The Unbearable Lightness of Dunking

I have settled into a pretty solid routine for working out. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday finds me in the gym at work, where I open with 15 minutes of cycling (RPMs > 80, resistance 7/20), 3 sets of 20 lunges (with 10-pound weight extended and twisting with each lunge) and 20 squats, a bicep-tricep set, then 4x20 calf raises and/or quad-hamstring weight lifts. This usually takes 45 minutes. Twice this week I've also put in an hour-plus of one-on-one basketball (Saturday & Thursday), with all the starts, stops, pivots, sprints, etc. that goes with it. Needless to say, my confidence in my surgically repaired joint is high! But my leg muscles and knees are starting to feel WORE OUT. Of course this is to be expected. I haven't put such a concentrated effort on my lower body, well, ever. I wonder how often I should rest the leg workout. Every other day seems fine to me, but adding in the basketball games on the off days might be pushing it. Simply wailing away on muscles won't allow them to recover and rebuild stronger. Or more likely, my legs need to build up some toughness.

Josh Smith ruining the Celtic's evening

Because my hip seems in decent shape, I need to add some exercises that will start providing serious boost to my non-dunking vertical. Thanks to advice from several people, I will soon start cleans (but not the part where you lift it over your head - the "jerk"? - because of my shoulder), squats with weight, box-stepping with weight, leg presses, and of course good ol' straight jumping. And I need to add in a running/cardio aspect for two reasons: one, to help keep my weight down and thus deny gravity its stern grip, and two, because the Warrior Dash is in May! It is expected that axes will be thrown and death staved off for one more day. Sign up quick!

Dunk Impingement

Friday I gym'ed it up again, including a 3x10 set of bench and pull-ups. Saturday was a gift: an hour and a half of outdoor, 1-on-1 basketball! Jumping, running, sudden stops and starts, pivots - I can do it all! Only towards the very end did I start to feel a twinge in my hip, so I backed off and called it a day. Saturday afternoon and evening I took it easy, posting up on the couch and watching Georgia thrash those mouth-breathers from Tennessee, including some serious hate from Travis Leslie, who does everything stupendously (double Leslie highlights - the scissor-kick-one-handed-reverse-windmill and the off-the-backboard-this-is-not-a-pipe assist from McPhee).

Come Sunday I found my left shoulder absolutely blown up. I couldn't use it at all. If my elbow moved away from my body I'd instantly wince in pain. Putting on a shirt became a three minute affair of acrobatic hunching and torso-shimmying, avoiding raising my left arm in any way. I threw down four ibuprofen and glued my arm to my side for the day. Today was slightly better, and four more ibuprofen before work helped get the swelling & pain down to manageable levels by midday. I still can't raise my left arm above shoulder height, and lifting any weight at all with it is impossible. So the workout today took to task my apparently much more recovered hip, as I jumped my RPMs and resistance up again on the cycle, did 4x20 calf raises, and added a ten pound weight with rotation to my lunges.

Post workout I ran into the trainer who's been helping me and I explained how I'd traded one messed up joint for another. He twisted my arm around a bit and concluded confidently that I've got a shoulder impingement, thankfully not a rotator cuff tear. Impingement apparently means, based on the five minutes of interneting I've just done (the description here is exactly what I feel), is that the rotator cuff muscles aren't strong enough and are letting the tendon slip down to get pinched between the clavicle and humerus. The cure is basically rest, ice/heat combos, and ibuprofen. Problem is, it seems to take several months to successfully rid oneself of the inflammation that results from the tendon slipping. I can lay off the bench/pull-ups/pull-downs, but how will this affect my goal? I need to have my hands extended above my head, obviously - will this slow me down? Or can I focus exclusively on jumping for now?

Dunking Out of the Building

I'm pretty sure my surgically fixed hip can handle some more action beyond the lunges, squats, cycling, and quad/hamstring weight exercises I've got going. Tomorrow I'll either add weight to the squats or sneak onto the basketball court and run & jump around some. Today it has been 58 days since the surgery - almost exactly two months - and after finishing the toughest workout my hip has been through yet I felt almost no twanging or soreness in the joint. Nice!

