THP203: How Strong Do You Have To Be For A 40in Vertical
Welcome back to the teach me strength podcast. You can see I'm rocking a new Muzzy. My name is John Evans. I coached the one of the highest many of the highest numbers in the world, one of which is Isaiah Rivera, Donovan Hawkins. I also hope Tony Crosby, coach Jay Clark for a little bit there, when he test forty eight five.
John:So, yeah, I've got a good good rapport with some elite athletes, but mostly, I've got a mustache now and a middle part, and I think that that's harder now. I'm smarter now. I need glasses. So, anyways, getting into the topic, we're gonna be talking about how strong revisiting this do you have to be to have a 40 inch vertical leap, a running leap, a leap into space. And, Isaiah, let's just see what were your strength numbers when you had a 40 inch vertical off two feet, and I'll do what mine was whenever I could jump.
John:Well, my metrics were when I could jump 40 inches.
Isaiah:I just did a Brushed
John:40 inches. Barely hit 40 inches.
Isaiah:I literally just recorded this short form video yesterday. When I was at a forty, I was roughly at a
John:three fifteen. Body weight? Weight?
Isaiah:Body weight was high one sixties. Okay. And I and I was at a three fifteen Astagrass back squat. And then power clean was probably in the two zero five to two twenty five range.
John:I have those numbers right now, and I don't have a 40 inch vertical. What was your 40 yard dash time? I also don't weigh one sixty.
Isaiah:Yeah. Yeah. So now think about if you weighed one sixty.
John:Yeah. That would help
Isaiah:for sure. I think you'd I think you might have a 40 if you weighed one sixty at this.
John:Alright. I'll stop eating.
Isaiah:No. Just kidding.
John:What was your what was your forty year dash time, you think? I think you're pretty slow. That's my guess.
Isaiah:Low fives, I would guess.
John:High fours? No. Low fives, bro. You're beating the d line in
Isaiah:I just did a high four forty.
John:Yeah. But that's not measured the same way.
Isaiah:Are we taking NFL NFL standard NFL standard?
John:Watching the guys today on their pro day.
Isaiah:You know you know I hand timed, like, five one when I was in high school?
John:Yeah. So you're probably, like, high fours, four nine.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:Alright. For
Isaiah:reference now, I'm probably four six with the NFL standard. Yeah. Yeah.
John:So I, off one foot, very different. My RSI was, like, three like, repeat jump. I was hitting, like, three seven, three eight with, like, you know, stiffness hops. My body weight was about one seventy three, I think, one seventy five in that range. It was during COVID that I actually tested it for the first time.
John:I was thirty nine five, so just shy of of 40. That was Wait.
Isaiah:What was the RSI you said?
John:About three eight. Three eight. Three seven in that range. Given stiffness op test, it it would vary. I was using flight times.
John:The average is probably, like, three five if you took, like, my best three. And I could do back squat at the time. I didn't really back squat because my hips were kinda messed up. I could easily do two twenty five from, like, the reds. I remember doing that.
John:Or two fifteen. I think I did pretty easily for a double, and that was cake. I did I was fast. I was definitely fast. I was probably, like, four I was some of the fastest I ever was.
John:Four sevens, four sixes in a one fifty. I was probably running, like, 17 low, 60 17 low.
Isaiah:Mind you, we are this is a one foot versus two foot discussion as well.
John:Yeah. Yeah. This is me jumping off one foot.
Isaiah:Yeah.
John:Back squat and a deep squat, probably could do two ninety five, two eighty five, maybe. I wasn't that good at that. My reverse lunge was high, though. I got a reverse lunge, like, two forty five, and that was with a barbell on my back, knee touching the ground or just shy of touching the ground. Calf raise was six hundreds.
John:Really, really good. Bounding, I was pretty good at. I don't know what I actually was, but I was pretty good at it. And trying to think of is there any other metrics that you would wanna think of? I definitely had I definitely had a lot of me in Achilles pain at the time because I was doing plus plyos and the plyo volume was insane.
John:And I was trying to pair it on concrete with jump sessions and like takeoffs and stuff. And it was just it was not happening for me. And then the other time that I was probably over 40, I was no. Let's see. I was power cleaning two twenty five.
John:Sprints were probably a little slower, maybe. I I was probably better at, like, longer sprints, though, I think. Yeah. I was I was definitely fast at that time too. I was eccentrically crazy freaking strong, though.
John:Like, I could lower, like, a lot a lot of weight with one leg, and I weighed one seventy seven, one eighty three to one seventy seven. I, let's see what else. I was off anxiety medication. I think that helped a lot. Anxiety medication definitely hurt my vertical a lot for sure.
John:It definitely down regulated my nervous system, which is good because I can sleep at night, but I was off anxiety meds at the time and that was really beneficial for my vertical leap. And that makes sense because I had more like adrenaline and more epinephrine, norepinephrine. This modulates those quite a bit. And I found that that's made it really hard to get as excited. You really shouldn't hop off your anxiety meds just because like, you know, especially if you have like a flare up in your mental health, it's really bad to just cycle it on and off.
John:But I was trying to see if I could handle being off meds and it did not. Oh, mic check. We're good. It did not bode well for me, so I will never do that again. Just had like a flare up in symptoms.
John:Know, just a little flare up in traffic, but I power clean, yeah, probably two twenty five. RSI was lower. I was I was more yeah. I was definitely more eccentrically fit. It was more like I did a lot of work, a lot a lot of volume, and just backed off really hard.
