Hocevar Performance

Last week I was at the Perform Better Summit in Long Beach as I make it one of my goals to continuously get better at my craft whether from a training or a business standpoint. I attend the PB Summit every year because it is the most information packed weekend when it comes to new and relevant fitness, performance enhancement, rehab, fitness business etc. information and most importantly networking.

The biggest downside to the event is having to choose who you are going to see as there are overlapping lectures and hands on sessions! I don’t think that’s too bad of a downside.

So why am I bringing up the question “Are you still learning?”

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When I think about all the things I have done in my lifetime to improve my vertical jump it makes me laugh (and cry too sometimes) because I think of all the dumb things that I have done. That’s what happens when you listen to the “guru’s”. Back then I did not know any better and I followed anything I thought would give me a better vertical. Honestly, it has made me learn from my mistakes and seek out as much information as possible about what works and what doesn’t. I have tested everything on myself before I applied it to my athletes.

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Single leg vertical jumping is a very useful thing. I know many basketball players that have a great vertical of two feet but not anywhere close while jumping of one foot. Hopefully I don’t have to explain how important an explosion and elevation of one foot is, when it come to gametime. I will take Lebron James as an example, as the majority of his dunks are of one foot while driving towards the basket. Since you are running it is faster to take of one foot rather than square up and jump off two feet. 

Every type of jump has its advantages though. Jumping off two feet is more effective for rebounding because you will ussualy box out and go for the rebound straight up. Instead of choosing one or the other become good at both. The reason I am talking about it is because I have had the question come up lately and today another player and friend of mine asked me this:

“Is there a way to improve my one foot jumping to equal it to my two foot jump? I would like to have the ability to elevate from one foot of the drive!”

Now, this player has a very good vertical of two feet but not nearly as close that of one foot. So whats the catch? Well, here are some things that will explain and help you improve you one foot vertical:

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When I was younger I played basketball almost all the time and I mean I played a lot. I also tried every program to increase my vertical, 40 yard dash, agility and ball handling skills. Basically I was always doing something to improve my game. Does it sound familiar?

I also had coaches telling me I should run all the time to stay conditioned, take it easy with the weights so I don’t get bulky and become slow, and to top it all off we would have a 3 hour practice every day(later on in my professional career even 2 a days with 3 hours of basketball specific training). I wanted to improve my performance so much that even back then I started reading books, manuals, you name it, just to improve my game and my performance. A lof of the information I read was contadicting what some of the coaches were telling me, especially when it came to strength and conditioning! I did a lot of the strength training on my own but I also had to do the team training as there was no way of getting out of that and I also wanted to set an example of hard work for my team. Many times I ended up overtraining and had sub-par performance and nagging injuries, but I was still a lot better of than some of my team mates, as they had season ending and in some cases career ending injuries.

From all the knowledge that I have accumulated through the years of study and implementation of strength and conditioning and my experiences as a basketball player from the high school to the professional ranks, I am going to give 10 tips that are essential for basketball players to improve their game and their physical performance in the off-season. Learn from my mistakes and from the mistakes of others and take your game to the next level:

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