There is one little tweak that still worries me. When doing lunges and leading with my right leg, the one that is recovering, I can't stand up smoothly. I wobble. I usually stabilize myself by dragging my left foot. Sometimes I can finish the lunge with no movement off the center line, but usually my torso begins to swing and sway a little, and occasionally I have to put a hand out to catch myself on the wall. Clearly the stabilizing muscles in my right leg are not recovered, although I'm not where they are and what I can do to help them other than maintaining this PT. What worries me is if I start jumping around the gym I'll lose my balance when landing and send my pelvis careening off the backboard like a grotesque boomerang. But overall, based on the MLK day activities and Wednesday's workout, I'm feeling confident that I can begin muscle-building exercises in my legs.

Here's a recap from the Hawks-Kings game Wednesday night - at the 25 second mark, Bibby throws Josh Smith an alley-oop. Josh Smith's biceps are above the rim. He is 6'9" and weighs 250 pounds. If I had his hops I could jump out of the building.

Marvin Williams / Werewolf dunking

P.S. Talking with one of the coaches, I learned that a labrum and a rotator cuff are NOT the same thing. The labrum is a doughnut of connective tissue around the joints in your shoulders and hips that acts like a plug for the humerus or femur. The rotator cuff is three muscles that surround the joint.

He Got Dunk

Monday was right hip test track day. I did my PT - now with 20 lunges & 15 squats - and a full workout, including weights for my legs, then headed downtown to participate in the MLK march. This entailed an hour and a half of standing, an hour of marching, then another 45 minutes to walk back to my car. Drove up to my parents and then PLAYED BASKETBALL. Yes, the sport that created my new year's resolution hath been played, albeit for only 20 minutes. But I dribbled, ran around, shot jumpers (a lot better than I thought I would, too!), and took a few runs at the basket. I could hook a finger in the bottom of the top-most loop of the net. I'd roughly estimate then my fingertip touched about 9'4", meaning I'm still about two feet below where I need to be. I don't imagine that simply running and jumping endlessly will be enough to get me to dunking level. There will have to be a weight-lifting component, and I'm still hesitant to start throwing my hip into any severe strain. Tomorrow I'm gonna sneak into the gym and try it out indoors. There's more space to jump, since you don't have to worry about a pole and a fence like at the parents. Although I like outdoor balls better, as they have more grip on them. Ah well, we'll see what happens tomorrow! And you can also see Gerald Wallace,, entering the dunk contest this year, throw down hard on senior citizen Greg Oden.

The Right Dunk

My left shoulder is really hurting today. Extra weight on the bench and pull-downs Thursday blew the thing up and it's essentially useless, so today after PT I focused on core and, for the first time, lifted weight with my legs! I kept it simple and light, but it was immediately obvious that my left leg is stronger than my right. Of course this makes sense, as it was my right leg that was operated on, but I could keep equal weight and reps on both legs. I wasn't looking to "max out" anything today, but instead focused on range-of-motion and building up strength. I tried a few jumps (well, 2) and discovered I probably don't know how to jump properly. I suppose you bend down, swing your arms back, and then bring everything up at once, but I couldn't seem to time everything together in something resembling a natural motion. I hope this is a result of not using my lower body for anything but walking since Thanksgiving - I jogged down a hall Friday and it was the first time I'd done anything other than walk in two months - but I would not be surprised to learn that there is a lot I need to learn about jumping proper.

In a non-dunk related note, here's the clip of the Hawks winning last night on a buzzer-beating deep 3 from Jamal Crawford. A few things to note: right after the shot drops, listen to the arena announcer going crazy and screaming "WE WON!!!". At the 1:20 mark, watch Josh Smith hop up onto the scorer's table (AJC later reported he was cheering with the crowd, holding his hand to his ear). And finally, notice that the arena is FULL and going NUTS for the Hawks. Hooray!

Sick Dunk

Sitting down to begin my first two hour tutoring session Sunday, I experienced a sudden head rush. Strangely, this wasn't the normal excited flush I feel when teaching little wiener kids standardized testing. Before I could place the sensation mucus started percolating in my sinus. Shit - I was getting sick. Ten minutes later I was blowing my nose constantly, and it hasn't stopped since then. As a teacher I'm exposed to an infinite sampler plate of disease: take hundreds of underdeveloped immune systems, cram them into a closed building, and enjoy the endless parade of pathogens. I chalked this up to a simple cold, something I could wipe away in 48 hours. Alas, I've wiped away two rolls of toilet power, a box of Kleenexes, and a dozen paper towels, scraping my nose raw.

