Does the Vertimax Help You Jump Higher?

0:00Welcome back to the T.H.P. strength podcast weekend edition and in today's podcast, we're going to be answering the question. Should you use a vertimax to jump higher? Austin, are you today? We got to have a eat today. I am fantastic. Now we talked about this briefly before the pod. Have you ever even used a vertimax? I have not. I've seen people use them. And when I was a kid, I used to think that's what I needed. And I was really jealous because there was only like one facility with a vertimax and I wanted to use it so bad. I'm going to wait for it, which I understand and I don't blame her because my mom do better than most. Yeah, and she was like, no, you want to jump higher? I can't use this. Yeah, dude, I lived in the vertimax when I was like a freshman in like eighth grader or freshman in high school or eighth grader junior high. But yeah, it didn't really help that much.

1:00It's a, I'm going a little bit of the science behind like why to, but it's just kind of what it ends up just being a kind of a glorified weighted jump. And eventually like doing a barbell squat jump with bands like you know, you have to accelerate through the full range of motion. And then, you know, obviously the band's are pulling you down. So you kind of have to, you know, decelerate, you know, you get a little bit of eccentric RFD kind of on the landing. But the biggest issues with the vertimax is the loading. It's like there's like two or three band setups. And I know you can like tighten them in the back and whatever, but it's not really quantifiable. There's not a whole lot of progressions that you can use. You know, a lot of people that had success with it, you know, use it when they were young, when they were probably going to get, you know, adaptation anyways because they're just young and they're going to, you know, obviously get some more jump reps in. I kind of you at more, I was just kind of a more of just a regressed version of an Olympic lift. It's like, okay, you can tolerate Olympic lifting. Sure, let's do some weighted jumps with bands, you know, like a lot of guys like even if they haven't used the vertimax, they've done like, you know, bands run the shoulders, hooked to dumbbells.

2:15And all of that is fine, but like guys, but you also guys got to remember that a standing jump doesn't really translate well to a max effort approach jump. So if you're looking at it from the context of I want to jump higher off an approach, you need to get those approach jump reps in and sometimes doing a lot of weighted jump work can take away from that, especially early on in development. And then as you get older. And then as you get older, and I mean, I'm sure you probably agree with this Austin is like, as you get older, you obviously can't do as much jumping, you know, with you can't jump every day, you can't jump multiple times per week. But you can do some other very stimulating things like an Olympic lift. And, you know, the level of a rattle you need to catch a power clean or, you know, perform a power thing with high intent is way higher than what you would do on a vertimax or like, you know, like what's your experience is doing, you know, let's just go like a hex bar jump too, you know, what is group that in there too.

3:15What's your experience doing the hex bar jump versus an only because you I mean, you power the night 300 pounds so I would say, you mean what do you mean, you mean experiences like how I felt doing it like what I was how you felt, do you feel like, did you feel like a hex bar with 95 pounds was a stimulating as a power clean with 275. I would prefer to I would convert a power clean any day of the week. It's also funny, like, as you get older to anything that's jumping like that any tip of files or anything like weight if you're just kind of like, even if it's 95 pounds compared to like power cleaning much higher. There's I was actually curious at a question to be report. So for example, there's a lot of different obviously weighted variations of plyometrics, but could I mean, is it hurting the very much for just plyometrics instead of like replacing jumping on together because that's what a lot of people are doing and replacing. They're using the vertimax or place lifting and jumping essentially right like getting good jump reps lifting heavy. So could it just be used to replace plios.

4:20I would actually see as I would see a bit of a vertimax as a regression from plios because because because with the bands or you're going to jump like, you know, 12 inches versus like, you know, a single like because like one of the bands you're going to jump 12 inches, you're not going to be able to add any speed like thinking about like a bound or a single like hop you can add speed to make it more difficult and it's really, really intense. But if you will one you really just can't really do that on the vertimax because like you're not going to be able to jump high enough to be able to like keep cycling the legs and there's none of space. You know, I've seen guys use it for like the first step quickness. They'll get a basketball and they'll rip through because the vertimax has like some things that take them out to like whatever 20 feet. But again, it's just like they're going to get a bigger benefit just doing some acceleration work or like some heavy sled work, you know, so you have Santa Proudler or like so pushing or or pulling. And again, it's like it always goes back to the progression. It's like, what do you do? You know, I did, you know, my workout on the vertimax was I would do something like three by five or three by 10 vertical jumps and then I would go like, polgo box jumps or whatever and then maybe some lunch jumps.

5:31But again, it's just like, yes, adding resistance to those things can help, but especially at that time in my development, I would have been way, I would have been way, it would have been way more beneficial for me just to get my squad up or just to get my, you know, reverse like my reverse lunch up that would have driven that would have driven the needle further along the continuum to, you know, higher performance than just doing a bunch of weighted jumps. Of course, you know, other people in can be in there too, or just like I could have just went like it's doing lunch jumps like I just went and dunked off one foot, you know, I'm saying or tried to, you know, or you're even doing a bound or a single like off is going to be because it's not like we do the way to jump is not very reactive. So it's like plyometrics are supposed to be for, you know, fast amortization creating free tension, you know, being able to get off in the ground quick, but you can't do that when you're adding, you know, however many pounds to your body mass and so you kind of so you're kind of stuck in this middle ground of like, well, it's not really applied metrics because you know your ground contact times are like, I don't know, four, 500 milliseconds and it's not really, you know, I mean, you can do with high and 10, but the level of arousal.

