THPStrength

John: 00:00

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the teach based rank podcast. My name is John Evans. I coach many of the highest jumpers in the world and largely considered to be the expert on the topic. This is Azir Rivera.

John: 00:11

He's one of my best friends, and he also has a 50.5 inch vertical leap. I've been coaching him for many, many years. Developed him from chronic knee pain to one of the highest jumpers in the world now, hopefully soon to be the highest. We're gonna talk about that today. But before we do, if you guys are interested in coaching, you can get six months of coaching when you purchase a six month cokey coaching package.

John: 00:32

And if you don't wanna do that, there is also a free week of training in the description, and hopefully, we'll remember to pin a comment. So let's get into it here, Isaiah. We had quite the eventful holiday we'll call it holiday weekend. Is it I don't even know. Holiday week.

John: 00:50

Or

Isaiah: 00:50

Eventful Thanksgiving.

John: 00:51

Yeah. It was it was a gainful Thanksgiving. So we had Wednesday, we went and did a little testing, if you will, And there was a DEXA scan, which we'll talk about. And then after that, you went and did one of the craziest performances I've ever seen from any athlete on a given day in the weight room. And then I'm honored.

John: 01:11

Today. Yep. Yep. It was. It was truly.

John: 01:14

And then today you went and did a little basketball playing and then did a very quick, like, eight jump test and stopped when you touched 12 feet. So let's let's talk about the first one, which is the DEXA scan. So we had a lot of do we want to call them haters?

Isaiah: 01:33

Yeah.

John: 01:34

Yeah. We had a lot of haters saying that we didn't know what we were talking about and Isaiah wasn't really I would

Isaiah: 01:39

wager like over maybe in the hundreds of comments over the years.

John: 01:44

Years. Yeah.

Isaiah: 01:45

Because every time, literally every single time we've talked about body fat, people come in. Bro, just the just the post with Donovan alone. Think about how many

John: 01:54

Oh, yeah. It was crazy.

Isaiah: 01:55

Like, people

John: 01:55

are like, you know what you're talking about. He's definitely fat as hell. And I'm like, dude, what?

Isaiah: 01:59

He's a fat slob. He's barely able to get off the bed. Yeah. I don't even know how

John: 02:04

he gets out of bed in the morning. He's so fat and just disgusting.

Isaiah: 02:08

Jabba, a cut is skinnier than him.

John: 02:10

Yeah. I was like, he's like a one of one talent. So I've I've done a handful of different, body fat percent testing myself. I've seen you do it a handful of times. My brother's done it a handful of times.

John: 02:21

I have a degree in x fizz. And we just get these, like, Internet YouTube trolls and bodybuilders that are like, there's no way you're under 10%. You're just a blob boy.

Isaiah: 02:32

If you're under 10%, a singularity forms and the world blows up.

John: 02:36

Yeah. And you're just a fat boy. And we were like, that's not true. And I'm very certain of it. So I've I've tested on a DEXA in the sevens.

John: 02:46

I think it was like 7% actually, like flat out. And, you know, it's it's been like a handful of years, but we went to a place called DexFit in Orlando. Shout out to them. Give them a quick shout out. If you guys are interested and you're in the Florida area, it's like a $100, maybe a $150 or something like that.

John: 03:02

You can get a DEXA scan, which is, other than MRI and CT scans, probably the most accurate way and underwater weighing. It's the least invasive. It's not like you gotta get in your underwear and get underwater or anything like that or get an MRI machine, and it's incredibly accurate. So I I did look this up beforehand, and newer models only have an error of, like, 1% maybe. Like, one to I think it was, like, 1.5 if it's a newer DEXA.

John: 03:28

And this one was, They said g came in and built it. It was the highest grade DEXA machine that you could buy. It's like the gold standard DEXA machine. So the lady that owned it was like a passion of hers, so she went all out on it. And, yeah, I mean, we're talking tens of thousands of dollars, maybe a $100,000 machine.

John: 03:44

Very, very nice. So Isaiah goes

Isaiah: 03:46

in said 60. I think it was, like, 60 or 70 k.

John: 03:49

Okay. Yeah. 60 or 70. So Isaiah goes in and he, you know, doesn't strip down actually. He's just in his normal clothes.

John: 03:57

I was a little bit disappointed. And so he does the DEXA scan. If you guys saw the YouTube video, he ended up getting 8.8%, which was not surprising to me whatsoever. That is about what I thought it was gonna be. It was, like, between 78%.

