What we've learned about the penultimate step in the last 10 years
We hear all the time how important having a long penultimate step is if you wanna have good technique, maximize your two foot vertical, and ultimately, perform at a high level and increase your ceiling. However, what you oftentimes will see is athletes fall into this innate kind of shorter, ugly looking, powerful penultimate step that is very quick. Sometimes it helps with with moving the ball or hand movements a little bit. But we're gonna get into exactly what you need to do to improve your penultimate step, make sure it's lengthened, you're able to maintain the qualities of being low and fast, and we'll get into a little bit about what we've learned over the years in terms of improving it, and ways that we've, adjusted maybe some of the things that we previously thought. Before we get into it, we wanna give a huge shout out to our sponsors over at THP Strength.
John:Make sure you go there and you sign up for coaching if you're interested. My name's John Evans. I coach the highest jumper in the world. This is Isaiah Rivera. He has a 50.5 inch vertical.
John:And I coached this guy, my first athlete ever, who has a what's your vertical today?
Austin:Five.
John:Five. Whatever that could be feet, could be inches, could be meters.
Austin:You know what we should do? You know what we should do? We should give them a discount. No. Yeah.
Austin:Yeah. I know. It's get
Speaker 3:really mad at us.
Austin:No. Whatever. Listen. Does the sunlight hit you in your basement and you sizzle like a bacon and a Vampire. Vampire.
John:What's that sound?
Austin:Are you ready to get out of the house? Are you ready to make your mama proud? Have you been weary about our coaching? For a limited time only, if you use code THP at checkout, you'll get 10% off your first month. Don't be a vampire, be a dunker.
John:Yeah. Nice. Thank you, Austin. Use code THP for 10% off your first month. Anyways, guys, we'll get into it.
John:So like I said, two big differences when it comes to two foot jumping. You'll see guys that take a short penultimate step, guys that take a long penultimate step. I typically view it What's a penultimate step? That's a good question, Isaiah. The penultimate step the step prior to the last two contacts in a two foot jump.
John:So if you the last two feet that touch the ground are your right then your left, or in his case, and right, the step prior is going to be the penultimate step. Yeah. So stand on your penultimate step, Isaiah. So this step, and he pushes into the right foot hitting the ground and then the left. That is the penultimate step.
John:So if you do that, correctly and you do it well, oftentimes it'll look prettier, you'll have a better arm swing, time it up with your block foot, you're able to amortize more effectively in summate forces. And in the layman terms, what that means is you'll jump higher and it looks better. So what we've learned over the years, I think we previously thought that, you know, there was a it wasn't maybe maybe back in the day, there wasn't even a thing. Wasn't even really coached. It was just kinda like jump and then try or do programs and then jump a little bit.
John:And then I think maybe 2010 or so, 2012, some people started talking about it. Isaiah, what was your your first experience with learning, that step in two foot jumping? Not one foot jumping.
Speaker 3:I I love basketball TV. Posted videos on jump technique. I actually they had the first the only program I ever bought was a purely jump technique program that they had come out with called, like, freak jump technique.
John:Can you talk in your mic?
Speaker 3:Last time I did, it was
John:Oh, really? Yeah. On my mic or yours? Just one. Because you're too loud?
John:Yeah. So,
Speaker 3:yeah, that was like the first program. It was literally just teaching jump technique, and that was the first time I ever even heard the term penultimate. And I had traditionally a really short penultimate, started working on it that summer. And I remember the day that I like, it like clicked for me, was the day I hit a windmill for the first time, and my vertical went up like three, four inches, and specifically what I had done, what I did to go from a short to a long pin ultimate, is I counted my steps, and I added a constraint of, I started at the three point line, and I could only take four steps. And as soon as I did that, it forced me to have a long penultimate.
Speaker 3:And another thing that I had to do is like, I forced myself to jump from the same spot that I normally jump from. A lot of times athletes, when you add that
John:the penultimate step or like the takeoff?
Speaker 3:The takeoff
John:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Off spot.
