The answer is both!
The question? "What do you test?"
My rationale is this: if you have a skinny athlete who adds 15 pounds during a two-month period, but his vertical jump stays the same, a VJ-only assessment protocol won't tell you that he gained a ton of peak power.
As such, we use vertical jump in conjunction with body weight to calculate estimated peak power output using the Sayers equation. While recent research demonstrates that this equation typically underestimates peak power, the important thing for me is reproducibility (not complete accuracy).
As an example, last week, I posted a video of Tim Collins, a Cressey Performance athlete and Toronto Blue Jays prospect who vertical jumped 38.7 inches at his final test of the off-season.
More impressively, he went from 27.9" on October 3 to 38.7 on February 4 while adding six pounds to his frame. Without factoring in the six-pound weight gain, we are looking at a 34.8% improvement in peak power. When we factor it in, though, it becomes a 37.2% mprovement. That 2.4% might seem insignificant to some, but the truth is that it's an impressive result for an entire year's hard work for many elite athletes with less window of adaptation ahead of them.
Vertical jump is a measure of relative power. Peak power is a measure of absolute power. Both have implications in the world of baseball, as you have to decelerate your body weight on each pitch, and you have to sprint, which is a function of the force you put into the ground relative to your body weight. Conversely, the push-off during pitching and the hitting motion are all about absolute power.
So, all things considered, you've got to track body weight and vertical jump, then plug them into an equation.
1. First thing's first: in a newsletter last year, I told you all about Sarah Neukom, who works with the Jimmy Fund in organizing special events. Sarah raised over $8,000 for cancer research last year in running the Boston Marathon, and a lot of you generously donated to the cause through the mention in this newsletter. This year, Sarah's running again, and she'd love your support - this time to raise over $10,000 for a lot of people who could really use it. I encourage you to check out www.SarahSaidSheWould.com and make a tax-deductible donation to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
2. Tomorrow, I'm headed back to my old stomping grounds - Storrs, CT - to see my first UCONN men's basketball of the year. The seniors on this year's squad were freshman when I was last in campus, so I'm still bleeding some Husky Blue.
3. While we're on the topic of big verticals, a lot of our pro guys are wrapping up their off-season training at Cressey Performance before heading out to spring training, so we're doing some post-testing to gauge the progress they've made. Probably the most impressive of the bunch jumping-wise has been Blue Jays prospect Tim Collins, Baseball America's Low A Reliever of the Year in 2008. Tim added 10.8 inches to his vertical jump in just four months to get it up to 38.7 inches.
4. Someone asked me yesterday if I felt that it was necessary to be on a caloric surplus on the Maximum Strength program. My response was, "That'll work, but a big surplus isn't necessarily. You'll actually notice that the resounding them within the book with respect to my own progress over the years is that I've built relative strength, not just absolute strength. So, you could still see excellent results just eating at maintenance - particularly if the volume is lower than your recent programs."
5. If you are near the Philadelphia/ New Jersey area and interested in bodyweight training (and if you are a regular reader of this blog, chances are that you are), consider checking out a great one day seminar given by Beast Skills' Jim Bathurst. The date is March 1st, and the seminar is actually two parts (one basic and one advanced), so anyone can attend and participate fully. Jim knows his stuff (check out his impressive YouTube clips on the Beast Skills site) and the seminar will help anyone who wants to develop full body strength and stability. Check out Jim's site for details. The seminar is hosted by my good buddy, Shon Grosse, who is a great physical therapist in Colmar, PA.
6. Just a quick happy birthday shoutout to Padres prospect Will Inman. Will's up in Boston from Virginia to get down with us this off-season before heading out to Phoenix on Monday for spring training. Everyone give Will some love and check him out at WilliamInman.com.