John: 04:12

And, I guess it's a little higher than I than I would have guessed. But, yeah, super accurate. He did the pretesting protocol, which is you fast for, I think, twelve hours water and food, no vitamins or minerals, and then you go do your DEXA scan. So as long as you do the pretesting protocol correctly and use the same machine, it's like incredibly inter rater reliability, but even inter rater reliability is still very, very good. So yeah, kind of the gold standard, not really surprising by any stretch.

John: 04:39

He's been leaner before, but he's you're relatively lean right now. So yeah, really, really good. Your fat sorry. Your fat free mass was a hundred and sixty one. And then we were starting to like, look at Bailey out.

John: 04:50

She's, like, gonna hit the camera. And then you were you had a metric that was, like, essentially how much mass you can gain.

Isaiah: 04:59

Fat fat free mass index. And mine was 20 either I think it was 22.

John: 05:06

Yeah. Which is the upper, upper, upper limit for anyone that's a natural athlete. So anyone that's bigger than Isaiah would have to be an insane outlier at his height.

Isaiah: 05:17

Yeah. Either either like the genetic outlier of genetic outliers or they're on the sauce.

John: 05:22

They're on the gear. Yeah. And that's what was saying, like, for a natural

Isaiah: 05:25

The only sauce I'm on is on cereal.

John: 05:27

That's right. And he does take his fish oil and multi

Isaiah: 05:29

And I I do take the out the steroid allegations as compliments. So thank you guys.

John: 05:33

Mhmm. I do too. I'm like, thanks, man. Our training really goes the extra mile here. I did not do the DEXA.

John: 05:40

Was like, I don't know. I didn't do the pretest protocol. I didn't have any intention of doing it. Maybe in like a cycle or two, I'll consider it. But yeah.

John: 05:47

So I super happy with that. His bone density was off the charts, which makes sense. Bones adapt to stress and we place a lot of stress on them, the forces. They adapt a force. It's Wolf's Law.

John: 05:57

The compressive forces on his bones are insane. So that was awesome. And then we went to the gym And Isaiah, tell the

Isaiah: 06:05

people Right after the DEXA.

John: 06:06

Right after the DEXA. We drove to a a new the old our old stomping ground, which is now a crunch and not a twenty four hour, which is a little bit little bit depressing. I like the twenty four hour more. But Yeah. Got in there, set up for cleans, and Isaiah, tell tell And walk people

Isaiah: 06:23

through. And I wanna set this as context. I am in week three of my of my training cycle. Had a hellish weekend before this, walking terrible lift. Played basketball on the same day that I lifted.

Isaiah: 06:37

The intensity on all the lifts have been stupidly high. I had just tripled 300 on a power clean, busting my ass with the squats every session. All my Saturday lifts, which is my feel good lifts, I've been doing slow squats deep with three fifteen, like, barbell back squats. So very, very, very intense cycle and not unloaded at all by any any stretch No. The imagination.

John: 07:03

Tell the people what you did.

Isaiah: 07:05

And I did I went and did three twenty five power clean, which is the PR. And then directly after, PR in my back squat, 200, four forty. And this is at a body weight of one eighty five that morning I weighed myself.

John: 07:22

Absolutely insane. Two times body weight is a thing of the past unless you're squatting 2.5 or whatever the hell that is. It's so crazy.

Isaiah: 07:32

Long You do

John: 07:32

the math on squat. Just absolutely a beautiful thing. What was crazy about the session too, and you guys will see this when he post it, is his four thirty five, which was a five pound PR, was way harder. And then we loaded up four forty. There was, like, no room on the bar anymore and squatted that thing like it was a paper clip.

John: 07:52

And it was like, dude, you might have four fifty in the tank. Like Yeah. It's very possible. But we were like, what's what like, 200 is a good benchmark. Like, what's two zero two?

John: 08:01

You know, two zero five. Like, it's just like

Isaiah: 08:02

And I I like leaving room for the next ER day. And he

John: 08:06

just want the next cycle to be too hard.

Isaiah: 08:09

Mike, this will dictate my next month of pre

John: 08:12

Yeah. I can't I can't crush myself. Jon will ruin my life. So, yeah, we have we have some some big plans. My goal in the next one is a little bit of sarcomere genesis, which is gonna be interesting.

John: 08:22

So you have to get eccentric overloads at length, which is gonna be very hard to do. We're still gonna do it, assuming that his body can handle it. And, it should should be very good. He tends to be very good at propulsive stuff, but eccentrically is good. I just wanna see him better.

