Trial Athletics

08/24/2026

The #1 way to make your kid jump higher does not exist.

Not because jumping can’t be trained. Because there’s no single fix that works for every kid.

A jump comes down to two things. Force and spring. Force is how hard he pushes into the ground. Spring is how fast he releases it. Almost every kid is better at one than the other, and the fix for one does almost nothing for the other.

The springy kid bounces well, but there’s not much force behind it. More jumping just sharpens what he’s already good at. He needs to get stronger. Coached, and built for his age, not a kid loaded up under a heavy barbell.

The strong kid has plenty of force, he just can’t release it fast enough. More strength work piles on power he already can’t use. He needs to get springy. Reactive work, not more squats.

Here’s the part most people miss. Kids drill the side they’re already good at, because it’s the fun one. The springy kid keeps bouncing. The strong kid keeps grinding. That’s how a year of training gets wasted. You train the opposite of what he’s already good at.

The 10-second test you can run at home:
1. Have him jump and touch as high as he can from a standstill. Mark it.
2. Then let him take a few steps into it and jump. Mark it again.
Big gap between the two, his spring is already there, so train strength.

Almost no gap, his spring is asleep, so train that.

One catch. If he’s genuinely weak to start with, strength comes first no matter what the test says. There’s nothing to spring off of yet.

This is why we test the athlete instead of handing him a program off the internet. The program isn’t the problem. Pointing it at the wrong kid is.

Which one is yours? Comment SPRINGY or STRONG.

07/24/2026

07/11/2026

Force applied horizontally into the ground predicts your 10-meter sprint better than almost anything else you can test (r = −0.66, Kawamori 2013). A 2023 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine found horizontally-oriented training improved short sprints under 10 meters roughly 4x more than vertical training (Junge 2023).

That’s what the French contrast trains. Four movements hitting the same horizontal pattern across the entire force-velocity curve, each one priming the next, ending in a jump faster than your body can produce on its own. Heavy force into elastic force into assisted overspeed. One system, one direction: forward.

Save this for your next power session.

07/09/2026

We all know weight room strong and basketball strong aren’t the same thing.

On the court, your core is a transmission. It doesn’t create the movement. It connects the ground to the ball, holds your posture through contact, and refuses to leak force while everything around you moves fast.

Zercher hex bar carries: Bracing under load. The weight sits in front and tries to fold you forward. Your trunk fights to stay tall and rigid. This is the brace that holds when someone bumps you and you don’t lose your posture.

Pallof press alphabet: Anti-rotation while you move. The band tries to twist you while your arms keep changing position. This is the stability that lets you shoot, pass, and reach while contact tries to spin you off your base.

50/50 lateral walks: Frontal-plane control. Your pelvis stays level and stable as you move side to side. This is the core that keeps you in your stance on defense and stops the energy leak on every cut and slide.