First game of the year: some good news, and some bad news

I played in my first basketball game of the year tonight. It had been over a month since I'd last played, and it showed. I was AWFUL on the court (bricked a ton of shots, made bad turnovers), but my vertical jump tests during warm up weren't too bad!

Jumping without the ball, I could get almost 2/3 of my hand above the rim (about 5"-6" of my hand and fingers), which equals a maximum running vertical of about 29" (10'6" - 8'1" standing reach = 29").  I could even get my fingers a couple of inches over the rim on a running two-handed jump.

I've read articles saying that you need to be able to reach about 10'10" to cleanly get dunks down (since a standard basketball is 9.5" in diameter), but that is WITH the ball. I'm going to target a maximum running vertical of 34", or about 6" higher than it is now -- allowing me to touch right around 11 ft. With hands that are approximately 8.5" long, that means I'll need to be able to get my wrist about 3.5" above the rim.


How do I plan on adding 6" to my maximum running vertical?

1. Losing Weight:  I want to lose at least 20 lbs, with a stretch goal of losing 27 lbs to get under 200. I'm off to a pretty good start, losing 2-3 lbs since New Year's! 200 lbs would still be about 15 lbs more than I weighed in high school, but I'm trying to be somewhat realistic about where my body is at age 38 vs. 18. 
2. Vertical Jump Training: In addition to running on my treadmill in the basement a couple of times per week, I'm going to add a variety of leg exercises to my routine. These will include Standing Squats, Depth Jumps, Tuck Jumps, Calf Raises, and a few others that I've read about online. I plan on using only my body weight (no additional weights), as the main goal is training my legs for jumping without burning them out.
3. Practice: I will be putting in extra time to work on the basics of jumping with and without a basketball. I don't live that close to a basketball court (the outdoor ones in Toronto don't help me much when it is -20 Celsius outside), so this will mean showing up a bit earlier to my weekly games.

Sorry - no video this week, but I'll make an effort to get there a bit earlier next time to take some clips of my standing and running vertical jumps... and maybe even a dunk attempt or two.