Isaiah: 08:38

And I respond really well. My vertical responds really well to eccentric work. So it, like, it always literally every time it has.

John: 08:45

It's fun. Gonna

Isaiah: 08:47

Are you gonna think about maybe. Because of how today went.

John: 08:50

Yeah. So then let's get into today. So he

Isaiah: 08:53

Which is two days later. Two days after the max.

John: 08:55

Craziest craziest performance I've ever seen on a single day, like, person in the weight room. I've never seen someone clean over 300 and then go squat. Well, I don't think yeah. On the same day, I've never seen that. I've never seen someone clean over 300 and squat over 400 that I can think of off the top of my head.

John: 09:15

The closest would be Donovan, and I don't think I've seen him do it on the same day. So Yeah. And out of all the Olympians I've worked with, most of them can't claim 300. Greg could, but he never deep squatted. So I never saw him do that.

John: 09:27

Greg Rutherford, he was probably the most powerful athlete I've ever seen in person. And, I mean, we're talking gold medalist. Fabian doesn't deep squat. I've seen him clean over 300, but never deep squat that, especially not at his height. That would be

Isaiah: 09:42

The the only person that

John: 09:44

Jay Clark.

Isaiah: 09:45

Yeah. Jay Clark, which we were talking, like, I've always considered Jay Clark the, like, the strength standard for dunking that I've always wanted to achieve. And I'm actually, like, nearing his numbers. Like, I'm, like, probably within 10 pounds

John: 10:02

Yeah.

Isaiah: 10:02

Of his like all time numbers. If not matching For

John: 10:06

sure. Eccentrically, think he's he's got you beat by a little bit there.

Isaiah: 10:10

Yeah. But what's crazy is his his hand clean blows my mind. Mhmm. Like it literally blows my mind.

John: 10:18

Shout out to you, John. We love you. You're one of our favorite people in the space and I hope you're doing well. I hope

Isaiah: 10:23

you You know what I just realized? My off burt is probably insane right now.

John: 10:27

You did like elbow off vert or, like, one step.

Isaiah: 10:31

Yeah. The one step.

John: 10:33

That was absolutely so cool.

Isaiah: 10:34

And I've been dunking off vert this whole month in games.

John: 10:38

Yeah. Yeah. You got the pogo stick badge today. Yeah. So, yeah, we come in to today and Isaiah is just feeling wired early and then gets in the session and just looks like I can tell

Isaiah: 10:50

Like, driving to the session I was hype and then I started warming up and I was like, oh, today's not special.

John: 10:56

Took a poo poo and then was like, oh, no. I feel like trash, which

Isaiah: 10:59

And it was cold as hell in the gym too. I was like

John: 11:01

There were people there, but it just wasn't a high energy environment. It was like half four basketball. You know, everyone had been there for like hours and I was like, well, this this will be interesting. Like, I we were kind of on the verge of, like, okay. Do we feel good lift?

John: 11:15

Do we I didn't wanna test. I knew I didn't wanna do, like, a proper test, but he's like, I'll just bring it, do one max upper jump and see. Like, just kinda get data to see where we're at. So he warms up. Lobbs are terrible.

John: 11:26

Fine motor skills are not the best, but he was shooting well. That was a a rarity. That's all.

Isaiah: 11:31

Because I played cornhole yesterday.

John: 11:32

That's right. Fine motor skills were primed. Good. But the lobs were just like it just looked discoordinated dunking, and I was like, okay. Like, he's definitely fatigued.

John: 11:39

I can always tell.

Isaiah: 11:40

That's always the sign.

John: 11:41

Yeah. If I if I

Isaiah: 11:42

Like, if I'm not, like, within 10 jumps, three like, doing the technical dunks, reverse three sixty Eastbay, reverse three sixty on the back, like Yeah. D tap.

John: 11:51

Putting speed into it, like, that's another way I can tell. Early on when you bring a lot of speed in and just punch dunks, like you're jumping high early, that's always a really good indicator. And lobs too. Lobbing is a fine motor skill. I mean, you can't lob the ball.

John: 12:04

It's like, oh, today's gonna be today's gonna we're missing a little bit of touch and timing here. Yeah. And That's usually how I can tell. So you go through the session, dunking, play some basketball, get some in game dunks there, which you guys will see, and then dunk I

Isaiah: 12:19

actually had a nasty one I forgot about. The windmill? It was it was like no. Was like down the middle. I just like

John: 12:25

Oh, yeah.

Isaiah: 12:26

The ball straight over the dude. I You know, it's a big ass dude. Like, was like six six, like three hundred pounds.

