45 inch vertical from NFL prospect at Combine

[Bill Been]

It could be that there are perfect angles for everything and that deviations from those are abnormalities. Or it could be that the range of "normal angles" for things us quite large and that asking someone to run "with your toes pointed in or out" makes about as much sense as asking him to run with 1 arm tied behind his back. I gave up the perfection line of reasoning after 6 years of watching my son's football teammates slouching, shuffling, slew-footing, and knock-kneed shambling their way around the sidelines only to get on the field and perform without issue - all the way to the Tennessee 6A State Championship game. Color me skeptical of the notion that there are so many fine-performing athletes in the world who are moving inadequately in ways only visible to the PT Blob.

[Mike C]

You've had walk coaching?

I didn't need one. I'm an excellent walker. Not to brag or anything, but I might be one of the best.

[Will Morris]

Color me skeptical of the notion that there are so many fine-performing athletes in the world who are moving inadequately in ways only visible to the PT Blob.

Fine-performing athletes are willing to pay top-dollar for snake oil.

[DirtyRed]

Related note: I really don't understand the NFL using reps @ 225 lbs on the bench as a strength metric.

It's because they're dumb-as-fuck bro-lords. You watch what passes for a bench press and you'll know what I mean.

Why no Squat or DL tests either?

They might have JUST enough inkling on reality to know that way too many people would be laughing at their halfsquats.

Or, you know, because squats are bad for your knees.

Rip, all of this reminds me of your discussion about power and how it is not very responsive to training. It's incredible this kid has had a 45 inch vertical for most of his life. If you read the underlying article about the video he was not that big of an impact player at Georgia. He was good but not great.

He played WR at Georgia. Georgia doesn't have an actual QB, they have a spare RB they told to throw the ball every fifth play. Jerry Rice couldn't stand out at Georgia because they run the ball 80% of the time.

He could also just be dumb as fuck and incapable of running routes worth a shit.

Is it possible to be a good football player and a shitty athlete?

Play QB. If Heisman winning QBs are any indication, being athletic actually makes you a worse NFL QB.

How are you defining athlete? Tom Brady throughout his career has had tremendous spatial awareness and passing accuracy. While those don't involve the application of power, they are still skills.

We're defining athlete like people who aren't the idiots who consider skills to be athleticism. If skill = athletics, surgeons are athletes. The dorks who play Star Craft professionally are athletes by that definition.

An athlete is one who possesses a certain amount of athleticism (optional: he uses it to compete at something). Athleticism is physical ability, like strength, speed, power, endurance, or such. Throwing mechanics are not athleticism, a five year girl could have perfect throwing mechanics. Arm strength is heavily derived from athleticism.

[mkporter]

Being pigeon toed myself, I've always heard that there are a disproportionate number of great athletes who are pigeon toed. John Elway, Michael Jordan, Bob Hayes to name a few. I no doubt suffer from confirmation bias in addition to being pigeon toed though.

[meetch]

He said that about Supple Leopard? Because in the book it specifically mentions welbourne and his experience with over 30 podiatrists pre-draft who examined players feet in order to predict future ACL tears (collapsed arches are far more likely to have ACL injuries than normal arches). Walking the supple leopard way is exactly how all good athletes walk. Walking pigeon/duck toed with valgus knees (collapsed arches) is exactly the type of guy who isn't going to be a very good athlete, or one who won't stay on the field very long - and I find it hard to believe that Welbourne would see a guy like that and have any sort of concern.

Did you feel the air go right over your head? You COMPLETELY missed the point.

Welbourn did not make that reference. I, myself, was talking about that douchebag and making fun of him via title in his book. I paraphrased what John said and ALSO made fun of Kelly Starrett in doing so.

Have you got a source for that? Curious to read/hear exactly what he said.

Sure. Go watch the Podcast he did with Mark Bell.

If you can get over the fact that Mark Bell is there, John presents some very good information.

[tomskarda]

A bit late to the discussion. The link below has a listing of max vertical leaps by sport. I don't know how accurate the scores are, but a guy named Ziani supposedly had a 61" verticle.

http://www.topendsports.com/testing/...tical-jump.htm

[Mark Rippetoe]

Do you believe this?

[Sean Herbison]

A bit late to the discussion. The link below has a listing of max vertical leaps by sport. I don't know how accurate the scores are, but a guy named Ziani supposedly had a 61" verticle.

http://www.topendsports.com/testing/...tical-jump.htm

He's 5'11". On some of his running dunks his head goes a little above the rim at 10'. That's about a 50" running vertical, which is very impressive, but still far from a 61" standing jump.

[tomskarda]

I certainly think it is possible.

The world records from the standing high jump, an Olympic event from 1900-1912, were around 1.65m/64 inches. Now I can't speak for technique in all of this either. But I think if you were just looking for a great vertical exclusive of any other athletic ability or practice, you could probably find a few outliers like this.

However, this is also akin to dealing with someone like Lamar Gant or Ed Coan. They are genetic freaks of their respective sports and light years ahead of everyone else because of it.

What I found interesting from the max vertical leaps by sport were the numbers listed for various professional athletes. While outliers like Michael Jordan were listed at 48 inches, most of the professionals had vertical leaps between the low and mid thirties inch mark. All of which seems to correspond to the anecdotal numbers talked about here and by other coaches I've met.

In short, a vertical leap in the 30 inch range indicates someone with a high natural capacity for sport. If you have a ten inch vertical, you are wasting your time trying to compete in any sport that isn't highly technique dependent (MMA, ping pong, etc.). Which is pretty much what everyone I've ever talked to that seemed to make sense regarding coaching and athletic performance ever had to say.