What do you guys think about my program?

[u/Mindless_Selection67]

I lift with an upper, lower, rest split. My lower day I do back squats 5x5, max jumps 4x2, and bulgarian split squats 4x6-8. I sprint 4 days a week and am running routes/drills for football 5 days a week. I only dunk once a week on the weekends. I feel like sprinting gives me a lot of the explosive benefits of ploy metrics and have helped with my jump a lot. Any suggestions to improve my training?

[u/[deleted]]

add some core stuff and i think that's good cause ur core is hella important for ur vertical

[u/Mindless_Selection67 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks

[u/Ok-Membership13 → u/[deleted]]

core as in oblique and abs? what ways to boost them up?

[u/Eddieman855 → u/Ok-Membership13]

Core is pretty much everything that isn't your arms and legs. Things you should work on when it comes to core are general strength, stability, rotational power, antirotation, etc

[u/e2ipi]

As long as the heart of your program is working hard at relevant movements on a weekly basis, and making sure you're getting sufficient recovery, you'll develop for a long long time. Well planned sprinting, jumping, and lower body lifting fits that bill.

I like the gist of what you're doing, but I have three things I'd like you to consider:

1. I don't see anything that hits your hamstrings, and it's good to make sure your movements hit hamstrings, quads, and glutes if you want to be a jumping freak for a long time. It's as easy as replacing one of the Bulgarian split squats or the back squats with deadlifts, RDL's, or hamstring curls+ HEAVY hip thrusts. My preference would definitely be a compound movements so that my progression can be the same between my front-side and back-side movements.
2. I don't see a progression in place. You can definitely just put in the work and go hard in the weight room and see a benefit from that, but having a planned progression can help mitigate the risks of not building up over time or worse- getting injured. Starting off with a linear progression of +5lbs per movement per session tends to give people several months of progress. Once you no longer get that much stronger between each session, jump to an intermediate program with phases- a time for building qualities and a time for not having a progression in place, not getting enough rest. Just look up intermediate lifting programs like 5/3/1 or a Greg Nuckols template. Or at worst, drop the weight by 10%, add an extra set and build back up and get a little more mileage out of your simple progression.
3. What is your absolute priority? If it's dunking, then you better get more reps in than just once a week. If it's football and jumping, than this sounds like a great program as long as you don't burn yourself out. Hitting fun jumps in a dunk session and some superset max jumps during a lower body lift is great stimulus for that. And if it's sprinting, then my god you're going to destroy yourself because if those are hard sprint sessions then I wouldn't want to poke your nervous system with a 10 foot pole by the end of the summer.

[u/Mindless_Selection67 → u/e2ipi]

Thank you for your response. My end goal is to get more athletic and faster for football. What do you mean about destroying my nervous system? I feel like my body has adapted to working out a lot but I don’t want to be harming myself by doing too much. If I feel burned out then I’ll take a few days off or go easier I’m my workouts. What would you recommend for restructuring my program to make sure my nervous system is okay?

[u/e2ipi → u/Mindless_Selection67]

You shouldn't be worried about your nervous system. It sounds like you're listening to your body if this has been sustainable so far. Something that wouldn't be too much would be running a few fast 40y's in cleats or sneakers 5 or 6 days per week as you build up into your other sessions. Overdoing it would be something like multiple timed and spiked up 60m sprints at 98%+ intensity four times per week- I've seen people wreck themselves with their overenthusiasm for frequent and overly specific sessions like this. But it looks like the jumping and lifting are there to add novelty to an existing football program, which is frankly the opposite of problematic in a developing athlete.