Vert Shock Review
Vertical Jump Training For Anyone
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to touch rim?
How about even dunk?
And I’m not talking about a once in a while occasion, I mean consistently, all the time.
Maybe you’ve already gone through a few vertical jump programs that have given you little to no results, but I’ll bet you haven’t tried Vert Shock.
In this Vert Shock review, I’m going to go over what precisely this fantastic program is and, more importantly, how it can change your ability to jump forever.
What I Wanted To Accomplish With Vert Shock
Hi there, let me introduce myself. My name is Gabe.
I’m 5’8,” and I love sports. One sport that I find pretty fun is basketball.
I remember playing basketball since a little kid on one of those small basketball hoops that everyone has at one point.
I would say that in all of my basketball years, that was the highlight of my career.
Even now, as an adult, I’m still rather mediocre at the sport, but if there’s one thing that continues to catch my eye when it comes to basketball, it’s the dunk.
Watching videos of professionals basketball players dunking is pretty fun, so you can imagine how it feels to witness it in person.
Seeing someone in the same court reach that height from a single jump is crazy and makes you think, “Man, that person there is pretty good as basketball.”
You can also tell that immediately, that person is a significant threat to the courts.
Jumping that high seems like a rather daunting feat, and it makes you question if you could ever do the same.
It was with that thought in mind that I began searching for a program that could get me to jump higher than I ever could.
I looked for every resource available on increasing one’s vertical, jumping from articles to programs until finally, I came across a program with this tagline:
“Dunk in 8-weeks or your money back.”
And I was hooked.
What is Vert Shock?
Vert Shock is an intensive vertical jump program that claims to increase your vertical by as much as 15 inches in a matter of only eight weeks.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, and believe me, I thought the same thing. Eight weeks to increase a vertical by 9 to 15 inches?
That’s not possible. Other programs take way longer than a simple eight weeks to complete and still don’t guarantee such crazy results.
What makes Vert Shock so different from any other program?
I had the same questions running through my mind, and after browsing through the various testimonials of people who used the program, my curiosity finally got the best of me.
I saw they had a 60-day money-back guarantee, so I figured that I would at least test Vert Shock for the first week and see what it had to offer.
So I did, and I don’t regret it.
Who Created Vert Shock?
Let’s take a moment to talk about the people behind the Vert Shock program.
Adam Folker
The founder of Vert Shock is Adam Folker, a former college basketball player, now turned professional basketball player.
In high school, Adam became well known when he was chosen amongst the top 5 high school basketball players in Canada.
But this wasn’t always the case; he had his fair share of struggles as an athlete when he was young.
During his freshman years, standing at 6’4″, he could barely reach the rim.
In one game, he sat on the bench for a straight 40 minutes, with his highlights being a few lay-ups during halftime warm-ups.
It was because of this that Adam dove deep into research, spending hundreds of hours online looking through every resource possible on vertical jump training.
He eventually found a scientific journal on a Russian training technique that gave the Soviet Union an advantage in the Olympic high jump (The Soviets won consecutively from 1960 onwards, go figure).
So with this new lead, Adam spent the next six months finding the rest of the scattered information and another five years testing and researching the methods.
As of now, Adam even has a Professional Strength and Conditioning Certificate or CSCS (Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist).
He’s that committed, and it’s this driving force of his that would eventually lead to Vert Shock.
Justin “Jus Fly” Darlington
Justin “Jus Fly” Darlington helped Folker a great deal with the creation of the Vert Shock program, and believe it or not, the knowledge he acquired from the time spent on Vert Shock is what lead to his fantastic ability to dunk.
Justin and Adam grew up together in Canada, and during his early years, Justin wasn’t all that adept at dunking. He also had a rough time just reaching the rim.
But after working on the Vert Shock program alongside Folker, his vertical jump improved quite a bit, enough to grant him the title of #1 dunker in the world.
He currently has a vertical of 50.1 inches, at the height of 6’4″, and his dunking videos are out of this world.
Vert Shock Pricing
How much does Vert Shock cost?
Well, the program itself is $134, which can seem pretty steep.
But you can get Vert Shock at a 50% discount, although I’m not sure how long the deal lasts.
It reduces the price down from $134 to $67, which is an excellent way of saving a couple of dollars.
Thankfully, regardless of what you pay, Vert Shock has a 60 Day Money-back Guarantee, so if you aren’t satisfied with your purchase, you could always get your money back.
But trust me, with the amount of value Adam and Justin offer in this program, there’s no need for a refund.