Monday I figured I could just beat the disease out, so I hit the gym despite a waterfall of snot. Tuesday I wasn't any better, but I could aim for infecting a couple of kids as revenge. By Wednesday exactly nothing had changed. I was still spouting mucus like Ol' Faithful. I considered submitting myself to a medical journal, and I figured sitting out Wednesday's planned trip to the gym might help me finally get over this damn thing. Today, Thursday, I awoke to a whole bunch of the same. I haven't been this sick for this long since I had the damn swine flu in California. About halfway through the day my body erected some sort of barrier in my nose - the flow had stopped! So I went to go punish my body's insolence after school by resuming the same PT exercise, but increasing my RPMs on the cycle and doing an extra set of weights. I even upped my bench weight, clearly letting my body know that sort of delay in recovery is unacceptable.

My hip feels sore, but no worse than it has after previous workouts. It might be time to move from the cycle to an upright such as the Death Machine, a.k.a. elliptical. It's been 7 weeks since the surgery, and while it's been only two weeks into the new year I'm eager to start actually jumping! The lunges and squats are working my leg muscles, but nothing is better than performing the actual motion I want. Someone much taller than me recommended cleans - the staple of meathead workouts - but I'm still weeks, if not months, away from that type of stress on my joint. I'll be back in the gym Saturday to try a few jumps and see what happens... if the next post on here is another shot of me going into surgery, then you know that was a bad idea.

Here's Travis Leslie of UGA's totally ballin' basketball team dropping some serious hate on Kentucky (courtesy of DRob)

BTW, the Kentucky player in the lane (DeMarcus Cousins) is 6'11". Travis Leslie is 6'4".

Dunkin' Donuts

I increased the resistance (by 1 increment) on my cycling today and maintained the 3x15 lunge & squat routine, but sped it up slightly. I actually broke a sweat (two drops) this time, and I can feel my leg muscles getting worked. By the end of my entire workout however I was feeling some stiffness in my hip, most likely owing to the sit-ups I did in addition to some weight lifting. Increased my pull-ups by 1 for the first two sets, but could only do 3 on (instead of 5) on my last one. I know, I'm a pretty huge dude.

I did get the body composition analysis done today though! It is a scale with metal panels for your feet - no socks or shoes. It is made by Tanita: Great Success Athlete. Enter some vitals (height, age, etc.), and five seconds and a "mild electrical signal" later, you've got a body composition analysis! Here's my body, presented by the Tanita TBF-300A Analyzer. Tanita: Where Tomorrow is a Smile.

Tanita Body Composition Analyzer

Body Type: Athletic
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Height: 5 ft 10.0 in
Weight: 164.4 lb
BMI: 23.6
Fat%: 10.6%
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): 1809 kcal
Impedance: 495 Ohms
Fat Mass: 17.4 lb
Fat Free Mass (FFM): 147.0 lb
Total Body Water (TBW): 107.6 lb

An "athletic" body type means by resting heart rate is < 65. This is a nice hangover from my running before the surgery.
The BMR is the amount of energy I need to simply exist. That is, how many calories to maintain normal body functions like breathing and keeping my heart beating.
Impedance is how body fat percentages are calculated: lean muscle (including water) conducts the current, and fat impedes it.
Listed healthy body fat percentage for males under 30 is 14-20%, so booyah to that.
TBW measures exactly what it sounds like: the amount of water in my body. Tanita Body Composition Analyzer: Supreme Joy Enhancer suggests that females remain 50-60% hydrated, and males 60-70%. I check in right at 65%, so double true.

In the quest for dunking, I think these statistics are about right. I suppose I could try and get below 10% body fat to further lighten the load. Before the Tanita Body Composition Analyzer: Power is a Poem program would run, I needed to enter a target body fat percentage, so I entered 10% just to get it to start. Apparently I would need to lose one pound to reach that goal. I don't think there is a correct profile for dunking, other than jacking up my leg muscles. I'll be asking the trainer this week if I can start using weights on my squats / lunges. It's probably still early for that, and I definitely don't want to set myself back by aggravating my hip.

Onward!

