Runners that can dunk

Old Man jumping wrote:

Some of us are born studs. And others (like you) aren't good at math.

Enlighten me.

68" + 37" + 16" = 121" = 10.08 feet

68" - My height

37" - My vertical

16" - The distance between tips of my fingers and top of my head when raising my arms above my head (I have short arms)

To dunk at all, never mind "easily", I would need to get my hands well about the rim. 10.08 feet with my finger tips is not enough to dunk a basketball.

So when you mention some NBA player with a 37" vertical jump who can dunk easily you have to keep in mind that player is at a minimum 6'2" tall and more likely around 6'6" and has unusually long arms (can you think of any NBA player with short arms?) An extreme outlier like Spud Webb was able to dunk and block shots at only 5'7".

My vertical is in line with my other KPIs when I was young. Which confirms what I already knew - I've aged very slowly. I suspect most people would age better if they didn''t smoke/drink/do drugs, ate well, got enough sleep, took steps to remove stress, etc., etc., etc. The men in my family live into their mid 90s, the women usually live to over 100.

Now that I'm training for power and explosiveness, it looks like my vertical jump is slightly better than it was back then which is to be expected because back then I ran distance and was much skinnier. Despite being skinnier than now, back then the sprinters on my team gave me the nickname "Buff". The head coach on my college team didn't believe I was a distance runner (I was a walk-on and he was a sprint coach so he hadn't seen me run in high school). Since you've brought up Basketball players, when I did play basketball I would routinely steal the ball from other players and get around defenders, including starters on a major D1 team (Virginia Tech) when playing a pickup game against them and could hang with most any street players (the New York City street players are by far the best, those dudes are beasts).

I'm 6'3" and can't dunk no matter what i do (unless i lower the rim to 9 feet). I'm definitely slow twitch dominant and just unable to jump in general i guess.

Old Man jumping wrote:

16" - The distance between tips of my fingers and top of my head when raising my arms above my head (I have short arms)

Dunking aside, it's awesome that at 57 you have a higher vertical than all of the freak athletes in last year's NBA draft and higher than the slam dunk champ.

But wow you have freaky short arms. Your wingspan must be under 5 feet. Your reach is really only 7 ft?

Isaiah Thomas, who measured at 5'8 3/4' at the combine, doesn't have super long arms and his reach was 7'7 1/2". The normal rule-of-thumb is your reach is 1.33 x your height, which is how 5'8" is expected to have a reach of 7'6" or so.

btw, the slam dunk champ, Donovan Mitchell, measured at 6'1.25", although he does have long arms.

Anyway. Don't know why I'm bad at math, but I'm impressed.

now an old fat guy wrote:

I was a D1 high jumper decades ago and won a slam dunk contest in 1982. Became a hobby jogger after college. Never good at distance running so don't know if I count for this question. Dunked on my 50th birthday 5 years ago, haven't tried since. I'm 6'3".

Dayum. Dunking at 50 at 6'3 is pretty awesome.

Off My Lawn wrote:

With all due respect, STFU.

A 5' 11" guy with a 40 inch running vertical should be able to touch the top of the "square" on the backboard. That's NBA All-Star, Dunk Competition type hops.

I know a 5'11" guy who can two hand dunk but he also high jumped 6'-8". He actually did run XC one season in hs but never broke 17 for 5k.

No way does any competitive distance runner have a standing vertical over 30". If you did, you wouldn't and couldn't be a good distance runner.

Post a video of you touching the top of a square and a link to a sub 16 5k performance and I'll believe you.

I never said I was a good distance runner. I've run for two seasons and am considering quitting since it is so much less fun than the other sports I play.

No way am I posting a video of myself on this site. I am 15 years old.

Also, I can't quite touch the top of the square as of now, but your numbers are wrong. I am 5'11 with a 7'8 standing reach. The top of the square is 18 inches above the rim, so 11'6. I would need a 46 inch vertical to touch it, which I never claimed to have.

So please, with all respect, STFU. I don't care if you don't believe me, this is an anonymous distance-running forum. (Also, when did I claim to have a sub-16 5k?)

800/400 guy. 5'11. I could dunk in my late teens through most of my 20s.

Closest I came was actually about five years into tendonitis in my left knee, which kept me from climbing stairs normally for a long, long time, and kept me from running more than a short distance before it would tighten up. I hadn't been lifting weights or anything, but I did play pickup basketball a few days a week. I wasn't running at all. Yet, at under 5'11", I was suddenly able to dunk a tennis ball easily for the first time in my life and if I had kept at the consistent basketball might well have been able to dunk a basketball not long after that. I can't get much off the ground nowadays, decades later, on high mileage and frequent calf issues, but I am a lot faster than in my youth at long distances.

elephino wrote:

Old Man jumping wrote:

16" - The distance between tips of my fingers and top of my head when raising my arms above my head (I have short arms)

Dunking aside, it's awesome that at 57 you have a higher vertical than all of the freak athletes in last year's NBA draft and higher than the slam dunk champ.

