I ran one of those old jump programs. Hundreds of jumps a week, fifteen weeks a cycle — and I ran it twice.
The first time it worked, and I was sure I'd found the secret. The second time my knees hurt for most of a season.
Nobody told me the program was fine. I just wasn't ready for it when I started...
These are the two books I needed. Six weeks to get ready, twelve to get after it.
Let me tell you how this usually goes.
You find a program. Week one you're fired up, and you do about a hundred hard landings in seven days.
Your muscles are fine with this. Your tendons are not.
By week three your knees ache. By week five you're skipping sessions. By week eight you've quit and decided the program didn't work.
Here's the thing — the program was probably fine.
Nobody checked whether you could hold a landing on one leg. Nobody counted your jumps. Nobody mentioned that being ready was a thing you had to be...
Jumper's knee isn't bad luck. A 2023 review pooling 28,171 players found it in 20.8% of basketball players, against 6.1% in soccer.
One in five. That's the base rate of the sport you play — and the strongest risk factor is knee pain you've already had.
Both books show you where every number comes from, and say so when the science is thin. Neither one promises you inches. Anyone who does is guessing.
The getting-ready phase. Three lifting days a week, easy jumping most days, and ten minutes of landing practice.
It won't add six inches to your vertical, and anyone promising you that in six weeks is selling something.
What it does is get you to the start line of a real program able to survive it.
That's a boring promise. It's also the one nobody makes.
Fourteen chapters. Four training days written out set by set, three four-week blocks, and every jump and landing counted so the volume can't run away from you.
There's a version for your season and a version with no gym — a real one, not a watered-down one.
And a retest at the end that tells you what to do next.
Fourteen chapters. All four training days set by set. A calendar you can print and put on the wall. And a reference section at the back that explains every exercise in the book, because a written cue is no use if you can't picture it. These are actual pages — zoom in and read them.
Strength first, and not much jumping. You learn the lifts, the volume stays low on purpose, and the fast stuff waits until there's something to be fast with.
Heavier squats, and your first real jump training. The jumps go up on a written schedule — not on how good you happen to feel that day.
The sharpest work in the program. Then you retest, and the book tells you exactly what to do next based on what you see.
Four days a week, and every one of them has a job. If you can only train three, the book tells you which one to drop.
| Training day | What it's for | Chapter |
|---|---|---|
| Lower Body Day A | Getting stronger — the squat day the whole program is built on | 5 |
| Lower Body Day B | Getting quicker — spending less time on the ground | 6 |
| Upper Body Day A | Pulling, which is what powers your arm swing | 7 |
| Upper Body Day B | Pressing, and keeping your shoulders alive all season | 8 |
Every chapter, in order. Nothing is held back for an upsell — there isn't one.
I'm not going to tell you how many inches.
Anyone who gives you a number is guessing — and somewhere in you, you already know that, because you've bought from them before.
Here's what I'll tell you instead.
You'll know exactly what your legs do off one foot, because you tested it in week one and you'll test it again in week twelve.
You'll get through a season without ice on your knees.
And that warm-up dunk you keep almost getting... you'll stop being surprised when it goes down.
That's the whole pitch.
It's smaller than what everybody else promises you. It's also the one that's true...
And if it turns out you're not ready for the twelve-week book yet — that's what the six-week one is for. You're allowed to not be ready.
This is a training program. It isn't personal coaching, and it isn't medical advice. If something hurts, stop and go see somebody who can actually look at you.
It also won't teach you an approach, or a power clean. Those are built on timing, and timing doesn't survive being written down — so they're not in there.
Email me inside thirty days and you get your money back. No questions, no form, no explaining yourself.
I'd rather refund you than have you training off a book you don't believe in.
Yes, and you should. Just count your games as jump volume, and read Chapter 11 if you're playing more than twice a week.
No. This is the jump program. Stacking two is the most reliable way to get hurt that I know of.
See Chapter 12. I'm not giving you a number here, because anyone who gives you one confidently is guessing.
For the power clean, yes — which is why it isn't in here. For everything else, a phone on a tripod and a willingness to actually watch the footage.
It's better with one. Chapter 10 is the no-gym version, and it's a real program — not a watered-down one.
Not as written. Twelve weeks on, a week fully off, then either repeat it, run a strength block, or switch to the in-season version.
Take the five-part test in Chapter 3. Pass all five and you start the twelve-week program. Miss any of them and you do the six-week book first.
PDF, set for letter paper. The charts are pure black on white so they print cleanly on a school printer.
The six-week phase and the full twelve-week program, as print-ready PDFs, the moment you buy.
Chapter 3 tells you which of the two you start with. It's the first thing in the book...
Get the bundle — $19The Jump Test Sheet. Six measurements, a wall and a piece of chalk, about twenty minutes. No program in it, and none hidden in it — just where you're actually standing, written down, so you can judge anything you buy against it.
One last thing.
If you take nothing else off this page, take this: the program that hurt you probably wasn't the problem. The order was.
You can fix that in six weeks...
P.S. I ran one of those programs twice, and the second time my knees hurt for most of a season. If you're somewhere in that story right now, start with the test in Chapter 3 — it takes about ten minutes, and it's the only honest way to know which book you need.