Chapter 9: The Lethal Jump Protocol
The lethal guide to integrating jump training into your protocol.
Longevity experts love talking about living forever. They obsess over supplements, optimiSe their sleep, track every biomarker, and pontificate about the science of aging. Meanwhile, they move like shit & get injured doing basic human activities.
Mike Israetel can deadlift decent weight but jumps like he's wearing concrete boots.
Andrew Huberman preaches about neuroplasticity while demonstrating the athletic coordination of a infant.
Ben Johnson and Brian Johnson spend fortunes on anti-aging protocols but can't perform explosive movements without looking like they're about to snap in half.
These are the people telling you how to live a long, healthy life. And they can't even jump.
Here's what they're missing: explosive power isn't just for athletes. It's the foundation of real-world resilience. It's what keeps you from rolling your ankle stepping off a curb. It's what prevents you from falling and breaking a hip at 70. It's what gives you the reactive strength to catch yourself when life throws you off balance.
You know what's not going to help you live longer? Being so detrained in explosive movement that you get injured doing everyday activities. You know what's not functional longevity? Moving through the world with fragility.
Real durability requires violent explosive power. The ability to generate force rapidly. To react to unexpected demands. To move with the kind of athletic capability that actually protects you from the injuries that derail longevity.
In this chapter, you are going to learn exactly how to develop explosive power, even if you have neglected this training quality for years.
WHY EXPLOSIVE POWER IS ESSENTIAL
FOR REAL WORLD DURABILITY
Every year after 30, you're losing motor neurons. The electrical connections that make you fast, powerful, and coordinated are systematically dying off.
Motor neuron loss: 1% annually, decreasing your ability to recruit muscle fibers quickly.
Neuromuscular junction degradation: Slower reaction times, reduced coordination.
Stretch-shortening cycle deterioration: Lost elasticity, disappearing reflexes, vanishing power.
The average man accepts this decline as natural. The Lethal Gentleman understands it's optional.
A 2024 meta-analysis found that jump training improves bone density MORE than traditional resistance training in older adults. The exact adaptation that prevents hip fractures that kill elderly people.
Yet the longevity industry peddles your supplements, peptides and half baked shitty training protocols, while completely ignoring the training method that most directly addresses age-related decline.
THE LETHAL JUMP STANDARDS
This entire piece is aimed towards teaching you how to build towards these explosive power metrics. The main focus on this piece will be both broad & vertical jump development, however the future pieces will also cover sprint development.
Let’s dive into how to develop lethal jump capacity.
THE 6 PHASE JUMPING FRAMEWORK
Below I am going to simplify a means of building your jump tolerance. This is applicable to someone who hasn’t done any form of jump training for many years, so no matter your level, you have an entry point.
PHASE 1- FOUNDATIONAL JUMPS
EXECUTION: 3-5x per week, 3-10 minutes
THE NEURAL REWIRING PREREQUISITE
Before you can generate explosive power, your nervous system must remember how to coordinate rhythmic, elastic movement.
Attemping higher intensity jumps without the foundation, will increase the risk of irritating the Achilles tendon, ligaments of the knee & can potentially heighten your risk of injury.
Jump rope is one of the most efficient tools ever created for rewiring your neurological system for elastic movement. Each revolution demands perfect synchronisation between visual tracking, hand rotation, and foot timing.
This is the same neural architecture that made Ali untouchable in the ring, Tyson devastatingly explosive, and Mayweather defensively supreme.
PROTOCOL INTEGRATION:
The easiest way to integrate this routine is part of a gym based warm up. I prescribe 3-5 minutes of jump rope for all of my clients, regardless of whether they are martial artists or not. If you have not done any jump training for years, you could even regress this down to 1-2 minutes when starting (and do it ~3x per week).
This foundation work is so critical that I've written an entire breakdown of how jump rope transforms your neurological system. You can read the complete analysis here: How Jump Rope Rewires Your Body to Become Lethal.
PROGRESSION MARKER: When you can skip rope continuously for 5 minutes with perfect rhythm and silent landings 3-5x per week, advance to Phase 2.
PHASE 2- POGO JUMPS
EXECUTION: 3-5 circuits of 10-20 reps (120-200 contacts per session)
POGOs train your ‘reactive strength’ at a fundamental level. The aim of this exercise is to build foot & ankle stiffness which is a necessity for sprinting, maximal jumps & some of the advanced power exercises we will be covering later on in this article.
Unlike the jump rope, we want to land with our entire foot on the ground to maximise stretch through the achilles, and we are also adding a multidirectional element by moving forwards & backwards.
Stand tall, slight bend in knees, and bounce vertically using only your ankles and calves. Your knees should barely move. Think of your lower legs as pogo sticks, all the action happens at the ankle joint.
PROGRESSION MARKER: I will keep this in clients protocols all year round as a warm up series, however if you are brand new to this style of training you can run this intensity for 4-8 weeks as your primary jump training.
PHASE 3 - CONCENTRIC JUMPS
EXECUTION: 3x per week, 3-10 reps