John: 12:33

And he just he just gave you a high five after. Was like, that was that was cool. Yeah. Yeah. Was fun.

John: 12:37

Actually, the other guy did, but it was like on two guys, which was just glorious. Yeah. It was NBA esque.

Isaiah: 12:43

I forgot about that. Need to go I'm gonna go mind that.

John: 12:46

Clip. It was awesome. He like drove to the rim and as soon as he got the ball and I saw you like accelerating hard, I was like, oh, he's gonna he's going up. It doesn't matter who's in the way, he's going to try to dunk this thing. Yeah.

John: 12:56

But it wasn't body to body, was just like, they were to your side. Was like Yeah, it was reaching.

Isaiah: 13:00

It was like our hands, I was just like six inches over his hand and just boop.

John: 13:06

It was a work of art, I must say. So, yeah, we get through this. He does, to Donovan's credit, a little, you know, Instagram reel. It's going pretty crazy right now on the interwebs and touches eight foot, eight six, nine, nine six, 10 off one step. Then it goes ten six off one step, 11 off, like, a walk in one step or like, it's like a walk in penultimate step.

John: 13:27

Yeah. Very, very light. And then goes to eleven six, same thing. And then I'm like, dude, try to do it off try to touch 12 and do that. Yeah.

John: 13:37

Walks up like narrowly misses, but hits like a point nine five o flight time, which is like insane.

Isaiah: 13:43

Which it like it literally was a one step 47.

John: 13:47

That was gorgeous.

Isaiah: 13:48

And if I were to max effort one step, it's possible I could get like 48 or something.

John: 13:54

I think you hit 40, yeah, forty eight five, 49.

Isaiah: 13:56

Yeah. It

John: 13:57

looked so easy. And then went up, did like a half assed 85% full approach and touched 12 foot with probably like an inch or two to spare. And I was like, you could probably get 12 tooth today if you want. Like, if you wanna touch 12 teeth because you're like, I don't really wanna do it. Feel my hip a little bit.

Isaiah: 14:11

So My knee. My knee. Not the hip.

John: 14:14

Oh, your hip. Sorry. Yeah. Your knee. Was assuming it's the hip because that's usually the culprit.

John: 14:17

Yeah. Yeah, overall, crazy week. Reason being biggest reason being is at this point, every time that you max power clean and I've seen this with Dom, then I've seen it with Dom. Like, when you get to a certain vertical and a certain power clean, it it tends to deflate you. You tend to be very gnarly flat and especially back squat.

John: 14:40

And Vance Nugard always used to say this, like, a true one rep max clean and jerk or back squat could fatigue you for, like, two to three weeks. I don't think that's necessarily the same case for us because we're not squatting, like, 300. You're at two hundred, which is awesome. But I think for those guys, you know, where they're eighty five kilos and squatting, like, two fifty or something like that, like, it really fatigues the hell out of them. Maybe it's possible it does for you, but I don't suspect that to be the case.

John: 15:04

So I think, yeah, week and a half, you're gonna be feeling you're gonna feeling zesty. So now Isaiah had a little bit of dunk depression.

Isaiah: 15:15

Yeah.

John: 15:15

Because why? Talk talk about that.

Isaiah: 15:18

I had I had dunk depression afterwards because coming in, we were I was supposed to do a feel good lift because we knew the max out was so intense. And we knew which we always talk about this. When the intensity is high, that's when your risk of injury goes up. And I basically had the most intense lift of my life. Right?

Isaiah: 15:39

Like, those two lifts back to back. So we're like, alright. Feel good lift, and then we'll come in next week feeling hot. Because if I don't dunk, I usually recover really well and feeling crazy coming into Monday. But woke up and like always happens on a Friday, I feel compelled to jump by an outside force.

Isaiah: 16:00

I wish I could

John: 16:01

do that.

Isaiah: 16:02

And then what I specifically wanted to do, I was like, oh, I'm gonna bring the vert trainer. You see where I'm at. Build up to one max effort jump, like, get data. And then mid session, I was feeling a tiny bit of knee pain, like, a two out of 10 when I was playing basketball. And then when I did the vert testing, actually, I felt it when I was doing the windmills, like, the hard jumps.

Isaiah: 16:27

I felt it there. And then then I did the vert jump, I, like, base essentially rewarmed up. It's, like, eight, eight, six, nine. No pain. No pain.

Isaiah: 16:35

No And then eleven, six, two out of 10. And then 12, probably, like, a two or a three out of 10. And I'm good now. I can tell it wasn't I didn't have, like, a crazy flare up, but my dunk depression is from not following the plan. Like

John: 16:51

I Like, I hate Yeah.

