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Pool Jumps


Philip Chubb
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Pool jumps are ok but if you are really against using weights you'll be significantly reducing your overall possible progress. Speed training (any jumps, olympic lifts, or plyo work) + maximum strength (squats, deadlifts, single leg squats) has been shown to be the most efficient method possible for increasing vertical. Gains with only one or the other are substantially less. Olympic lifters have great explosive power for this one reason their max squats are through the roof rivaled only by powerlifters, and they do speed work (its really in the strength speed category but you get the point) in the way of olympic lifts.

Well of course! For the lower body, bodyweight simply can't provide the level of progress that weighted squats and olympic lifting can give. Bodyweight does give some improvement, but not optimal. Pool jumps weren't my only method. I actually use a combination of different bodyweight exercises combined with plyo to help improve my jumping. Pool jumps are an experiment for me to see if I can close the gap between the amount of benefit weighted work provides and the amount bodyweight gives.

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Joshua Naterman

They won't.

As I have researched more into this I have found that you really do need quite a good lower body strength base for explosive jumping. 2-3x BW squat actually. Note that this does NOT matter quite as much for rebound jumping, but for a still jump it is critical for developing your ability to its limit. There is other work that will also help, and to be honest if you break down the jump into its components you will be able to figure out exactly what these are. Explosive romanian deadlifts are one. You simply can not replace that with BW work. You could do the same motion, and it will be better than not training that part of the jump at ALL, but you can't even come close to approaching the benefit of working with the proper external load.

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Interesting. While I do know that you really do need external loads for MAXIMAL benefit, do you believe pool jumps to be completely ineffective? As I said before, I know without weights I won't achieve the level of someone who uses weights. I am wondering more along the lines of if you had two exact same people doing the same bodyweight leg workouts complete with plyos and everything, and one of them added pool jumping, would that person have even a slight advantage over the other. However, I do know that neither of them would jump as high as the guy doing squats and cleans. I used to do those and that is when I felt most explosive.

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If you are that interested in them why not give them a try and record your gains. I would be very interested in your results.

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I believe I will add these in as a seperate workout on my leg days. Low volume so my reps stay explosive as possible. It will be hard to see if the results are from the pool or from the other leg training I do,mainly bodyweight and plyos during MMA training, but I'll record the results for sure!

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  • 5 months later...

What I love doing is going to the bottom of a pool and jumping off of the walls as hard as possible. I used to do it as training, dunno if it was any good, but it was fun and I didn't get all sweaty (lol)

The reason I went to the bottom was because of the pressure... I don't know if it's true, but I used to think that the weight of the water above me would make the lower waters more dense. More dense of a liquid means less ability for me to move. I used to practice underwater strokes down there for the same reason. Anybody know?

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Joshua Naterman

The deeper you go the more the air compresses in your lungs, which apparently increases the amount of oxygen your body can use out of the breath you are holding. That is part of why it is easier to swim long distances underwater in deeper water. This is also part of why freedivers can go so deep (world record is something crazy like 500+ feet on a single breath).

The actual density of the water does not change in any measurable way, water is considered to be non-compressible. What you are feeling is the weight of the water above and around you, but that doesn't really change the ability of water to move around itself. That just changes the air pressure in your lungs. Think about it: Small fish wouldn't be able to move at the bottom of the ocean if water got harder to move as you went deeper. It would be like a solid at that depth if that were the case, but it is not. Humans can move down there in pressure suits just fine. The only difference is the pressure in your lungs, which is why you have to have a pressure suit (or fill your lungs with oxygenated liquid, in which case you do NOT need a pressure suit). You'll have to read about this on google or something if you want more information on any of that.

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Alvaro Antolinez

Becaware! pure oxigen is poisonous below something like 50' ( seals and other military bubble less recirculators used to have limited the usefull dive deep due to that as far as I know!, the most recent ones don't have it any more) That is why deep divers have to use heliox or other gas mixes to avoid that, air will give problems due to nitrogen narcotics below 120'. Not that you are going to train that deep but just in case

:D . Also becareful with diving and holding your breath too much with out supervision, ask slizzard ;) !

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Joshua Naterman

Yes, absolutely consult experts before using any kind of diving equipment!!!

Freedivers are safe because they are starting with air at the same pressure that the dive will end. When you are breathing compressed air you are literally getting multiples of the gas you normally get, and that is where toxicity problems start to show up. When you take a breath on the surface and just go down you don't have any of those issues. I know that omegant probably knows all that, I just figure it is best to put that out there for those who are unfamiliar with freediving.

I think any discussion on the gas mixes is best left to scuba diving forums or google reading, but there are very good reasons why certain things are done.

Freediving means that you start at the surface, take a breath, and then you go down. You have no additional air or oxygen or anything else, you just hold your breath and try not to go so deep that you can't get back to the surface before you need the next breath! Obviously that means that you should never, ever practice unsupervised.

Omegant: I don't know of any rebreather that is good for more than 120 feet, and yea the US military still uses draegers even though there are better devices now. You can buy better rebreathers online now hahaha!

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Alvaro Antolinez

I am no expert (normal scuba diver and poor apneist with just 72´) but some friends of mine are, and they where testing some re breathers which can be used with exotic gases for 300´ or maybe more (I don´t remember exacly), they have electronics that control the different gases partial pressure, the problem is if the electronics fail down there.... you are pretty screwed (has happened). :shock:

Pure oxygen will burn your face at atmospheric pressure if you have some oily cream or makeup in your skin. When O2 pressure increases normal tissue will get burn too(lungs, etc...), apnea divers use normal air in competition (I don´t know if there is some kind of heliox use or so). Ok enough about this, I just didn´t want anybody taking the grandpa medical oxygen and playing "the big blue". :? .!!!

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  • 8 months later...
Full clean in a pool

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I want to see this.

You know, I totally agree. Most of us aren't trying to be world champion of the universe or whatever, we just want to be in great shape and enjoy our workouts. We all get our thrills in different places, and there are a lot of ways to accomplish this goal. There's nothing wrong with BW only stuff if that's what you love, and if later you get curious about something else and add it in that's cool too! It's not like you are betraying yourself! :lol: I'm always looking into and testing new (to me) ideas regarding my own fitness.

I might be a little late to this post ... so I don't know if Olympic Lifting in Water was ever discussed more or else where ... but here is a picture of one of the true great lifters - the late Vasily Alexeev ( having just died on November 25, 2011) - performing cleans in some lake or ocean. Unfortunately I cannot locate the original article I read years ago but was able to relocate a picture of it.

alexeev-water.jpg

If Alexeev did these, I might need to hit the pool a bit more... :mrgreen:

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