Jump High and Dunk - Body Fat

One question I see asked fairly often about jump training is, "If I lose weight, will I be able to jump higher?" Common sense tells us yes. Which can you throw higher a bowling ball or a basketball? Obviously, a basketball because it's lighter. That being said, weight management for jumping is a little bit more complicated, because the object that you are trying to launch into the air (your body) is propelling itself using its own strength.

Instead of worrying about just your weight, what you need to keep track of is your strength:weight ratio. This is most commonly measured with a max squat. An athlete who squats 400 pounds and weighs 200 has a 2:1 strength to weight ratio. For improving jumping or sprinting or any kind of propulsion of the body, it is important to improve or at least maintain your strength:weight ratio.

So will losing weight make you jump higher? Yes, if you can maintain strength while you do it. On the other hand, if you lose 10 pounds of muscle, you are lighter, but you are also weaker. Also, you should not be afraid to add pounds of muscle if it is muscle that can contribute to your jumping ability. For example, a trainee of mine put on 5 pounds during his first month of training due to hypertrophic training in the weight room. He also added 35 pounds to his max squat, so his strength:weight ratio improved significantly. Generally, muscle weight increase will be easily surpassed by strength increase, assuming you are training lower body and core muscles. Adding 10 pounds to your arms will not help you jump higher.

Your goal should be to not have mass on your body that does not contribute to your athletic ability. The biggest culprit here is fat. You do need a certain amount of fat for health reasons, but you don't need more than 10% body fat. Anything above that is only weighing you down. Conveniently, jump training and all sports training is extremely metabolic, while you may not have to pay any special attention to losing fat. You will likely become leaner without even trying. You should also consider what your sport requires of your body and add or remove exercises from your training accordingly. Having huge biceps is not worth anything to a volleyball player, but a running back needs that strength to have an iron grip on the ball. A soccer player does not need a strong upper body, but a basketball player needs all around upper body strength for controlling the ball in all kinds of positions. In short, you do not want to have weight on your body that is not useful for your sport.

By Daniel Back
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