John:And then my vertical just skyrocketed. My approach felt super confident. I was doing a lot of low rooming at the time. My metrics weren't that crazy. I think I was just later on in my athletic career and then, yeah, not being on the anxiety meds.
John:I've never on anxiety meds. I don't think I've I was pretty good for a little bit there on anxiety meds, actually. When I was living with my brother at UMD, I was maybe right around 40, right around there, maybe maybe a little higher. And I probably had one seventy five, but I was half squatting three eighty five, RDL ing three. Oh, three fifty, three eighty five, seated calf raise 600, hip thrust, 600, five fifty, or something like that.
John:I wasn't sprinting at all, though. Just a lot of jumping and maintaining strength levels. So I attribute it mostly to what I was doing when I was doing a lot of eccentric work and just kind of rode that out for a while. Yeah. Yeah.
John:What about for one foot? What do you think your metrics would be for 40? What do you think you were at?
Isaiah:All time. All time best.
John:Oh, really?
Isaiah:No. No. No. This was when I hit a 40, bro, I was at I
John:was 300 power clean.
Isaiah:Oh, yeah. I had literally just hit a 300 pound power clean.
John:You were light too.
Isaiah:The month prior. No. That's actually pretty heavy.
John:Oh, really? Mhmm.
Isaiah:I gained weight. I gained weight all of that cycle. Yeah. I I was probably well, relative to the time. I was light compared to now, but heavy compared to then.
Isaiah:So I was like
John:What was your weight?
Isaiah:Probably mid one eighties.
John:And then You had deep back squatted four hundred for the fur four zero five.
Isaiah:Yeah. A few months before that. Then I Six was hundred. Yeah. Yeah.
Isaiah:And then I was half squatting four zero five for reps.
John:Quarter squats were, like, 600.
Isaiah:Yeah. Yeah. I was doing, like Oh, no.
John:Four zero five. You never did. I was
Isaiah:doing rhythm quarters with four zero five. Yeah. What else was I was I doing?
John:RSIs were, like, three fives depending on the no. It was, like, three twos depending on the box height and the strategy. Yeah. Because I never had you do the quick rebound strategy because one foot wasn't the goal. But you were, like, three fives off, a 30
Isaiah:Might have been higher. I still have that footage. I have that footage on my on my phone. I
John:don't think you ever got above three five because the highest real quick. It might have been three six. I think the highest I saw was the repeat jumps at the twenty four hour. You're hitting, like, three eight, and that was really good. Yeah.
Isaiah:Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's crazy. I'm I'm actually really curious what
John:You can look it up. There was Your eccentric strength is really good. What's that? You wanna pause it? Sure.
John:I can do that. I can do that for the people.
Isaiah:This is the beginning of that cycle. This is the beginning
John:of Isaiah, no. No. No. No. We're live.
Isaiah:We're live.
John:Go ahead. Tell the people what you did. Tell the people what you did. It 269. Ironic.
John:What's your contact time? 296? 2 It's
Isaiah:297.
John:297. That is atrocious. You should be ashamed.
Isaiah:That's So I might have maybe I can jump 44 off one right now if I didn't match this up.
John:Based on those RSI numbers, I do remember the higher boxes you hit higher. I think you got up to three two, like, genuinely. Yeah. It wasn't great, but it was oh, you improved a lot.
Isaiah:I definitely had mushier tendons. I had mushy tendons at the time.
John:They were mush, bro. They weren't they they weren't they you weren't then what you are today. Yeah. Okay. Let's just say that.
John:Let's confidently say that. But nonetheless, you, you got better. And, now, yeah, you might have a 44. There's no way to know until we test. You know, it's really sad when Isaiah, like, hit Tamala having, like, a 41 inch vertical or 40 inch vertical, and I was like, can't even East Bay with my 40 inch vertical.
John:I realized I'm not him. I'm not I'm not I'm not good at dunking. I can just jump high sometimes and throw good lobs sometimes. And those are good. Like, my one handers are nasty.
John:At the time, I remember our one handers were like my one handers were close.
Isaiah:That's right. Yes. Some of the craziest jumps around that time 2022.
John:Yep. But I couldn't do diddly squat in terms of technique. So there's definitely a skill to it. But, yeah, that said, I think it's good place to cut it off. We'll just leave it there.
John:That's what it takes. In terms of metrics, some important
Isaiah:Actually, there's one caveat. We are our heights.
John:Oh, yeah. I am five eleven and a half barefoot.
Isaiah:And I am six one and a half barefoot.
John:Yeah. So you can look up the BMIs there. Isaiah's BMI, I think, is probably a little lower than mine. But, yeah, there you have it, guys.
Isaiah:If you're if you're shorter, you don't compare us. Look at your BMI.
John:At your BMI. Stronger. Yeah. And then even stronger.
Isaiah:And then the last caveat is we have thousands of jumps under our belts. Tens of thousands maybe. Tens of thousands. Yeah.
John:Yeah. Maybe hundreds. One session one time. No. I'm kidding.
John:Probably hundreds. In my high jumping days, a lot. But we didn't we didn't do the call to action. You didn't clap, you traitor.
Isaiah:I forgot about it. Go to ggtrain.com.
John:We'll see you guys. See you on the flippity flop. See you boys and girl if you watched. If there's a girl like that.
Isaiah:Girl. And it's probably
John:one A singular girl. It's like, I looked at my analytics.
Isaiah:There was a there was a girl that commented. There was a girl that commented on our last video. So it's at least one.
John:It might have been Andy. Alright. See you guys.
