The Filthy Five - Five Things You Thought You Knew About Jumping Higher And Becoming A Better Athlete

With the 2004-05 NBA season underway, theres not a more suitable time to explore what it takes to emmulate the high-flying antics of our favorite NBA stars.

If you ask any young basketballer around the world what they want to do, every single one of them will tell you they want to dunk on their opponents. And for those of you who cant dunk already, theres only one way of ever getting there: increase your vertical leap.

With many vertical leap programs available to choose from, we asked vertical leap expert and owner of TheVerticalProject.com, Luke Lowrey, to clear the air for us. Lowreys claim to fame is that he has carved and developed the only worlds system that can effectively double any athletes vertical leap and athletic power output capacity and - better yet - his system is so effective, his elite client list make him sign non-disclosure agreements, to prevent their competition finding out about their edge.

He candidly revealed that "by filtering the hype and discarding what doesnt work from the get-go, each and every athlete can guarantee for themselves their own results by strictly adhering to the personalized systems that do work."

When probed for answers, Lowrey confessed to having observed - even at the highest athletic levels - five universal myths that coaches, trainers and athletes alike have long believed increase vertical leap. These myths, though commonly embraced by the wider athletic community are, in fact, shown to decrease jumping ability when held against to Lowreys personalized system.

So, here they are, from the horses mouth:

Myth 1 All you require is our workout plan

"The failure to take an integrated approach to increasing vertical jump is one of the first traps many athletes stumble on when starting out. Trust me I know! Ive fallen in head first. Ive often called it training suicide because increasing vertical leap is about so much more than just a workout program. It requires an integrated and personalized system. If 98% of your time is spent away from the training track, gym or competition court or field, then its during that non-active period that 98% of your total results have the opportunity of being fully leveraged. For decades athletes have been fooled into believing that its the time and effort spent at the track or gym that controls their results. I dont doubt that this is an incredibly important ingredient in harnessing true athletic success, but so is the 98% of non-active down time - when your body processes the active time spent training. However, its only an opportunity. Recognizing this fact presents a viable advantage to any athlete, because so few bother to address this and even fewer address it properly."

Myth 2 That you need to be born with good genetics

"Vertical leap and jumping ability is a function of power and power is a function of science and mathematics. Provided you can execute the mechanics of the jumping movement itself, you will be able to increase the height to which you can jump simply by manipulating the mathematical and scientific equation related. Sure, some people may be born with slightly better genetics than others, and may experience results faster than the next person, but anyone can considerably increase their vertical leap. Quite literally, the person with inferior genetics who uses the superior system, will always win out over the person with the superior genetics and inferior training regime."

Myth 3 That lifting weights will increase your vertical leap

"Another common myth is that lifting weights will increase your vertical leap and make you faster. Weight trainers have spent a lot of time and energy trying to diffuse this, but the fact remains, lifting weights is actually not the most superior way of increasing vertical leap or raw athletic power, and its perhaps more likely to actually slow you down, decrease your bodys power output capacity and even cause injury."

Myth 4 That 3 sets of 12 works for everyone

"This stems from the "health club trainer syndrome". These guys tend to hand you the generic program they have at the top of their file and say "go for your life", even when theres absolutely no real, solid or scientific way of measuring that a certain amount of sets or reps is right for you. To be able to accurately map out with fair reason a system that will definitely increase your jump, you dont need to be Einstein to see that the numbers you work by need to be personalized for you. Thats why I developed the Uncompromized Performance Number UPN technology -- its the only sure-fire way of knowing and mapping, without a shadow of doubt, the exact numbers that will, week by week, improve your performance rate. I guess thats why my systems caused such a stir."

Myth 5 You have to jump to improve your jump!

"Its not just young athletes who want to increase their vertical leap. Many older people, who still dream of one day being able to dunk with authority are out there looking to increase their vertical jump height, too. However, some of them need to watch it, as old injuries havent been properly cared for and sometimes, their backs, hips, knees and ankles arent as durable as those of your average 16 year-old. Youll be happy to know you dont need necessarily include bone-crunching plyometrics into a training regime to gain results. Actually, there are four specific and highly-effective training modes that ensure your joints are saved, yet still allow you to reliably count on adding valuable inches to your jump. These include: "dead start" training exercises, "isometric" exercises, "partial" or "strong-range" exercises and water plyometrics, where the high-impact baring of gravity is removed. In many cases, documented both scientifically and anecdotally, combinations of these four training modes have surpassed the results drawn from the regular jumping, weight-lifting and Olympic and power-lifting routines that are favored by the vast majority of trainers and athletes."

Copyright c 2004, The Vertical Project. All rights reserved.