6:43So the level of arousal you get, I mean, I say arousal guys, I mean like excitation of your nervous system, not like, you know, don't think of the wrong way. It's a science term, science term. Like the level of arousal you get doing a way to jump and just not like there, there's no fight or flight response, there's no one dread on response like a drew no response with those so like you're not going to get really max max and 10, even though you think that you're trying hard. And yeah, it just doesn't really turn into, I mean, maybe maybe the only thing I can really see where you can make a decent argument for it is because you know the bands are accelerating you down fast, you can get some pretty decent eccentric RFD, especially at like, let's say some deeper join angles, you know, it's not really applied metric to where you would know trying to get off the ground quick, but at deeper join angles, you can get some good like a small yielding component. And then turn around relatively fast, but again, like you're just going to see dimension returns with that pretty quick, you just can't really, there's no progression.

7:48The whole workout, so I don't know if you have seen the workouts that they prescribed to the kids with the very nice. I've seen a handful, but I haven't seen like the new ones that there are new ones. I don't know about new ones. I haven't heard the word vertimax until this morning, but like the workouts that you used to give the kids, and I remember when I used to train at this like facility, like I used to help train there. And it would be like a session with like maybe 300 jumps on the vertimax. Yeah, they do like polaroid jumps and like standing jumps and then like probably sort of things, but switches, yes, but switches. And stuff like that, but it was nuts because the volume was just like whatever and the kids all had knee pain to get on just like, that can't be good. Like that can't be healthy. And I just think about like two, it's like they think like that just because you have this machinery that's worth 2000. How expensive those things are two thousand dollars. 200. We need to make a product out of this.

8:52$4,000. $5,000. $4,000. $5,000. That's probably gone up in the last decade. I don't think it used to be that much, but yeah, it's probably just, I don't know, it's crazy. Yeah, watch what you use it's like you're not even using the property. If you were to use it to its best degree, you're still over. You're kind of now. It's just a challenge. Yeah. There's just a lot of other modalities with that can be better. You know, you can teach a kid how to Olympic lift. You can simply just get their squad or their lunch up. They can go out and have a jump session or even lower the room and just have them done. It's done. Yeah. Yeah. Or or go or like go flip flip flip flip the back of the book in a high powered ply metrics and do and do and do those plow workouts for, you know, track athletes or mobile players. That's probably going to that's probably going to have a better a higher return on your investment or higher ROI than just hopping on a machine, and then you're looking up to, looking up some bands to your hips and then jumping. I mean, it just, and also like, I don't like how it hooks up.

9:53I mean, I guess they do have a, I think they might have a shoulder strap or they might have a, like a wrist strap, but like the fact that it hooks up to your hips and not your shoulders. I feel like reduces some of the demand because I've done weighted jumps where I like put the bands around my shoulders. I felt like I got a better stimulus from that because I have just because the bands are felt, I guess, subjectly, they felt tighter and I feel like I had to overcome more resistance words that the bands are on your hips. You know, you do not obviously stretching as far, but I suppose you can kind of accommodate for that by pulling them tighter, but yeah, long story short, guys, I had moderate success with it when I was like 13, 14 years old or 15, whatever I was. But you're going to be way, way better off just having low rim dunk sessions, having probably applied metric, apply or a team. If you're young, just to simply learn how to like, bound and hop and, you know, all that fun stuff. And of course, just having a good, you know, periodized weight training program, get your squad up, get your reverse lunge up.

10:57You don't, you probably don't need to do weighted jumps or, you know, weighted lunge jumps like you're probably going to get a more bang your buck just getting your front squad up your back squad up here. You know, rear foot of it's puts plot and then of course, eventually learning the Olympic list so you can actually accumulate more stimulating power volume throughout the week. And, you know, that's kind of the formula for how to jump high and in terms of if you're interested in running like in the internet running faster, you know, I know the word max also does like some essentially weighted accelerations. That's just kind of a, that's a majorly regressed version of just doing actual sled sprints or actual, you know, prouder pushes which is actual, you know, 10 meter or 20 meter accelerations. So again, just learn how to sprint. You know, use sled 80% body mass if you really want to improve your early, your early a cell, the burden max isn't going to be able to load you up that much. And yeah, awesome. Any any any closing thoughts? Honestly, I, I'm at it. I remember being I'm just mad at my young self for wanting one so bad. I was like, that's stupid. Yeah, stupid.

11:59Yeah, stupid. I'm scared to assume me. Oh, victory in Souls are the eights. Oh, certain other people already hear me. Oh, whatever. Yeah, yeah. I think it's always the time to go out. Yeah, I'm a good time. Yeah, I mean, if anything, yeah, I mean, if anything, it promotes jumping more and that's probably why I see some results. You know, it's because they're doing 300 jumps in a word of max workout. But does the burden max itself actually drive those adaptations over that simply just because the athletes are actually able to get some jump volume in and then and then I, you know, sitting on their iPad playing temple run or whatever kids play these days or subway surfer. Yeah, but some way to probably whatever I don't know. I'm old. I'm old guys. I don't I don't want you played now. But anyways, if you want us to train you, if you want to train you make sure you click the link down in the description or the pin comment. You can currently get half off the monthly if you sign up for the year plan and also a lead. And there's also a lead if you want one-on-one coaching with me, which is our so you get one-on-one call with me and you get a quarterly call with John and Isaiah if you sign up for the year plan.

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