Jump Muthafucka, Jump

As I've said before, the jump squat is to the competition back squat what liquid Viagra is to porn stars— it enables you to perform at the highest levels without fear that you’re going to go limp in the middle of the competition and make a total ass of yourself.  The jump squat makes getting out of the hole (the bottom of the squat) a simple affair, because you’ve conditioned your body to literally explode out of that position.  The powerlifting back squat is a fundamentally slow affair, and could easily be conducted to the slower parts of a Wagnerian opera in a Viking helmet.  Slowly grinding through the squat sucks, though, and the very worst part is that second at the bottom wherein you pause for a moment to wonder “is it really possible to get the fuck out of here with my life?”

Just as Justin Bieber is often asked the question "why don't you fucking die already?", I am often asked the question "why don't you do pause squats?", in spite of the fact that I've answered this question repeatedly.  To recap, I despise pause squats because they make sitting in the hole an even more protracted affair than it already seems to be.  For me, it ingrains a very bad habit of going slack in the hole, as well as staying there like I'm pausing a bench, in competition.  That, I discovered, is a terrible habit to have, and a hard one to break.  Thus, I abandoned the pause squats I'd been doing for a few months after my first full meet in 2009 and began experimenting with other methods, whereupon I decided jump squats were a far better option.

Though I've mentioned these in the past, I've not really gone into any great detail on how I conduct them.  Frankly, I thought the performance of these would be more or less self-explanatory- put bar on back, squat, jump off ground.  Not that much to it, really.  Since I initially posted on the subject, however, it's come to my attention that people like far more direction than I would in the performance of any given exercise.  As such, I shall provide it.  Due to the fact that you're leaving the ground, low bar squatting is out the window- if you attempt a low bar jump squat, there's a very real option you'll wake up in the hospital with a broken back and small stumps at the shoulders where your arms had previously been.  Rather than ending up a potential freak of nature, you might want to just squat high bar.  Quite frankly, I despise high bar squatting, but using it as a supplement, especially if you're a low bar squatter, gives you much more quad-dominant training, which will ultimately help your low bar squat.  Another thing that will help your regular squat is the varied stances you should be using with the jump squat.  As a general rule of thumb, you will widen your stance with each successive set.  I find that I use more or less the same stance from 135 through 315, then begin spreading my stance from 405 upward.  By the time I hit 505, I'm using my regular squat stance, only with a high bar (which is far harder than it has any right to be).

You'll notice that I go heavier than an Acacia Strain breakdown on jump squats.  Conventional wisdom, a sense of self-preservation, and a modicum of sanity would generally indicate otherwise, but I have been hovering around 80% of my one rep max of late on jump squats.  The only other maniac of whom I've heard who does jump squats as a part of his regular routine is Kolkaev, and even a man who willingly subjects himself to the dangers of a 600 lb no-hands barbell back squat doesn't go over 185 lbs on jump squats.  Frankly, I'm not sure why this is- maybe it's because I drink gallons of Diet Coke in lieu of the sedative-laced drinking water most people consume (Salon), it's the result of psychosis brought on by years of stimulant use, my giant brass balls, my desire to impose my will on the universe, or some fault with the rest of humanity.  Nevertheless, I go considerably heavier on jump squats than do most people, it seems to pay off on the platform, and I'm far more used to exploding out of the hole than a roomful of poorly endowed Japanese at a bukkake porn shoot.

If you're still skeptical, consider the following reasons to employ jump squats in your training:

• explosive training induces more hypertrophy than slow reps (Chapman).
• the utilization of different tempos in a training cycle produced far greater strength gains and hypertrophy than did a single tempo (Verkhoshanskii).  Thus, if you're using jump squats in concert with squats off the pins or regular back squats (or better yet, all three), you'll compound your gains like you're a fund manager named Madoff.
• fast eccentric movements lead to a higher concentration of type IIb than type I muscle fibers and greater strength gains than do slower repetitions (Paddon-Jones).
• consciously attempting to move explosively, regardless of the speed of movement, results in far greater  full-range strength than slower movements (Young).
• old ladies had huge rates of strength development with heavy explosive training, and if they can do it, you people damn well better be able to (Caserotti).
• going heavy on these works wonders- a study pitted  two groups of lifters against each other, one group doing 30%1RM jump squats and the other going with my much more awesomer 80%1RM, and the heavy jump squatters had significantly greater increases in their 1RM and their 1RM/bodyweight ratio (McBridge). 

Ian Middleton did make a good point I'd not really taken into consideration when developing this technique or recommending it to others- the participant's bodyweight.  Frankly, I generally give a person's bodyweight the same type of consideration Mel Gibson gives to good public relations.  Nevertheless, it stands to reason that the heavier a person is, the lower they should load their jump squats.  This is because a jump squat really includes the lifter's bodyweight in the total load lifted, as they're leaving the ground.  Additionally, the heavier a lifter is, the greater eccentric force they generate in their landing, which will affect their recovery rate considerably.  As such, he recommends utilizing a percentage of total system weight (body weight + one rep maximum bar weight) rather than simply utilizing their one rep max.  As this might seem somewhat confusing to those of you with widely spaced eyes, here's his example:

After trying to reverse my loading for the total system weight, I realized that it wouldn't provide any kind of useful example.  I generally use 455 for doubles and 405 for sets of 5, which is 70% of my 1RM and 62% of my 1RM.  If you'd like to convert that for yourself, feel free.  If you'd just like to use common sense, it'd probably be easier than doing the mostly useless arithmetic   If you're fat, use lower percentages.  If you're skinny, use higher percentages if you want.  Problem solved.

Squat as if Arnold was watching you.

In terms of sets and reps, I don’t recommend high reps for these due to the fact that your speed drops precipitously as your reps increase.  As the study I alluded to above stated, that's not necessarily a bad thing, at least until you actually lose the ability to jump off the ground.  Wishing you were moving quickly only goes so far in jump squats.  As such, I'd keep it to 4-10 sets of 1-5 reps.

There you have it- jump squats, in all of their glory.  Go do them.

Sources:
Caserotti P, Aagaard P, Buttrup LJ. and Puggaard L. Explosive heavy-resistance training in old and very old adults: changes in rapid muscle force, strength and power, 2008. Scan J Medicine & Science in Sports, 18: 773–782.

Chapman D, Newton M, Sacco P, Nosaka K.  Greater muscle damage induced by fast versus slow velocity eccentric exercise.  Int J Sports Med. 2006 Aug;27(8):591-8.

Harvey, Matt.  Your tap water is probably laced with antidepressants.  Salon.  41 Mar 2013.  Web. 30 May 2013.  http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/your_tap_water_is_probably_laced_with_anti_depressants_partner/

McBride JM, Triplett-McBride, Davie A, Newton RU. The effect of heavy-vs. light-load jump squats on the development of strength, power, and speed, 2002. J Strength Cond Res 16:75– 82.

Middleton, Ian.  Jump Squats.  How Much To Load?  Published online.  http://www.dieselcrew.com/articles-pdf/DC-IM-JumpSquats.pdf

Paddon-Jones D, Leveritt M, Lonergan A, Abernethy P. Adaptation to chronic eccentric exercise in humans: the influence of contraction velocity. Eur J Appl Physiol, 2001 Sep;85(5):466-71.

Verkhoshanskii IuV, Biru AA. Patterns in the long-term body adaptation of the athlete to
physical loads. Fiziol Cheloveka. 1987 Sep-Oct; 13(5):811-8. Print.

Young WB,Bilby GE.  The effect of voluntary effort to influence speed of contraction on strength, muscular power, and hypertrophy development. J Str Con, 1993 7(3), 172-178.