Isaiah: 16:53

Yeah. Like, it's more it's more so I hold myself to a standard, and then I did I wasn't disciplined, essentially, is why I have dunked depression.

John: 17:04

So as a coach, I think it's I think it's fine. I think it aligns with the goals. I think you need to have specificity. You need to hit intensity. I don't think that you pissed it off.

John: 17:14

I I think it was a perfect session, honestly, as your coach. That's just my honest lens of it. I wanted to see you jump. I wanted to see you touch on intensity. You're doing a lot of concentric intense stuff.

John: 17:25

It's important to still do shortening cycles. We don't have any plyos in the cycle. You're not sprinting. So I think it was good from a coaching perspective. But, you know, anytime you've been in a position like you where you've had these detonating injuries, it's easy to panic.

Isaiah: 17:41

I have trauma. You do.

John: 17:43

You have trauma, and you let that trauma dictate how you feel. And I was like, I you know, I think I even texted you. I was like, I don't it's not a big deal. You know? Like Yeah.

John: 17:50

You're kinda overanalyzing this. But, yeah, I I can understand why you feel the way that you feel because I've I've been there, but I'm not worried about it. I think if you get three feel good lifts in, you're gonna be feeling

Isaiah: 18:01

freaking The question is I have two questions for you. One, do you think I could test 51 right now? And two, do I test next week?

John: 18:11

I think you're if you did a proper taper of ten to fourteen days and you have the right environment, I think you get a 51. Yeah. I do, honestly. Do you test? I mean, you could do it at in Charlotte, and it would be a perfect environment for it.

Isaiah: 18:35

Yeah.

John: 18:35

You could do it there.

Isaiah: 18:36

Or I might detonate.

John: 18:39

I mean, we're six or seven days out. You might detonate, but I don't I don't know. I don't I I really genuinely think you're gonna do a feel good lift tomorrow. You're gonna feel fine.

Isaiah: 18:50

Yeah.

John: 18:51

Like, I fully expect that. I think you're gonna be, like, flat, but you're gonna do the feel good lift. You're gonna be like, oh, I actually feel really good. Like, I fully expect that. And I generally am pretty good at predicting this stuff where I'm like, no.

Isaiah: 19:03

You're gonna

John: 19:03

be fine.

Isaiah: 19:03

I mean, one thing's for sure. I don't think I've ever been this fit. So there's you put a crowd in front of me and fresh. That bro, the other thing is like, you could make a strong argument that I could have tested 50 or 51 today.

John: 19:22

Yeah. No. I think I mean, you could have hit 50 today, I think.

Isaiah: 19:24

Imagine wanted. Unloaded. Like, I like

John: 19:27

I know. It's kinda like and it's funny because I I look at the volume you've been doing and stuff like that. And, honestly, I started to unload you a little bit on Wednesday, but the intensity was so high. So, like, if you jumped on Friday or Saturday next week, I think it's the sixth is the event.

Isaiah: 19:45

Yeah.

John: 19:45

You know, that would be about ten days. So, I mean, it's very, very possible. And you got, like, loading today. You hit specificity. You hit intensity.

John: 19:56

I think we just drop the volume, keep intensity high. I mean, there is a I I'd say the cards, it's in your favor. It's it's in the cards, and it's in your favor. It's possible to do. It's very realistic.

John: 20:09

It's a realistic expectation for you to hit 51 right now.

Isaiah: 20:12

Yeah. That

John: 20:12

that would that would kind of be my general consensus.

Isaiah: 20:16

Interesting. Very interesting. No. That's it.

John: 20:21

Alright. Well, there you have it, guys. Isaiah is ready to test 51 in ten days. Unload, recover well, get the knee ready to go, and he's, 51 form. Thanks for watching guys.

John: 20:30

If you're interested in coaching, look at him. He's getting nervous. I could tell you're getting anxious about the thought of it.

Isaiah: 20:36

My palms are sweaty right now.

John: 20:37

I I could tell. That's so funny. I read body language with him because I've been around him so long. But, yeah, if you guys are interested in coaching, go to teachmestrength.com. As I said, the link is in the description.

John: 20:48

By six months, you get six months free. It's Black Friday, so that's a hell of a deal. And if you're interested in a free week of coaching, it is also in the description. So check it out. Thanks for watching, guys, and we will see you next week.

John: 21:01

Have a good weekend. Happy holidays, and bye.