Re: interesting tidbit about vertical

[Hironaka <j.hironaka@unesco.org>]

Kestutis.Kveraga@dartmouth.edu wrote:

> Still not impressed? Well, how about this: she competes in the
> super-heavyweight
> class (no weight limit) and weighs in at an astounding 297lb at a height
> of 5-9, quite a lot of it fat!

Okay, I think that's enough about my momma. :-)  Actually, weight lifters,
like ski jumpers, probably are self-selected and stay in their respective
sports for their explosive hops to begin with, so while the full-time power
lifting surely helps it could also just be that a guy like Vitaly has pretty
much maxed out his vertical leap potential. I wouldn't site "Vitaloca"
Potapenko as an example, but bottom line there clearly will always be more
to basketball than hops. FWIW, I do think that adding upper body strength
alone won't do a damn thing to improve your game in most sports, even
something like throwing a baseball harder or farther. I'm surprised but not
shocked to hear that MJ avoided lower body work, because intuititvely you'd
think that unbalanced weight lifting could actually reduce your hops as well
as put more weight stress on your knee joints. No question that squats
probably do the most by far to improve athleticism, even though they are the
last thing anyone would want to do in a gym (hence I'm not surprised about
MJ). If you aske me, it really can become an obsession of retards (weight
lifting and hanging out two hours a day with lifters).

Joe

p.s. I don't know if you guys ever got hooked into buying those vertical
jump shoes (the sneakers with a big round rubber puck like think glued under
your toes). I did but then I got too embarrassed to wear them to the Y or to
jog in them (they make this stupid clomping sound). Do they really work?

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