Protein and Vertical Jump Training

Catabolism!!! Its a dirty little word and a word that every athlete should avoid at all cost. I know a lot of you are thinking what is catabolism? and why should I avoid it? Well catabolism muscle loss, its a state in which your body reverts to when there are not enough resources available in the athletes body to support anabolism or muscle repair and growth. 

Factors that lead to catabolism are lack of sleep/rest, lack of proper supplementation and nutrition and improper training. When you engage in a rigorous training routine your muscles "tear" or break down. Shortly after the conclusion of your workouts, your body enters a catabolic state because the rigors of your workout have caused the body to have a protein deficit, this is bad because at this stage the body has also activated its MPAK signaling pathways. MPAK signaling pathway is simply you body's way of signaling muscle growth. 

From this point its as simple as 2+2=4. Protein repairs broken down muscles, if your body is signaling for protein and there is none available, your body is not going to repair those broken down muscles. In fact it can work the opposite way, the body will begin to burn muscle for fuel, which of course will lead to a decrease in muscle mass, and of course decreased performance benefits.  

When you ingest BCAA's (branched chain amino acids) after a workout, they create what we call "metabolic pathways"  a metabolic pathway is a chain of chemical reaction inside of a muscle cell. 

When you ingest the correct amount of BCAA's the metabolic pathways created lead to protein synthesis which results in greater muscle growth and faster muscle repair. As you can guess this leads to faster and greater gains from your speed and vertical jump training routine. 

If you are training hard you need to be ingesting 1.5 to 2 grams of protein per every pound of your body weight.

Jamillian Momon is a former professional athlete, current CSCS and BMS. He has worked as a consultant on many of the top vertical jump programs available and is also the creator of the Program 51 Hyper Hybrid Training System. You can find more in-depth training information at: http://www.program51.com

Introduction To Complete Vertical Jump Training

If you really want to improve your jumping ability, first you need to figure out what type of Jumper you are, a power jumper or a leaper. Next you need to figure out what type of power or strength you are lacking, base strength, transitional power, or explosiveness, they are all different and must be trained in different ways. I know a lot of you are wondering what's the difference between the three. Well in short Base Strength is how much weight you can move, Transitional Power is how fast you can move said weight and explosiveness is the maximum speed and distance you can move said weight with each single movement. A good training routine will include the following exercises:  

Base Strength 1: Traditional Squats and Pistol Squats 

2:Deadlifts 

3:Lunges

4: Core Work

5: Stretching  

Transitional Power: 

1: Box Squats/Tempo Squats 

2: Power Cleans 

3: Push Press  

4: Core Work

5: Stretching

Explosiveness: 

1: Ballistic/jump squats 

2: Traditional and Compound/Hybrid Plyometrics 

3: Sprinting  

4: Core Work

5: Stretching

You'll also want to figure out which individual muscles/muscle groups are working inefficiently You can figure this out by completing a full vertical jump test progression and a baseline fitness test to diagnose any muscle imbalances that you may have. Remember no matter what type of training program you do you must make sure that opposing muscles are strengthened and balanced (e.g. Quads and hamstrings). This part maybe the most important as weak links and imbalances will lead to poor/slow results and raise the risk of injury significantly. Do a routine that combines plyomertic/body weight, free weight and or acceleration routines. In order to gain inches you'll need to tax your central nervous system and force your body to create new motor pathways. If you train correctly you should gain at least an inch a week. If you would like more in-depth information on vertical jump and sports training visit my website at: http://www.program51.com Train hard Jamillian Momon CSCS, BMS