John:Because a lot
Speaker 3:of times when I tell athletes that, what they'll do is they still take a short penultimate and they end up having to like jump really far out or like do a distance dunk. But yeah, it was three constraints. Start three point line, four steps, jump from like right under the basketball hoop, and literally the first day I did that, increased my vertical like three inches in like ten minutes probably, and hit my first windmill, and then never really looked back. Like, I I jumped from that same approach counting steps for months, and then I think after, like, three, four months, I added an extra half step, so instead of instead of starting like this, I started like this, and then from there I like added a fifth step, and then I've jumped the exact same way ever since.
John:Cool. Awesome. What about you? Did you ever practice a two foot penultimate step or learn about it? What was your experience?
John:Because yours is good.
Austin:I I think naturally, it just came for me. I I just from watching and kinda figuring out what works. I the way I learned two foot was I did one step at a time. So kinda similar to Isaiah, except I didn't do, you know, three, then four, then five. I went from just one step, because I used to watch Blake Griffin videos and I wanted to dunk like he did.
Austin:And I realized he jumped off two foot and I jumped off one and I needed to learn how to do it. So I started with one for a while, then two, and then I started one foot three sixties, two foot three sixties, etcetera. And from there
Speaker 3:When you're saying one foot and two foot, is it like steps?
Austin:Steps. So like I would just start I don't wanna like get one step Yeah.
Speaker 3:I would
Austin:be like this. I'd be on a low rim with the ball and dunk. Another thing is I try to emulate Blake Griffin, and I taught myself left right.
Speaker 3:So that that was stupid because he's right left.
Austin:And then I would and then You
Speaker 3:did it wrong?
Austin:Yeah. I did
Speaker 3:it wrong.
Austin:I didn't know what I was doing. I was, like, 14. And then then it was two steps.
John:Were gonna was gonna say you're out of 14.
Austin:And then etcetera. And then that's kinda how I worked into it. And I think building it that slowly helped me develop a pretty decently long penultimate. But if you make me do right left, which I never practiced, right to short. Terrible.
Austin:Terrible. I look like
Speaker 3:The right left.
Austin:I forgot about my backpack. This is terrible.
Speaker 3:That's how I am actually. My right left plant, really, really short penultimate, and this last year when I had to focus on working on it, I was like, had to consciously make a huge effort to go long penultimate.
Austin:Yeah. And that no, not from I I just can't it's too much. Like I just don't see the point in me like learning right That's left all over actually
Speaker 3:really interesting that you naturally developed long penultimate left right and then short right left. I've seen other dunkers like Lee Peck, I remember there's a video of him like trying to jump right left.
John:Wanna get to
Speaker 3:rim stuff. Kill Gannon, same thing. Yeah. Like
Austin:I think it's just what you practice too, you know, and
Speaker 3:Success leaves clues. I think I think you naturally I think you like a lot of guys figure it out. Like, you know
John:I think that in my experience with it and watching a lot of people, most people default to a short penultimate step with bad technique. If you're a basketball player and you have to get into positions where that's advantageous, I think maybe it's a little bit different. Where if you're just watching NBA players, I think it's a little bit different. But in my experience, most people don't do that because it's hard to tell yourself to launch into the takeoff. It's easier just to learn, you know, put the weight on your left foot, plant your right foot, plant your left foot and jump into the air.
John:Right? You're not told to push off. You're not told to drive the knee. You're not told to lower. Those things aren't really taught.
John:And they're definitely not taught in sequence of learning the block foot and the arm swing Yeah. And timing.
Austin:They're not
Speaker 3:really natural.
John:They're not natural at all. At all. I think it's it's the opposite of natural. It's natural to be stiff and tall and upright. It's not natural.
John:In spring, you see the same thing. Acceleration development, people, have a hard time opening up their strides. They wanna chop. They wanna feel quick. They wanna feel explosive.
John:They wanna feel like it's a jab, but it's not. We're not trying to throw a quick jab. We're trying to wind up and throw the hardest punch of all time. And, yeah, what do you wanna say?
