Determine the load based on your bodyweight

[DaveJF]

The key to this line of thinking is the strength to weight ratio is high enough so that posterior chain strength is not a limiting factor in sprinting or jumping.

These types of minimums that supposedly we have to reach in squats and deadlifts, taking our bodyweight as a reference to measure the magnitude of the load, usually appear in books to improve vertical jump or sprint times. For example, in Kelly Baggett's books like "The Vertical Jump Development Bible" or "No-Bull Speed Manual Development".

An article I read once upon a time regarding those topics is what I was referring to. Gave Usain Bolt as an example as I don't think his coaches (such as they are now-a-days) would be having him deadlift or even squat heavy, he just won the genetic powerball including strength I'm sure. But for the rest of us.. Back in the day, as my lifts and therefore bodyweight went up, my 40 times got slightly better w/o doing a lot of fine tuning - spent a lot more time in the gym than on the track.

[Mark Rippetoe]

Kelly Baggett is an interesting character in that (as far as anybody knows) he really did significantly improve his vertical jump which is very unusual. I have a PDF download of the book for which I didn't pay any money. He's pretty clear in the book itself that individual mileage may vary. Anybody who hangs around this forum or around real athletes knows that SVJ is a largely non-trainable property. However, at least some improvement can be made. Baggett's marketing is, in my opinion, shameful, however the techniques in the book are reasonable.

Here's the actual question: Aside from identifying talent, what purpose does the SVJ serve? Why would you want to train it? Are there tournaments?

[EdTice]

Here's the actual question: Aside from identifying talent, what purpose does the SVJ serve? Why would you want to train it? Are there tournaments?

Massimo Marcovaldo : Mannaggia, not a great catch today.
Luca Paguro : It might be because we're over a haunted fish graveyard.
Alberto Scorfano : We know it's not haunted. The fish think it's haunted.

There are two interpretations of your question. Why *should* somebody want to train SVJ. And why *do* some people want to train SVJ. Those are dramatically different.

I think it's pretty obvious why a better vertical jump would help a basketball or volleyball player or a soccer player. Especially a goalie! It would likely be useful in other sports too.

It should come as a surprise to nobody that there is a very large cohort of "athletes" out there and, more importantly, parents of "athletes" who don't understand the genetic component of athletics and think they can train their way to being a superstar. There are many members of that group who have more money than brains and plenty of people out there happy to help the parents "invest" money in their kids' athletics under the guise that it will pay off in terms of a college scholarship.

Michael Jordan did a thousand calf raises every night in an attempt to help his jumping? Did it actually help? Probably not. But I'm not an authority on the subject.

There are vertical jump guidelines out there that are used in identifying talent. Everybody wants to "game the system" and I'm sure there are many HS athletes out there trying to improve their SVJ to get noticed by recruiters.

Again I'm not saying this is a good use of training time or that working SVJ is going to mean that a mediocre athlete manages to get an athletic scholarship. I'm just describing the world in which we live and the (often wrong) ideas that are pervasive.

[Hugo]

What I really like about Kelly Baggett's books is the theoretical part, in which you learn a lot about the subject of explosiveness. His story of vertical jump improvement seems to me somewhat exaggerated in terms of the drastic changes in the numbers he gives. Yes, Kelly Baggett mostly puts the minimum squat limit at 1.5 X BW, although he sometimes talks about 2 X BW, especially in the "No-Bull Speed ​​Development Manual" book. The practical part no longer seems so good to me, especially due to the selection of several of the exercises, whether they are weight lifting or plyometrics. I must confess that years ago, before learning about Starting Strength, I made one of the vertical jump book plans focused more on reactive strength than muscular strength and the results were not what I expected. From the book focused on speed, what he gave me above all is knowing how to program a sprint training, knowing that you do not have to do a high volume of repetitions, you have to rest at least 1min/10m or yd, and with 2 sessions spaced at the week is more than enough (1 for maintenance).

Kelly also wrote two other books: one about building muscle mass that I didn't read. The other is the second edition of improving the vertical jump (Vertical Bible 2.0), but all its content is different from the first and it´s also more up-to-date due to advances in sports science. Again, the theoretical part is great and interesting things are learned, and the part of the training plans, from what I remember is not a great contribution. I've reread all of them again this summer (except for the bodybuilding one, which doesn't interest me) and I've just started on the Vertical Bible 2.0. If you search well on the Internet you can download them for free, otherwise send me an email and I'll send it to you.
I also have a book written by Yuri Verkhoshansky himself ("All About Plyometric Method") which is 100% theory and shows all the experiments he carried out to study the phenomenon of plyometrics and reactive force, and from the results, he defined the rules that he considered when training this skill. It should be noted that he only worked with the depth jump and the drop jump. I have this book in Spanish, it is edited by a Spanish publisher. I'm surprised there isn't something similar in English. https://www.amazon.com/Todo-Sobre-Me.../dp/8480194626

But going back to the question with which I opened this forum, from my point of view it makes no sense to establish a load taking the athlete's bodyweight as a reference to measure its magnitude, if the individual's weight varies as he progresses in strength training. What's the point? In such a case, if you want to give meaning to this, you should specify whether such reference is to the weight you have at the beginning, or to the weight that the athlete has developed once he has considerably raised his strength levels as at end of the Novice Linear Progression.