How many miles/week can an individual run before their vertical jump is hampered? It's to my understanding that a great amount of long distance running can take away from the power/explosiveness of one's jump, I have never really seen exact figures though.
Help?
When you go under 18-19" for your vertical leap, it means you are truly in shape (for running).
I found my vertical increased when I ran 20-30 miles a week. It depends how much running you do. I would imagine over 50 would start to stunt your explosiveness b/c you spend all your energy just about working on slow twitch fibers.
when i was at 80 mpw i couldnt jump for the life of me. i would have trouble hurdling big logs while on a run. now that im on 0mpw, i can dunk.
Vertical jump often decreases for runners "putting in the miles." How much you lose depends upon how many miles you run and how much vertical you started with before running. A runner who has a small percent of fast twitch muscle fibers will never have much jumping ability, so loss of vertical jumping will be relatively small. On the other hand, a middle distance runner who has about 50% fast twitch fibers in their legs will nomrally experience a huge drop in vertical jumping ability when mileage goes up.
Back in the 1980s, I bought and read Bill Rodger's book on marathoning. In the book he said that loss of vertical jumping ability was a good sign (for him) that he was ready to run a good marathon. If his "hops" were too good, he would lack endurance to finish the marathon strong.
Tinman
This is from one of David Costill's books:
"When tested for vertical jump, the average, untrained individual can jump 20.9 inches, compared to a mean jump of 13.5 inches for a group of elite marathon runners.
Although it might seem logical that such runners, known to have a predominance of slow twitch fibers in their leg muscles, might inherit this inability to jump, some individual cases suggest that this is not the case. For example, Lou Castagnola, a 2:17 marathoner in 1967, was found to have a vertical leap of only 11.5 inches. Following the 1968 Olympic marathon trial he stopped training and led a rather sedentary life. Three years later we reexamined him and found that while his VO2 max had declined from 72.4 ml/kg x min to 47.6 ml/kg x min, his vertical leap had increased to 20.3 inches. Despite a lack of physical ability, his explosive leg strength had increased 77 percent."
Me running: 10 inch jump
Me not running: 19 inch jump
it kills your vertical... i played college volleyball at a competitive program. From the time I was 7 till I graduated (21) I spent everyday doing plyometrics, jump training and playing volleyball all trying to jump higher. By the time I 'retired' (aka graduated and was not good enough to play professionally) my vertical leap was measured at 42 inches. At 22 I started running - mostly because I wanted to do something active and competitive and like the rest of us on here got hooked. For about 5 to 6 years now I have been running 80 mpw and my 5k pr is now 16 flat. What has this done to my vertical - killed it! While lack of volleyball and training for jumping is certainly 1 factor and I haven't had it officially measured in sometime whenever I stop by a basketball court I'll see where I am at... last time I could barely grab the rim. so my vert is probably about 20 inches or so - makes me sad but I guess I just have to focus on my new happiness through running....anyway, my experience running destroys vertical leap - as a former jumper you can just feel it, the explosiveness that was also there just waiting to leap and explode, in fact begging to is replace by legs that slow twitch their way along at best at a 5 minute mile pace
Curious wrote:
How many miles/week can an individual run before their vertical jump is hampered? It's to my understanding that a great amount of long distance running can take away from the power/explosiveness of one's jump, I have never really seen exact figures though.
Help?
So, do you guys think, in theory, I could run 30-40mpw and with explosive drills, not lose much (if any) of my vert?
Ask yourself one question....
Can you grab the rings?
If not, you are right on track.
In college I did the sprints and hurdles and my vert was 34" and dunking was no big deal. Now I do longer distances and my vert is probably 25ish. I can still dunk, but it's one those girly half-dunks that the girl from Tennessee does.
I believe this book mentions that elite 800m runners have an unusual ability to execute a respectable vertical leap.
In some ways this really surprises me.
I would have thought that running all those miles would give some strength to the leg muscles and this would help rather than hinder jumping abililty.
really ? wrote:
In some ways this really surprises me.
I would have thought that running all those miles would give some strength to the leg muscles and this would help rather than hinder jumping abililty.
Running gives your endurance. VJ is about explosive power. The are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
My senior year of HS I could dunk a wommens basketball (don't know if that really counts for anything....)
3 years and lots of miles later, its a struggle to touch the backboard
I hate running
My explosivity is absolutely gone. In 8th grade I had a 27" vert and could just barely scrape the bottom of the rim. In HS (when I was training 35-45 mpw and doing some strength-work and a lot of speed) I had a 28"-29" vert. After a couple years of college training (higher mileage with less speed) I'm nowhere near the rim, and when I jump it feels like the ground is giving out underneath me--the legs just don't explode, there's no strength there.
Also, I've noticed that my acceleration (which was never great to begin with) has become even worse than it was to begin with. Has anyone else noticed this? This despite my top-end speed staying the same (even improving just a little bit) since my sophomore or junior year of high school.
yeah in highschool I was a high jumper and distance guy on my team...I could pull it off cuz I was only running like 30 miles a week...I think once you get around 60-70 miles a week (if singles) you start to lose the vert
P.S. high jump=5'10" 3200=10:12...dont hate on the high jump I'm only 5'6"
bump for current insight