Dunk-Ups

Saturday was another round of lunges and squats with no lasting aggravation - huzzah! The only negative during the workout was the gym losing power halfway through, leaving the last half of the workout to be done in the semi-dark. Nonetheless, I added a new exercise: bench press to pull-up (I've been training by doing exercises in sets: biceps to tripceps, dumbbell press to pulldown, etc.). The reason I added the pull-ups is because Dwyane Wade does a pull-up through the hoop before every game and by all reasonable measures he seems pretty decent, even if he makes his money by parading to the free throw line.
Ten reps on the bench followed by four pull-ups. I did that three times without tearing anything. One concern is my left shoulder, which has a torn labrum (rotator cuff), just like my hip did. It has never been as bad as my hip, and it is only painful when I lift my arm out away from my body and above my shoulder. But after hard workouts my left shoulder can't bear any weight for days. With that in mind I'll gradually bump up the number of pull-ups but definitely keep a limit on the total number and how frequent I attempt them.

355 days to go!

Lungin' and Dunkin'

After completing a shorter cycle "workout", I nervously began my first lunges, staying an arm's length from the wall for security. Surprisingly, I encountered no discomfort and could feel my quadriceps and hip joint moving like normal! I finished three sets of 15 lunges and 15 squats with no aggravation before continuing the rest of my workout. I eagerly asked the trainer if I could begin adding weight to this routine, but he squashed that idea quickly. It was then I realized that I won't be able to "max out" any leg exercises for some time yet, unless I want my femur and pelvis breaking up faster than an Elizabeth Taylor marriage. I'm still at least a month, if not more, away from performing any real, muscle-building leg exercises, and this frustrating fact is a little discouraging. But I've learned my lesson - I gave myself the torn labrum injury when I did not heed my doctor's instructions and tried returning from a broken leg too quickly. So as much as I'd like starting some serious jump training, I'll be content working my core, arms, and chest.

On a non-dunk related note, the standard "background" music at the gym is REALLY AWFUL HEAVY METAL THAT IS PLAYED THIS LOUD AT ALL TIMES. This is super annoying. The other day we kicked off with "Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor...", followed by some jackass screaming and counting and double-bass drums going 32 beats per second. This is by a band that found its musical career significantly enhanced by the death of its lead singer. Anyway, I'm meticulous about bringing my iPod, but I'm having trouble finding music I'd like to listen to while lifting weights. When running I usually go with fast rock music, but I've found that the steady beat of a hip-hop song suits weight-lifting, at least for me. But my knowledge of fast, aggressive hip-hop is pretty limited. I've spun through "The Grey Album" on almost every workout, sometimes switching to Aesop Rock. Any suggestions for weight lifting music?

Also: Josh Smith's windmill dunk from the 2005 dunk contest

A Dunk Too Far

Work started today, and I weighed myself and took a very inaccurate measurement of my current vertical leap. With shoes on I weigh 168 lbs. I can't say if this is an appropriate weight for dunking - certainly many dunking NBA players weigh more, but they're also much closer to the rim. Comparing myself to some other under-sized dunk-capable players might help give me some guidance on how I can achieve my resolution, so I calculated my body mass index (BMI) and the BMI of some NBA players:

(height, weight, BMI)

Me: 5'11", 168, 24.1
Spud Webb: 5'6", 133, 21.5
Allen Iverson: 6'0", 180, 24.4
Nate Robinson: 5'9", 180, 26.6
Derek Fisher: 6'1", 210, 27.7

With the exception of Spud Webb, it seems that being lightweight does not offer any advantages - in fact, it looks like I'll be building a lot of muscle. Also, the BMI calculation is skewed against muscular people, such as the players listed. There is a body composition indicator at work which can give me a better idea of what I'm made.

As far as my hip goes, I am able to cycle at the gym for 15-20 minutes with very low resistance. The trainer there suggests I start sets of half-lunges and half-squats, which I will begin Thursday. Today I attempted a single vertical leap, using bricks on the wall as a measuring guide. I jumped seven bricks: about 15 inches. That leaves me 26 inches from the dunk...

A vertical leap isn't the final indicator: Spud Webb listed a 41 inch vertical but is 5 inches shorter than me. A running start will help - but I have no idea how long until I can, let alone put a lot of stress on the joint. I'm beginning to sense how much work achieving this resolution will take, but when I get there, I'm having a poster of myself made.