But wow you have freaky short arms. Your wingspan must be under 5 feet. Your reach is really only 7 ft?

Isaiah Thomas, who measured at 5'8 3/4' at the combine, doesn't have super long arms and his reach was 7'7 1/2". The normal rule-of-thumb is your reach is 1.33 x your height, which is how 5'8" is expected to have a reach of 7'6" or so.

btw, the slam dunk champ, Donovan Mitchell, measured at 6'1.25", although he does have long arms.

Anyway. Don't know why I'm bad at math, but I'm impressed.

That's correct. I just measured my wing span and it is 63" - 5' 3".

People are unique and I'm built kind of strange. 42" chest, 31" waist (27" in college). Leg to torso ratio 1.39 - 1. Naturally strong lower back, can bust off fast high-rep 250 lb lower back extensions anytime. Current resting pulse rate of 55, was 37 in high school and college. Resting pulse was around 90 until I started getting back in shape. Current blood pressure considered in extreme danger zone but is starting to drop with exercise (was something like 105/55 when young). Not going to take any BP meds, if I have a heart attack and croak that's OK with me (no dependents).

Are NBA players anemic these days? Back in the day the vertical jumps of NBA players weren't measured or publicized, but the vertical jumps of potential NFL corner backs were and it wasn't unusual for a 5'9" corner back to jump 39" (think Darrell Green) and lot of DBs were within a 36"-39" range. But as you should know, a 6'6" NBA player with long arms barely has to get off the ground to dunk the ball, so there is nothing impressive about a big man with long arms dunking a basketball unless it is someone like Michael Jordan doing a 360 tomahawk or taking off from the top of the key to dunk.

Old Man jumping wrote:

Are NBA players anemic these days? Back in the day the vertical jumps of NBA players weren't measured or publicized, but the vertical jumps of potential NFL corner backs were and it wasn't unusual for a 5'9" corner back to jump 39" (think Darrell Green) and lot of DBs were within a 36"-39" range. But as you should know, a 6'6" NBA player with long arms barely has to get off the ground to dunk the ball, so there is nothing impressive about a big man with long arms dunking a basketball unless it is someone like Michael Jordan doing a 360 tomahawk or taking off from the top of the key to dunk.

The NFL combine vertical jump is often won by some white fullback who figured out the system. They try to make their standing reach low so the vertical looks better. In the NBA, your reach is actually more important than your vertical, so they want to have their standing reach as high as possible. Plus the NBA measures both standing and max vertical. Most years there are a couple guys over 40" in max vertical.

There are a lot of NBA players who can really jump in addition to being tall, both now and back in the day:

That photo of a young Kareem is really nice.

My friends and I use to follow the Lakers and Celtics back in the 80s. Those Lakers were a bunch of race horses. The big man I was most impressed with was Dominique Wilkins (Atlanta Hawks).

Watch the UK K State game in a few minutes and see Hamidou Diallo unleash his 44"" vertical at both ends of the court.

I'm 6'2" and have a 3:48 1500 PR. I can easily dunk and have been able to since I was a sophomore in high school. No idea what my vert is as my focus is on running.

Ok im 15 6'0and 145lbs and I can touch rim if not even dunk if I practice a Lil is that good?

If you want to dunk you have to get the whole hand over the rim, so 10-15 centimetres (6 inches?). When I was 16-17 and played basketball, I could dunk at 5'10 145 lbs, now that I'm a distance runner, even with 6'0 150 lbs and strength work/plyos, I can barely touch the rim, even if I'm only 22 yo.

But as a guy with some coaching experience and having played with future pros, fundamentals and basketball IQ are wayyyyy more important than slamming the ball. Even lateral quickness is more useful than vertical.

twitch confusion wrote:

I have always been pretty athletic and coordinated. In high school I could throw a football farther than pretty much anyone and I am stronger than average without any lifting. But my vertical jump has always been unusually bad. Like ridiculously so. I probably couldn't dunk on an 8' rim and I'm 6 feet tall. Does the really poor vertical jump imply that I'm slow twitch dominant, even though I'm at the other end of the curve in terms of throwing ability?

Over them mountains!!

Alexavier wrote:Can any of you guys dunk? Or what was your highest vertical jump?

I understand that fast twitch muscle fibers are necessary for jumping high which distance running goes against but how many runners do you know can actually jump fairly high?

Also a follow up is it possible to build mileage while increasing vertical jump?

Yes, I can dunk. I first did it when I was 14. Ok, it wasn't the greatest of dunks but it was a dunk.

Later progressed to one handed, two handed, reverse, off one foot, off two feet, etc. I've dunked in a game as well. Not a pick up game but an actual game with ref's and all that.

I was able to dunk w/ some ease in my late teens and throughout most of my twenties. 5'11". Long arms. 49 second 400, 1:58 800.