I Love Statistics

I always like to think of myself as being an informed individual.  I like to be armed with as much information as possible to make the best decisions possible.  In the case of the “Expect More Dunk” challenge my information gathering is starting to show me that I am going to have to really achieve greatness to accomplish my goal.

 After doing some research on the internet on vertical jumping I was able to come to the following conclusion…Right now I am the exact definition of average!  Remember these are the numbers that I am starting my challenge from…

• Age = 37 (will turn 38 during training)
• Height = 6’1”
• Reach = 8’0’
• Vertical = 16”
• Goal Vertical to Dunk = 30”

According to an article from www.menshealth.com, men have an average vertical jump in the following age ranges. 

AGE     HEIGHT

20-29    19.7"

30-39    16.9"  I am right at the average on this one.

40-49    13.8"

50-59    11.0"

 

So this puts me at a starting point that makes me exactly average.  I kind of knew that going in but it also shows that in order to achieve my goal I will have to far out jump even the average for someone 10 years younger than myself.

I also found another resource that gives a more general overview for vertical jumping (Top End Sports, 2012).  This one includes males and females, doesn’t break it down by age, and has jumps categorized from very poor to excellent ratings.  Again I am starting in the average category.  It verifies again that I am going to have to reach well above average in order to be in the running to dunk the basketball. 

	males		females
rating	(inches)	(cm)	(inches)	(cm)
excellent	> 28	> 70	> 24	> 60
very good	24 - 28	61-70	20 - 24	51-60
above average	20 - 24	51-60	16 - 20	41-50
average	16 - 20	41-50	12 - 16	31-40
below average	12 - 16	31-40	8 - 12	21-30
poor	8 - 12	21-30	4 - 8	11-20
very poor	< 8	< 21	< 4	< 11

With all this data there is one more piece of information that I found fascinating, inspiring, and mostly intimidating.  According to a vertical training website called jumpshigher.com, here are some elite comparisons for vertical leaping.

Average Vertical Leap of NCAA Div. 1 Football player: 29-31 inches.

Average Vertical Leap of NCAA Div. 1 Basketball player: 27-30 inches

Michael Jordan had 48" vertical

Kadour Ziani is the unofficial world record holder at a 56" vertical

So I now have multiple sources confirming that it will take the EXTRA-ordinary for me to accomplish my ambitious goal of dunking the basketball.  Right now I am taking this as inspiration that not if I do it…but when I do it…I can truly relish in what is hopefully an inspiring accomplishment.

As a shout out to the Language Arts Department I want to point out that I tried to cite all of my sources for this post =)

Bibliography

Brant, J. (2012). Look great at any age. Retrieved from http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/build-strength-at-any-age/fit_standards.php

Top End Sports Network. (2012). Fitness testing: Vertical jump height norms. Retrieved from http://www.topendsports.com/testing/vertical-jump-norms.htm

Vertical Jump Research Blog. (2012). Average vertical jump by gender. Retrieved from http://jumpshigher.com/average-vertical-jump