How Can I Dunk in Two Weeks?

We get questions all the time from our athletes regarding the best thing they can do to improve their athleticism, body composition, core strength, or fitness. Quite often enthusiastic hard working athletes are willing to keep doing more and more and more work, in order to push themselves to the next level.

Unfortunately working harder is not always the key to success if you are doing the wrong things, or even if you are doing the right things in the wrong amounts.

The email below was in response to a basketball athletes question "What can I do to get a dunk in the next two weeks [before leaving for an international tournament]?"

The athlete in question then proceeded to explain they had been running laps of an oval and doing extra sit-up and crunches for core strength...

Hi [Name],

Great question last night, this here will help in your quest to dunk within the 2-week timeframe before you head off for your tournament.

Firstly the question about conditioning:

This should explain why we don’t like long slow running

Instead, try any of these workouts (articles and videos):

Repeat sprints
Game Fit (our own custom sports specific fitness workout)
8:12's on a spin bike (the most efficient, effective off legs conditioning workout)

_As for the extra core work: _

This article/video explains the problems with sit ups
And this article explains the principles behind good core training
A better alternative for a good core workout might be our 5-minute abs workout.

As for specific jump training, you don’t want to do high-intensity jump training every single day, because you won’t allow enough time for supercompensation

Instead 2-3 times a week (with a minimum of 48 hours in-between try this mini jumping workout:

• Roll, stretch, activate to warm up
• 2x3 Ninja landings
• 10x1 Max ring touches (with lots of rest between reps)
• 3x10 Squats
• 3x10 Glute Bridges
• 3x30 DL calf raises

15-20 minutes of high-quality work, and that’s it, get in, work hard and then start recovering as quickly as possible!

Good luck and don’t over do it before you head off, the only thing worse than not being able to dunk while you are away is having sore knees the whole tournament!

Jacob

PS - You might like to check out our Articles and Videos on all things vertical leap, for some tips on jumping technique