THPStrength

Isaiah: 00:00

Hello, everybody. My name is Isaiah Rivera. I have a 50.5 inch vertical. This is Austin Burke, and he has a something really high vertical. It's somewhere.

Isaiah: 00:08

Somewhere where?

Austin: 00:09

We don't know. Somewhere in the We'll find out one day. I'll test soon.

Isaiah: 00:12

It's high forties. High forties. Somewhere in the high forties. And today, are going to be asking the question, does upper body training make you jumping more higher? Yep.

Isaiah: 00:21

Alright. So before we get into it though, I wanna give a quick shout out to our sponsors over at thpstrength.com. Austin, can you take it away?

Austin: 00:30

Do you want to jump higher? Wait, I don't even know the full ad. I'm getting fired. Could you could you do the sponsor or you wanna do the I can do it. Okay.

Austin: 00:41

I I only know one part.

Isaiah: 00:42

If you wanna jump higher, go to thpstrength.com.

Austin: 00:44

That was it? Yeah. I thought it was like premier.

Isaiah: 00:46

Wait. Do you hear that?

Austin: 00:48

Is that a is is is that a discount in the distance?

Isaiah: 00:51

It is. Oh, wow. It's coming closer.

Austin: 00:53

Wow. You you know what we

Isaiah: 00:54

should do?

Austin: 00:54

What? We should give them a discount. What does it say? It's 10% off using the code thpstrength.com.

Isaiah: 01:01

The code THP.

Austin: 01:02

What did I say? Oh, it's just THP. The code is THP for 10% off your first month. So if you

Isaiah: 01:07

are

Austin: 01:07

weary and you wanna move out of your mom's house because she's been yelling at you and you're tired of mom yelling, it's time to it's time to sign up. THP thpstrength.com, code THP for 10% off. I'm a little

Isaiah: 01:23

You're little rusty.

Austin: 01:23

I'm a little rusty.

Isaiah: 01:24

We haven't seen we haven't seen Austin in the podcast in a while. But let's get into it. So as you can see here, we drew a nice self portrait of

Austin: 01:32

me Yep.

Isaiah: 01:33

Looking inside the rim. Yep. The muscles are to scale, obviously. I guess let's let's start by giving our personal experiences with upper body training. You can take it off.

Isaiah: 01:45

Yeah.

Austin: 01:46

So when I initially started training with John, I was forbidden, forbid, forbidden? Forbidden to do any type of upper body training just because I would overdo it. But as I gotten older and we started working with Christian, both of us, both of our verticals did go up.

Isaiah: 02:01

Who's Christian?

Austin: 02:02

Christian Williams, Archery Strong. I apologize. Look him up, great guy. We both noticed our verticals go up, And I think a lot of times people's verticals will go down when they start bulking and doing traditional bodybuilding dietary plans and stuff. But, yeah, my vert went up when I started having a more balanced upper body pro

Isaiah: 02:22

And and what type of training, like like start from when you were like 16. What what were all the different types of upper body training and and what do you currently do at the moment?

Austin: 02:31

Okay. So I used to train upper body like five days a week. I know I look skinny. Blame John. But I used to do like the Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilder.com program, the Sylvester Stallone three lifts a day type of thing, eating nothing but oatmeal, cookies, a couple cups of coffee.

Austin: 02:48

I did all that stuff and my vertical was pretty low. How about you? Is or now, I mean now it's twice a week, more functional training. You know, you got pull movements, push movements, core, carries, presses, things of that nature. Nothing too too specific like bicep curls or tricep extensions or anything like that, just more functional work.

Austin: 03:13

How about you?

Isaiah: 03:14

For me, I started training just in general, strength training when I was about 14, 15 years old. I would always just look up programs and different styles of training on the Internet. The main reason I was doing so was for basketball. You know, I found out early on that it's important to have a strong strong upper body for sports. And it wasn't just basketball.

Isaiah: 03:34

Was playing baseball too. I played American football. And you gotta be really strong for those sports. So I started doing, very early on. I forgot who was the guy who originated this, but there was something called grease the groove.

