unit”, an athlete in their prime would be able to jump 1.11 “units” (1 / 0.9), and a 53 year-old would have the jumping potential of .89 “units” (1.11 x 80%). Let’s call it 90%. So if all this makes any sense at all, if I was in the same physical shape now as when I was at 13, my SVJ would now be .90 x 28.5”, or 25.5” - 3 inches short of what I need. Assuming I can get back into the shape I was in when I was 13, where is that missing 3 inches going to come from?

The missing 3 inches would be possible to obtain if you assume that I had at least 3 more inches of undeveloped potential back when I was 13. Let’s face it, I wasn’t on any real program to develop my jumping. I did “kid things”…I ran, I played basketball. I did no weight training, plyometrics, etc. If I had those 3 inches I would have had a 31.5” SVJ back then. Certainly that is an impressive number, but it is by no means unheard of. There are many documented cases of much higher SVJs. For instance, there are many examples of dunkers who are significantly under 6 feet tall.

While playing basketball can certainly improve one’s SVJ, it by no means maximizes it. The average SVJ of professional basketball players is much lower than that of volleyball players, or of shot putters and discus throwers. But the highest SVJs can be found in the population of Olympic weight-lifters…believe it or not! A brief internet study has revealed that SVJ is maximized through certainly Olympic-style weight training, plyometric jumps, and the avoidance of aerobic conditioning. I did none of these when I was 13 years old.

So here’s my plan. I will continue with my weight training program (to which I attribute my 1.5” SVJ increase over the last 3 months). I will get my “Power Clean” numbers up to the 200 lb neighborhood, and my squat numbers up over 350 lbs, and I think this should be sufficient to get my SVJ up to at least 28”. Then, on May 11, 2008 (my birthday) I will take a video camera out to my local basketball court and I will video tape myself performing a full-fledged slam dunk at age 55, and just under 6’ tall. I will be king of the world, I will have achieved a life-long dream that I will then be able to check off my list, and no doubt, Keira Knightley will be waiting for me courtside.

It’s good to have dreams.