Austin:No. I was gonna say, I noticed a lot of times with the taller basketball players, obviously, people in the NBA are tall. They do have the shorter penultimate step for the most part, and I do think it has something to do with, like, just being able to dunk at that height and just practicing crappy technique and just getting good at it. Because if you practice anything enough times, you're gonna maximize it and to
John:an extent.
Austin:Like most shorter guys don't have short penultimates except who? Anthony Height?
Speaker 3:In the NBA?
Austin:In general. Like you have to think most of the NBA players are six four plus.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Because short penultimate guys are that jump higher are an outlier.
Austin:Yeah. Like Slim Reaper.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Slim, Anthony Height. It was really the oh, the really short guy, the five four guy. Think Does he have a short
Austin:penultimate too? Very short.
John:Neil, I think,
Austin:something. Yeah. I thought he had a long penultimate for some reason. No. It is really short.
John:But I will say, there are guys that have long long penultimate steps that are short as well. It's just that the that like you said, that it's not necessarily as height related to me. It's more genetic freak related, right? Like I don't need to have good technique because my tendons are 1.5 times longer than everyone else. My muscles are 1.7 times more explosive.
John:My attachment sites are in a better position like, you know, they can get away with doing that. But in my experience as someone who I would not consider myself naturally athletic. I was always the worst at baseball. I was always the worst at basketball. Like in t ball, not t ball, sorry, like when I was 10 and it was coach pitch.
John:Bro, there was a time there was no strikeouts. I was at the plate for literally like 30 swings about to cry when I was like seven. I was just not athletic like at all. I could not catch a football. I couldn't throw a spiral.
John:I couldn't throw a frisbee. None of that stuff came naturally to me. I tried a lot, but it was nothing ever came naturally to me. Yeah. So my twin brother, very different.
John:He had an easier time learning baseball, a better baseball player, was better at throwing things, was better at running. And it all comes back to coordination to me, right? Like, that's what this is. And as you get better at tech technical things or you learn more motor patterns, what actually happens is you're learning how to learn. And I think a lot of the time, our guys don't know how to learn.
John:They're like, oh, well, I should just try these three cues and it should work. But in our experience in my experience, right, learning right left, I mean, you guys saw how ugly my technique was.
Speaker 3:Fine. That's what
John:I mean, wanna it took me a long time and I didn't have anyone to coach me. Like, I figured it out myself. I had heard the cues you guys did, but it didn't make sense to me. Right? I would straight leg it.
John:I was watching a lot of Kilgannon and you, Isaiah, and I don't have mobile hips. So now I'm fighting a lot of different things. And I viewed things very dogmatically like black and white. And it's like, if I'm not in this position here, then it's not gonna work. And then as I got older and more mature, I realized, okay, there's certain things I can't do, but maybe I can plant on my the ball of my foot and still maintain a long penultimate step.
John:Maybe my block foot isn't a foot in front of me like Kilgannons. Maybe it's a little closer to my center of mass. I don't plan it as far out in front of me. Maybe my arm swing is a little bit different and I can still maintain some of the pieces and kind of form my own technique that is 95 correct, but maybe not perfect. Yeah.
John:So like big cues that help me jumping into it, learning to plant my penultimate step in the same spot every time which is like, I don't even think about where I jump from. I think about planting my penultimate step in this. I'm looking at like
Speaker 3:I think my peripheral is spacing.
John:Yeah. It's spacing. It's spacing, but it's like what some people do is they'll literally like broad jump into it. It'll turn to a jump Yeah. And so the other thing I took me a long time to do, I didn't know how to use my block foot with momentum.
John:And the thing that really helped was three cues. One, like you said Isaiah, planting the that is maybe it, by the way, that sound. The block foot and plant foot hitting almost in unison. That was one. Two was the arm swing timing nearly perfectly with the block foot.
John:Oh. We gotta go guys. Thanks for watching. TSB strength, sign up for coaching. We'll see you guys later.
John:Oh
Austin:my god.
