Sunday, September 9, 2012

Mama said they'd take me anywhere...

Of the holy triumvirate of foundational dunk training exercises (weight lifting, plyo, stretching), I am the weakest in weight lifting.  I can only squat 175 lbs 5 times and deadlift 185 lbs 5 times.  Basically, there are countless high school girls who can squat more than me.  Knowing that this is my weakness, I've been resolute in increasing my squat, but it's been really difficult.

Yesterday, I was struggling to do squats when a helpful neighbor offered a suggestion.  

"You know, I think if you had weightlifting shoes, you could make a lot of improvements.  See, your cross-trainers have a lot of cushion, so when you go down for your squat, it absorbs a lot of the weight which ruins your form and makes the squat more difficult."

He seemed like a nice enough guy so I thanked him for the tip and finished out my reps.  I went home and researched the topic and apparently only noobs use cross-trainers when they squat.  Well, then!  Although I am taking the dunk training seriously, I'm not sure if I want to dish out a hundred bucks for weightlifting shoes.  Instead, I'll bust out some old chucks(no cushion in the soles) and see if there is a big difference in my squat.  Even at my low weight, it's been difficult to move up in weight, so hopefully this will solve that problem.

As for an update on my vert, I think I increased it a couple of inches.  I'll try to get a video up later this week.