What Do You Get With Vert Shock?
So after purchasing the Vert Shock program, you’re given your login information to access the members’ section.
Here, the Vert Shock program is broken down into three phases, Pre-Shock, Shock, and Post-Shock.
Each phase is designated a different role from one another that, when put together, blend into an intensive 8-week program.
The entire course is laid out for you to follow with the use of printable program worksheets in the form of PDFs that have a full breakdown for each week.
The Vert Shock pdf tells you the days you rest, the days you exercise, what exercises you are performing on a given day and the number of sets and reps per workout.
Everything is easy to understand and access.
Alongside these worksheets are workout instruction videos that give you a visual reference on how to perform the given exercise, as shown by a professional athlete.
With Vert Shock, you also get free additional content on nutrition, dunking tips, and a maintenance system that they have in place so that you can maintain your results long after you finish.
You can see the rest of the information on the official site.
How Does Vert Shock Work?
The Vert Shock workouts are unique in that they target the Type 2B muscle fibers that you have in your body, which is done through intense training sessions that involve plyometric exercises.
These are the same muscle fibers that contract quickly and lead to a lot of force, also known as the fast-twitch muscle fibers.
You have these muscle fibers throughout your whole body, but you’re going to primarily focus on developing them in the core and legs, which contribute most to your ability to jump.
To do so, the body needs to be pushed to its limits, as Type 2B muscle fibers are only activated when they’re relied on as a last resort by the body.
That way, you can begin to strengthen those specific muscles and use them more often to maximize explosiveness and increase muscle recruitment when you jump.
To clarify, this program does not make use of weight training, signifying that it doesn’t require access to a gym or resistance equipment.
Pre-Shock Phase
This is the first week of the Vert Shock course, and dare I say, the most brutal. Even if you’re already athletic or fit, the next couple of days will still definitely shock you.
Then again, that’s the point; this part acts as a precursor that gets your body ready by building speed and endurance while also improving on your form.
This first phase is composed of 6 workout days with only one day of rest. There are 4 to 6 exercises each day, and each activity will average about 13 sets in total.
This is excluding the dynamic warm-up and cool-down routines before and after exercising, which I highly recommend doing and not skipping out on to avoid injury.
The dynamic warm-up and cool-down routines that you develop during the training are going to be especially important not only throughout the course but moving forwards into the future.
A lot of the people who have gone through the Vert Shock program have continued the use of these two routines as they not only help to prevent injury but help you jump higher by releasing tension.
Now, something that you’ll notice right off the bat is the different exercises that they have you complete.
You receive a lot of exercise variations, such as seated box jumps and depth jumps that target the lower body and core. They also include exercises aimed at the upper body, leaving you with a well-rounded body.
This is also done to focus on different muscle groups on different days.
So even though your primary focus may be legs and core, you may do that consecutively for two days and then rest the next day where you only train your upper body. This then allows your legs and core a day of rest, and so on. Week 1 of Vert Shock was pretty tough. Getting straight into plyometric exercises with no previous experience, I was in for a surprise.
Even so, this phase was definitely a strong indicator of what to expect from the coming weeks, and even if it was a rough wake up call, I liked the challenge.
Each workout took around an hour to complete, with the dynamic warm-up and cool-down period lasting 20 minutes.
This, for me, was fantastic, being able to dedicate a brief window of each day to the progression of my vertical jump.
After the first week, I felt a bit heavy, to be honest, with a bit less energy on the court than when I started.
This went away after about a day of rest, and I wasn’t all too worried about my progress since Folker states that this first week isn’t designed for you to see improvements.
It’s just a start to get used to the training. So with that, I went onwards to the second phase.
Shock Phase
This is week 2-7, a total of 6 weeks of training where the majority of our transformation occurs.
Here we have 4-6 workouts a week that will vary from strength exercises that target the legs and core to jumping-specific movements, and finally, intense plyometric exercises.
These include planking for the core, lateral high jumps and depth jump for explosiveness, and deep squats with uphill squat jumps that increase power.
You also have some sprinting exercises sprinkled in, and every workout is meant to be completed at maximum intensity. This all translates to your ability to dunk!
This means giving it your all so that you can reap the benefits.
As stated previously, our bodies only rely on the type 2B muscle fibers as a last resort, so to start using and developing them, we need to push our body to the limit.
This Vert Shock phase is primarily optimized towards getting your muscles used to the repetitive movements so that they react faster and develop the reflex that launches you higher up.