Isaiah: 03:47

And it's basically you do a ton of pull ups, a ton of push ups every single day. And it was called greasing the groove because you grease that motor pattern. So what he would do is have you set up a pull up bar on a doorway and every single time you pass the doorway, you do four to five pull ups. Same thing. Not you don't go to like max effort or failure, just do four or five pull ups and my pull ups increased by a ton just from doing that.

Isaiah: 04:10

And this is kinda an second hand point. That also was why it made sense later on when I found out about jumping every day. It like made sense logically for me because I grew up with that guess that base of knowledge. But yeah, Google Grease the Groove if you wanna learn more about that, that's actually pretty interesting stuff. So I started with that, then I got access to weights and I started doing a program called starting strength and I would just do like heavy rows and bench press basically.

Isaiah: 04:37

I kept doing that all the way up until I was about 17, 18, then I stopped. Because I started hearing that upper body isn't good for for jumping higher. And I basically just stopped completely from doing upper body. There would be times where I would get hurt sometimes because of having debilitating knee pain where I would focus more on upper body just so I could keep my sanity and continue training. For the most part, I stopped doing it.

Isaiah: 05:03

Then I started doing THP style training and I started doing a lot of circuit type training, body building circuits and that type of thing. I didn't gain a lot of mass. I also wasn't in a caloric surplus. I was really skinny at the time, but it did get me a lot fitter. And I noticed it have some transfer also to technique.

Isaiah: 05:23

I started getting like faster hand speed and stuff like that. Then I started get I did that for probably around two years. Then around 2021, I got really bad shoulder issues from low rimming every single day, practicing three six behind the back. And that's when I got in contact with Christian Williams, who is John's best friend from college and he trains archers. And archers, they have the most common type of injury is our shoulder injuries and it's similar to how jumping athletes have a lot of knee pain when they jump.

Isaiah: 05:58

That's the same thing for archery and shoulders. So he referred me to him. He started giving me shoulder rehab workouts. Within three, four months, got to the point where I could do power cleans again and dunk without pain in my shoulders. And then he asked me, he's like, do you wanna just keep going from here?

Isaiah: 06:12

And I was like, sure. Let's do it. Now this is late twenty twenty one. If you don't if you haven't seen my past videos, I tested 50.5 inches in 2022. Up until this point, super, super, super skinny just from a lack of upper body training.

Isaiah: 06:27

And that year starting late twenty or mid twenty twenty one up until I tested 50.5, I started going really hard with upper body training. There was one period of time after I tested 50.5 because my vertical went up after and I got significantly bigger. If you compare me 2021 to 2022, I gained like 10 pounds and felt like most of that was in my upper body. The type of training I was doing however, very little focus on chest, very, very little focus. I told Christian, hey, most specific muscle groups I use are gonna be my shoulders, upper back, lats, and that's basically it.

Isaiah: 07:08

And I gained a lot of mass there, right? As you can see, look my shoulders and Little chest. And no chest. But those were the main muscle groups and I continued jumping higher. Then during 2023, I actually started getting a little too obsessed with upper body and I started benching a ton.

Isaiah: 07:26

And I gained a lot of size in like one or two months and I noticed a decrease in my vertical. I started jumping poorly, my hand speed didn't feel as good, I felt tighter. Just didn't feel good, so then I stopped benching and really focusing super hard on bench press. I still train chest a little bit, but not at the same volume that I was doing it before. And right now, upper body is still not my main focus.

Isaiah: 07:52

My workouts are two days a week and I think one of them is twenty minutes and the other one's maybe thirty to forty minutes. Yeah. And that's it. And it allows me to maintain a little bit of strength, maybe increase strength a tiny bit. But yeah, that's my- I

Austin: 08:07

feel like your history was way better mine. Was like, yeah, at 16 I did some like Arnold stuff. I guess what I would like go back to is probably 2020. I didn't well, I did a bunch of upper body like 2018, 2019. And then 2020 hit and I was just dunking.

Austin: 08:21

Do you remember that? Was like really, really skinny, probably one hundred fifty. And then after COVID hit, I went through a really bad breakup. So I had like terrible body dysmorphia and I just got huge. Like I was like one hundred eighty something, which, you know, at five nine, if you saw any videos of me, was just like walking around.

Austin: 08:39

I worked out five days a week on top of our leg days, jump training.

