Starting Over

Here's how my jump looks right now. I'm not really bending my legs and I'm not really exploding through my jumps. It looks like I'm holding back on my 2-foot approach jumps. As my form gets better, I should be able to jump higher. In this video, I also included some depth jumps training. The platform that I'm jumping to is 38" without the pads and 40" with the pads.

I tested my one-rep max on various lifts this week. My PR's for the week were:

• Squats: 340 pound x 1 rep. I definitely go below parallel and get a lot lower than I did when I maxed out earlier in the year. I think I could have done 2-3 more, but 1 is what I got.
• Bench Press: 245 pounds. I was close to getting 275 last winter.
• Hang Power Cleans: 195 pounds x 1 rep. I barely got that rep, too.
• Deadlift: 340 pounds x 3 reps. I performed these immediately after maxing out on the squat.

I played basketball 4 times this week and my legs were feeling pretty good up until today. I definitely need some rest right now. 

We've played 2 games in my city rec league and won them both. We have a decent team, but we are older than a lot of the other teams. We tend to walk the ball up the court, pass it around 7-8 times, and then make a shot. By that time, the other team hasn't had the ball in a while and will put up a quick shot that we'll rebound. We'll then walk the ball up the court, pass it around 7-8 times, and then make a shot. We'll keep doing that over and over until the other team gets so frustrated that they start turning the ball over and taking terrible shots. By the end of the first half, we're running up and down the court and scoring almost at will on some of these young teams.

Wow, it's ben a long while since I've last posted anything. Life has been busy with our 5 children and their activities, work, etc. I've still been working out but I've lost a lot of strength since the Spring. I stopped taking creatine a while ago because I was up to 220-225 pounds and felt that was too heavy for me. I was also sick with the flu and lost 5 pounds in one week; I went from being able to bench press 225 for up to 8 reps to only being able to bench that weight for one rep after the illness. I'm about 205 pounds right now and my vertical is now back to where it was in the Spring. I've been stretching consistently and my flexibility has improved a lot.

What's been fun is workout out with my sons. I had them start with an empty bar and add only 5 pounds to the bar each week. They can only add weight if they perform each lift with perfect form without any assitance from me. My oldest son has really added a lot of weight to the bar over the past 4 months and my younger son, expectedly, has had more difficulty. My goal for both of them is to have them get stronger but, more importantly at their ages, I've wanted them to get in the habit of strength training and to learn proper lifting mechanics. My oldest can really jump now. On a previous posting, I said that he could hit 8'10" with a standing jump but, come to find out with proper measurements, his reach wasn't quite that high. Right now, at age 12, he can touch 9'4"-9'5" off of two feet with a two-step approach. His coordination is still improving; he is only able to reach that height occasionally. He can also hit 7'9" on the standing long jump but, again, can't do it consistently. I think I'm having more fun training with them than I've ever had training by myself or with a team.

I'm in a city rec basketball league right now and will start church basketball in the next 4-6 weeks. I will also coach my sons basketball team again this year.

My goals right now are:
- get down to 190-195 pounds
- Squat 400 pounds
- Bench press 275 pounds
- Power clean 250 pounds (this will take some time)
- Dunk with one hand

Now it's time to get to work.