August 17 Update

The progress continues. 

The video below confirms that I'm getting the rim with regularity. While I'm not hanging on it yet (without ripping a few knuckles out of joint) I'm absolutely getting closer.

I have to credit the box jump exercises from Jack Cascio at twicethespeed.com.  He's got a bunch of explosive exercise videos like this one: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s00fJ0ilwXM

and this one:

I have to credit the box jump exercises from Jack Cascio at twicethespeed.com.  He's got a bunch of explosive exercise videos like this one: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s00fJ0ilwXM  

I'm starting to settle on the two foot jump because it just feels like I'm pulling out all the stops without putting too much pressure on one leg.  

Still a long way to go but...this was a good week. 

August 10 Update

After almost four full weeks of work, I'm starting to see some signs of progress. Here's how I know that I'm moving forward (or upward). 

Before I started, I measured my standing reach to be 7'9" (or 93"). Then I took a combination of measurements to determine how high I could jump with a running start, a one-step jump, and even jumping with nothing but a deep bend of my knees.  My highest jump was 9"7" (or 115").

 So my starting vertical jump
was a lackluster 22". 

Most of you know that a regulation basketball rim is 10" (120") high, so I needed to pick up at least 5" just to touch the rim, then another 5 to 7 inches to have any hope of dunking a regulation basketball.  To get even more scientific, I found this site that confirmed that:

You need a 27 Inch vertical leap
to touch the rim and 33 Inch leap
to dunk considering that
you have to jump about 6 inches
over the rim to dunk. To accomplish
that you have to leave the ground
at a speed of 4.05 m/s vertically no matter
how much you weigh. You need a
force of 4626 Newtons against the ground
based on your weight to reach that
speed assuming you bent your
knees at an angle of 60 degrees.

Maybe that was my hint to quit while I was behind. 

Still, I pressed on and after these four weeks, I have increased my vertical 3 inches, and I'm almost grabbing the rim. I would love to think that my jumping skills will continue to improve in a linear fashion, but that's not likely. But I do know that my fitness level increase (CG wut wut!) is directly related to my jumping improvements.

Back to work.