These next six weeks of the program were very intense, but I still felt up to the challenge. I can see why people get such crazy results; Vert Shock is very demanding of you, pushing you every day to put in your all.
On Week 2 and week 3, I felt exhausted; I was having a hard time keeping up with the exercises due to the lack of rest days.
Eventually came week 4, and I started getting into the habit of exercising.
I spent less time feeling sore, and I became better adapted to the training sessions.
That’s not to say things started getting easy; there was still a ton of effort required to keep moving forwards.
I know I put in the work, and I got excellent results because of it. By week 5, I had a 27 inch vertical!
That was a considerable surprise going from a 17 inch vertical and adding a total of 9 inches in a matter of only five weeks.
During this time, I also felt a lot less sore compared to the first three weeks, and a lot more explosive.
The feeling of exercising as often as I did, was starting to become routine, and I could tell that this was going to contribute a lot to my goal. It turns out I was right.
However, I do want to stress the importance of doing things right to avoid incurring injury.
During this phase, stay focused on doing the proper warm-up and cool down, doing each exercise correctly, and resting.
It’s very easy to hurt your progress when you’re tired, and an injury could post-pone your ability to continue with the program, leading to a significant setback.
I continued with week six and week seven under a new spirit of motivation, determined to give it my all, and achieve my goal of dunking!
Post-Shock Phase
This is week 8 of Vert Shock, the final week of the program, completing a total of 8 weeks of training. It’s very similar to the first week, where you have six days of working out and one day dedicated to rest.
Workouts are nearly all jumping, with a lot of repetitions; in some aspects, this phase is more demanding of your body than the previous two.
The final week is focused on jumping primarily so that your body fully ingrains the action until it becomes second nature.
It’s all about muscle memory so that when you go to dunk, you don’t even have to think about it. So the Post-Shock Phase, the final week of this intensive program, was I excited to finish it all? Oh yeah.
By now, Vert Shock had me beat with my legs stiffening a bit on account of all the jumping I did.
But even so, I pushed through while trying to maintain a proper schedule of warm-ups, cool-downs, eating right, and resting a ton.
This program, by far, exceeded my expectations; I still wasn’t able to dunk, but I was given the ability to go all the way to a 29 inch vertical; I could touch the rim!
Vert Shock Results
So, the final question left to answer is, does Vert Shock work?
Well, after finishing the Vert Shock program, I walked away with the roadmap I needed to reach the rim and went from my original 17 inch vertical to a staggering 29 inch vertical.
Now when I go to play basketball, I amaze myself and my friends at how high I jump.
I didn’t, unfortunately, reach my goal of being able to dunk, but I felt way more explosive on the court and, in the process, became a better defender, so I was pretty happy.
Even though I won’t be able to dunk like Justin any time soon, I understand that it’s going to take longer than eight weeks for me to reach my goal.
After all, I’m 5’8″, so adding 12 inches isn’t going to get me to slamming dunks on the hoop, but it is an improvement and a major one at that.
And besides, now that I’ve completed Vert Shock once, I feel like it could through it again!
Things I Wish I Knew Before Vert Shock
Although a slight pet peeve, my first run at Vert Shock went pretty well considering my results, and I feel as though I would have had a much smoother experience if I had been given some tips on the program before starting.
I think something crucial would have been to gain a sense of the amount of time and energy Vert Shock takes to complete, which would have helped with mentally preparing myself in advance.
This way, I could have also planned my schedule ahead of time in preparation for the next two months, but instead, I had to force the workout sessions into my schedule the best that I could (not that they take too long, averaging an hour or less, but I still had to find the time.)
I didn’t have much of a hard time following the schedule and getting proper rest, but at times I did push back workouts a day or two so that I could make time for my body to recover.
That was also another tip that would have been helpful; going into the program, I hadn’t done much exercise previously, so doing a bit of plyometrics before starting could have better prepared my body for the activities to come.
Vert Shock Pros And Cons
After a few weeks on the Vert Shock maintenance system, I had still retained my results from the program, and the workouts during this time were a nice change of pace.
It was a step down from the intense exercises you perform in the actual Vert Shock course, and all the while, I maintained my 29-inch vertical jump from when I first finished the program.
Looking back on Vert Shock as a whole, there was a lot that I liked; the course does a great job of getting you results quickly.
However, now that I’ve had some time to simmer down from all of the intense exercises and collect my thoughts on the program, I can see some areas of the training that just could have been handled better.
Cons
Let’s take a moment to talk about the cons that exist with this program. I want to be as transparent as possible with my experience, even if I did get good results.
