Jake Tuura on Jump Training, Knee Rehab Protocols, and Games + Community as Ultimate Power Potentiators

Today’s show is with Jake Tuura. Jake currently works at Velocity Training Center as a strength and conditioning coach. Prior to Velocity, Jake was a collegiate S&C coach for 7 years. Jake is the owner of jackedathlete.com where he teaches athletes and coaches principles on muscle gain, jumping higher, and rehab from jumper’s knee. Training for things like vertical jump and sprinting are enjoyable to discuss, but we need to always be zooming out into more global concepts of performance. For example, you may tweak every ounce of your training to help an athlete jump 4” (10cm) higher, but what if that athlete just got into a really good community where athletes were doing various dunks, and found that simply being in that environment unlocked 4” of jumping gain, that was eventually able to filter over into their permanent results? Or perhaps look at the formation of jumpers who are obsessed with jumping as youths, doing dozens, if not hundreds, of jumps each day? Also, understanding how to be consistent as per staying healthy is not often considered as it should be, particularly for jump-related sports. Jake Tuura has been on a journey of sport performance exploration for years, and offers grounded solutions for those seeking muscle gain, performance increase and pain reduction. On the show today, Jake talks about what he has been learning since leaving the university sector in strength and conditioning, as well as updated knowledge in the vertical jump training space. Jake also talks about how to use games as the ultimate warmup (and workout, when combined with sprints and jumps) for athletes, and finished with some great points on knee pain and rehab, and points where isometric exercises might not be the panacea that it is so often offered as. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster and Lost Empire Herbs. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to www.lostempireherbs.com/justfly View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points 4:56 – Some of the last things Jake learned as a college strength and conditioning coach 16:31 – What Jake has learned working in the private sector of sports performance since moving beyond his university coaching job 18:44 – Thoughts on using games with pro-level players versus younger athletes 25:29 – Things that Jake has been compiling in the last few years in regards to vertical jump training 38:21 – What Jake has noticed in elite dunking athletes in regards to their training history and jumping volumes 46:22 – The importance of using sport play as either an advanced warmup or potentiation for jumps or even sprints 51:59 – Thoughts on penultimate length in a running two leg jump” 58:13 – Looking at isometric training, versus kinetic chain training and general strength conditioning when it comes to knee rehabilitation and injury prevention “When you are a college strength coach, you think that everyone really wants to be in (the weightroom)” “You are warming up their bodies, but are you thinking of how you are impacting their brains?... they are like zombies” “If you are a college strength coach, there are 1000’s of kids who will do your job for free… and you have to impress the head coach” “I think we need to start vertical jump training with the objective starting point of physics, and then you can create a good plan” “Can you get stronger by just jumping? Yes you can; but… some people are just not built for that, and they need extra training… sometimes freak athletes, they may not need the extra training, they were just born for it” “(In regards to knee pain) Jumping as high as possible for a decently high volume… would a caveman do that?” “The pro-dunkers, would jump every day (growing up) and as they get older and increase outputs, they do not jump every single day; and they always get into strength training” “Having the people to do dunk sessions with is huge; we had like 10 guys at an LA Fitness out here one Friday night, and everyone’s vertical jump was up, like 4 inches” “If you can start playing pickup basketball for 30-60-90 minutes, that is the best warmup to dunk” “If you can stimulate the system with gatorball, you will feel a lot better going into your sprints” “You just do not know the story to be giving these canned technique tips to people; they shouldn’t exist” “Isometrics, heavy isometrics like a leg extension, are going to be huge for the patellar tendon, and the quad tendon, and Osgood Schlatter, is will be great for that, but that heavy isometric will not be good for patella-femoral pain; someone who has general knee pain” “Iso lunges, Spanish squats, all those are going to give you immediate (tendon) relief. If you do those exercises, and you don’t have immediate relief, then you probably don’t have a tendon issue” “There is correlation from having lack of dorsiflexion and having jumper’s knee” About Jake Tuura Jake Tuura, MS, CSCS currently works at Velocity Training Center as a strength and conditioning coach. Prior to Velocity, Jake was a collegiate S&C coach for 7 years. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Superior (2014) and his Masters from The College of St. Scholastica (2015). His website: jackedathlete.com helps athletes gain copious amounts of muscle, jump higher, and rehab from jumper’s knee.