Isaiah: 08:44

I also remember your workouts during, I think 2018, 2019 when it was like when you were doing demolition and working the night shift and stuff. I remember you would have crate like your workouts would be like two hours. Like your upper body your upper body days. It was just crazy volume.

Austin: 09:01

Yeah, no. It's I mean my vertical definitely suffered one foot. Two foot, I don't know, but it wasn't consistent. It was just, you know, I just felt like a fat blob throwing myself around. And then in 2022, I saw Isaiah's progress with Christian and I started working with him.

Austin: 09:19

And then my, I gained more muscle mass, I lost weight and started jumping higher. So and we do have the pretty much the same setup, just little variations in the workouts.

Isaiah: 09:28

Yeah. So now to answer the question, does it help your jumping? You just we just gave you our personal experiences. Now let's logically look through this. Training effects.

Isaiah: 09:42

Training effects are very specific. So if you wanna cause a certain adaptation, you have to hit the muscle groups that you're gonna be using in the set activity. So if you wanna jump higher, you have to look at what muscle groups are you actually being used. Of course, you use your legs. Those are the most important pieces.

Isaiah: 10:00

That's the most important thing when it comes to jumping higher is training the legs. But jumping is a full body movement. Right? Especially if you have good technique off an approach, you're seeing big arm swings. Right?

Isaiah: 10:12

And the arms are aggressively going up in the air. And then there's also secondary benefits or secondary upper body specificity when it comes to doing dunk tricks. Right? It takes a lot of upper body your muscles are very active during those movements, during jumping and while doing hand speed technique work.

Austin: 10:33

I do think another good example of this, if you watch any Isaiah dunks in slow motion when he's shirtless, especially when he's going off the dribble, you can see his traps contract, his upper back. You can kinda see every single muscle you use

Isaiah: 10:43

Yeah. Yeah.

Austin: 10:43

When he's jumping, like, for example.

Isaiah: 10:46

So if we break it down, right, when you jump in your arm swing, when you're putting your arms like this, you're shrugging up. So that's your traps. If you look at any dunker, shirtless, they're usually really skinny skinny and then really big traps because that's all we're doing. It's this movement right here. Off the dribble, same thing.

Isaiah: 11:05

You take your penultimate and your shoulders literally come up like this, then down aggressively, and then on the upswing it's traps again, right? Your shoulders are it's this movement right here over and over again. So traps, very, very, very important. Shoulders, you're going into shoulder extension here and then shoulder flexion here. Very aggressive movement at the shoulders.

Isaiah: 11:25

Shoulders, very important. Your upper back and your lats, this movement right here, right? And then the chest actually has secondary importance as well because it helps with this movement. If you literally touch, yeah. Like if you feel your chest, can feel it activate when you do a when you do an arm swing.

Isaiah: 11:45

And then even more when you do a when you're doing tricks. Right? Like a East Bay, your arm is going right here towards the center. That's gonna be using your chest. And lots and lots of upper back.

Isaiah: 11:56

Main ones, your traps, your shoulders, your upper back.

Austin: 11:59

That's that's two foot. So one foot, I guess, one be a lot less.

Isaiah: 12:04

One foot is a lot less. The other thing, the reason upper body doesn't help as much for for one foot jumps is your mass plays a way bigger role.

Austin: 12:18

Way bigger role. Lose I lose my one foot. Like I'm one sixty five right now and I'm still I still feel like I'm sluggish. I need to get down to like one sixty. Especially with my muscle mass.

Isaiah: 12:27

Yeah. And the reason being is because the ground contact times are so much shorter and the heavier you are, the higher those ground contact times are gonna be. Yeah, you're gonna leak energy and not be able to apply, not have as much impulse in your approach,

Austin: 12:46

in As your a one foot specific jumper, would you say like just shoulders?

Isaiah: 12:51

Yeah.

Austin: 12:51

Like you know, for the arm swing?

Isaiah: 12:54

Yeah. I mean, would say you you can still it's really it's important to train your upper body. Mhmm. But you have to be careful about gaining size is the is the biggest thing. Like a lot of a lot of athletes will ask me how do I get so strong but stay so lean?

Isaiah: 13:10

And it's just how I eat. Right?

Austin: 13:12

He eats like a bird.