Requires a Decent Time Dedication
The entire training takes course over two months; during those two months, your energy is going to for the most part sapped.
Although the program’s duration is short relative to other jump programs, the time spent completing the program is equally as demanding.
As such, you need to take some time to put aside where you can focus on the training.
I would advise against trying to do much else since, during this interval, you’re going to be both mentally and physically exhausted.
I know I was, and if you don’t put your all into the training, it’s unlikely you’ll achieve much.
Also, try to follow the program as best as you can; that is, look at your timing on the program to make sure you’re up to pace with what is expected (unless you feel as though your body is being overtrained.)
Getting excellent results in such little time requires you to put in lots of time and energy, but you don’t have to follow everything exact; prioritize your health before anything else.
Not Recommended For Select Groups
If you’re over the age of about 30 or are injury-prone, then I think it’s in your best interest to look for a slower program, such as The Jump Manual.
Vert Shock has an incredibly strict and intense workout routine to deliver on its promise of dunking in 8 weeks.
There’s a great deal that is required of you both mentally and physically, and if you feel that pressure could pose harm to your health or is just a bit too much for you to handle, then I would advise either going at a slower pace or going with an alternative.
Not Much Research Provided
Although not too big of a deal, there’s a fundamental lack of scientific information regarding how we reach such a high vertical jump (this is aside from the 2B muscle fibers which aren’t expanded on beyond their inclusion).
Everything is much more oriented towards you doing than learning, which is understandable; considering the timeframe of the course, there isn’t much available time to dedicate towards education.
With this program, quick and outstanding results are promised, but as for a detailed explanation of how the program grows your vertical and the science behind 2B muscle fibers, that’s best found elsewhere.
Pros
Although there were a few prevalent issues that could have been touched on, I can’t deny that the program still does a fantastic job of supplying you with what you need to go from barely jumping to being an explosive beast.
Two Months Of Exercise
This is probably heralded as the program’s biggest upside, and that’s the time it takes to complete it.
Relative to pretty much every other jump training program available, Vert Shock is by far the most efficient, making use of such a narrow window of time to deliver equally jaw-dropping results.
Thanks in part to its unique approach to plyometrics training, you can see results quickly and even complete training sessions in under an hour, massively loosening the overall time constraints.
No Gym Required
Being that Vert Shock is a plyometrics-oriented program, it does not make use of weight training, and as such, none of the exercises in this program requires the use of gym equipment, so everything can pretty much be done from home or at a local park.
This is great since it saves you the time and money spent on either a gym membership or gym equipment, letting you get into training quick and easy.
You could, however, choose to purchase the “Complex Training Routines,” which is a separate module that was made to include more advanced exercises that make use of weight training.
Program Is Easy To Follow
Vert Shock is transparent in its approach; follow the workout plan laid out in the pdfs, look at videos if you need a reference on how to perform the exercise, and repeat this process for the next eight weeks.
At the same time, remember to be well-rested and eat healthily.
The videos are just the exercises, nothing more, and the workout plans are kept plain and simple.
Everything is done in an attempt to maintain an efficient system, and it works.
So if you can follow this simple system, then you’re good to go.
Easy To Follow Videos And Good Website Navigation
All of the videos are recorded in full HD and are made easy to understand; each video is also replayed a second time at a slower speed so that you can pinpoint the form used more accurately.
The hub from where you access all of the videos and pdfs has a great layout with a designated section for each part of the course, making navigation across the site a cinch.
Workout Variety
Although we’re training to increase our vertical, and as such, focus mainly on our hops, Vert Shock includes more than just jumping.
The variety of workouts leaves you pretty well rounded, and because of the exercises you perform, they have other benefits such as you leaving lean and in better shape than when you started.
Especially considering it takes a plyometrics-oriented approach, the selection of exercises, and the formulation of each session maximizes the work you put in.
Conclusion
Will Vert Shock work for you?
Well, if you’re on the lookout for a vertical jump program that can lead to a considerable improvement in your vertical leap, and has little to no requirements for equipment, then Vert Shock will work wonders.
I’ve seen people go through the program a second time and continue to see an increase, but imagine what an already staggering increase of 9 to 15 inches could do for you.
That being said, it is one of the more intensive training programs available, specializing specifically in jumping higher.
That means that you’ll have a lot more workouts focused on your legs and core, making it imperative to be careful in using proper form and performing the activity correctly to avoid getting injured.
But to answer your question, I think the program will work for you, or it’ll at least get you that insane increase in vertical that it promises, as it did for me.