Isaiah: 13:13

Yeah. You have to you have to understand what your your maintenance calories are. And then if you're overweight, alright, you have to be in a caloric deficit and vice versa if you wanna gain weight. So, as a one foot jumper, it's still important to train the upper body. You just have to watch your weight.

Isaiah: 13:28

A two foot jumper, like anecdotally and then from also from what I've seen from you know hundreds of athletes, thousands of athletes I've trained at this point. The heavier I've gotten, the higher I've jumped for the most part. The the exception was that one period of time where I focused excessively on upper body, and I gained a ton of upper body mass. But, yeah. And then as far as like, I guess what lifts

Austin: 13:55

are Yeah.

Isaiah: 13:56

Are the most useful?

Austin: 13:57

I mean, it's gonna depend on what level they're at too. I mean, could, yeah.

Isaiah: 14:02

Yeah. Some of my favorite lifts that, we could go more in-depth, but you can sign up for our coaching if you want us to program upper I've body

Austin: 14:11

also, I'm in the process of constructing, like I've done a thousand million, jillion upper body programs and I found stuff that works for me, kinda like combining you know, the gymnastic work I did growing up. So we do, we are gonna have a calisthenic program. And if you've seen my abs in the past, not right now, I'm setting up my old core workout and all that fun stuff.

Isaiah: 14:29

Yeah.

Austin: 14:29

Made in funny names, so. It'll be like Austin As seen on TV abs or the body weight one will be what is it, Austin special gymnastic body weight man, body weight gymnastic man and so forth. So we're gonna have a bunch of different specific upper body plans for you guys depending

Isaiah: 14:45

on Yeah.

Austin: 14:45

What type of jumper and what you guys need.

Isaiah: 14:47

But as far as like my favorite lifts for upper body weighted pull ups and weighted chin ups, I've seen a direct correlation in one, them helping my cleans and some of my lower body lifts and then my jumping. It's helped a ton, especially if you can get really strong relative to your body weight. Relative strength is how much weight you can lift divided by how much you weigh. Absolute strength is just the total amount of weight regardless of your body weight. What you wanna do with upper body lifts is your relative strength.

Isaiah: 15:15

You wanna increase that by a ton and same with lower body. But, yeah, weighted chin ups, weighted pull ups, immensely helpful for me. Shoulder pressing especially with dumbbells, have found to be really really useful. I try to stay away from barbell benching but dumbbell benching has been useful in keeping my shoulders healthy. Maintaining some of that chest, right, strength.

Isaiah: 15:40

Chesticles. Yeah, my chesticles. And then those are those are the main lifts. I do a lot of carries as well. Carries have been absolutely clutched.

Isaiah: 15:50

They also help you stay in shape. And I'm also gonna touch on this point, doing upper body training also helps keep you fit and it gets your body fat percentage lower, Your body composition becomes a lot better. So that's another secondary. I would actually call that a primary benefit is you can get leaner by doing all this upper body

Austin: 16:10

weight. You don't have to do it five days a week. With jump training, you only have to do it twice a week.

Isaiah: 16:14

Yeah.

Austin: 16:14

To be good.

Isaiah: 16:14

As long as you're being mindful of your calories and you're training hard in the with the lower body and doing regular jump sessions, you need you don't need to go crazy with the upper upper body work. But I think that's a pretty good rundown.

Austin: 16:26

Yeah. My favorite lifts? Weighted dips on the rings and weighted pull ups rings. I'm a big ring guy. I actually hate shoulders, but I I know it's beneficial for me.

Austin: 16:37

And I'm a big carry dude too. Me and Isaiah will just do carries in the street shirtless like caveman. Yeah.

Isaiah: 16:43

Alright. Cool. Well, hopefully that was helpful for you guys.

Austin: 16:47

So does upper body training make you jumping the more higher?

Isaiah: 16:50

Yes. It can help. If you wanna skip to the end of the video, you'll get the answer. If you found this helpful at all, please like the video. And if you're on a podcast platform, give us five stars.

Isaiah: 17:01

And yeah. Share this with somebody, and I hope you guys enjoyed that video. Catch you guys next time.

Austin: 17:07

Leave

Isaiah: 17:07

a comment if you got any. Peace out.