Is it possible to dunk at 55

I have a friend whose father, at age 50, is trying to dunk. Between games I pick up a ball and start shooting. So I get a rebound, do a little power dribble in the paint and, sure enough, throw it down. I put the ball down and walked out. I can still do that. That bounce. That little bit of meanness you need. After four months of failing to pull off anything even resembling a real dunk, the planets aligned on Aug. The original basketball, incidentally, was a soccer ball, property of Dr.

Video from that afternoon shows me standing there, looking confused, in the moment afterward. Did that just happen? Failing had become so routine that even this small success felt foreign. I knew I could never swing my arms that pendulously, that fast, while palming a basketball. I sent a video of my soccer ball dunk to Todd, the fivefivedunker, who informed me that I was leading with the wrong leg. Nicholson was one of dozens of YouTubers, young and old mostly young , who were documenting online their attempts to dunk.

The way Arthur J. Carter long-jumped some 12 feet, right foot leading the way, before landing for a nanosecond and blasting off into his two-footed ascent. Ever since I was a kid trying to dunk, I never aimed for the rim. I tried to jump toward the top of the backboard. Aim for the moon and get the stars, right?

I never worked on my legs in high school or middle school. I would just go through this routine over and over and over, visualizing that day when you dunk on the court. And then you live in that moment. Thirteen failed attempts later, I did it again. Then two more times, each one an unexpected thunderclap. A lob to myself off the backboard? A big bounce off the blacktop? Imperfect as my two options were, I had to choose one and commit.

I had kids to raise, other projects to work on, an impending hip replacement to schedule. What if someone lobbed it for me , though? But it was on the table. My main task was still finding a way to jump higher. The days and jumps and deadlifts and calf raises rolled on, rep by rep, protein shake by protein shake.

Six months became seven, then eight. To protect my right hand, I began wearing a canvas gardening glove with the fingers cut off. The rims where I toiled belonged to me now, such that I barely noticed the toddlers wobbling nearby, the skateboarders swirling around me as day turned to dusk, the elderly couple ambling arm in arm, looking for all the world like my wife helping me to the shower on the morning after a double day.

If you think I was above circling the date and scouring the Internet to find my precise window of zero gravity, you are mistaken. When I finally opened it last December, I was further dissuaded. These self-immolations, Grover wrote, would last for three months. When I phoned Grover and explained what I was up to, he dug right in. Helping people do the physically impossible is his stock-in-trade. They want gratification right now. Grover had not built his empire by misleading clients or blowing smoke between their glutes.

I followed the Jump Attack program to the letter, and my training in December, January and February looked and felt nothing like what had preceded it. I spent a month doing those nonsensical lunge holds and squat holds, push-up holds, chin-up holds.

After a one-week recovery period in January following Phase 1 of Jump Attack , Phase 2 brought an increase in intensity and time investment. This was the last stop before Phase 3, the wilderness where those attack depth jumps lived. Attack depth jumps: Rest on your knees in front of a box; explode to your feet without using your hands; immediately jump onto the box; immediately jump as high as you can off the box, landing on the balls of your feet.

Many times. No blacking out allowed. Phase 3 brought dramatic increases in both explosiveness and hip flexibility, two critical ingredients that I started to feel working in tandem.

I emerged both confident and in dire need of another one-week recovery period, which I spent playing with our kids, watching dunk videos and mouthing the syllable Ow.

There would be no more lifting. After Jump Attack , what else could there possibly be? From here on, I just jumped and recovered, jumped and recovered, attacking this tiny window of three or four weeks before my time away from the gym began to sap my strength.

It would be over at that point, all over, whether I wanted it to be or not. I was still doing calf raises every night, only now I did them with a pound sandbag on my shoulders. But when it comes to dunking, standing reach is everything! We have looked at NBA Draft Combine statistics from to and looked at how the reach-to-height ratio standing reach divided by height varied among players.

As you can see from the graph, NBA prospects are skewed towards the right. In other words, Basketball appears to favor players with longer arms. The other factor that determines whether or not you can dunk is your vertical jump.

You too can find out how to measure your vertical jump. This part is more interesting, because whereas height and reach are genetically determined, your vertical jump can be trained. There are plenty of training programs out there that can significantly boost your vertical. The one I personally had most success with is Vert Shock, and you can read more about my experience with the program.

Below is a small infographic that gives you an idea of how your standing vertical jumps measures up. Note: A run-up will typically add between inches. While not impossible, dunking at this height will be tough for most people.

Popular examples are Nate Robinson and Spud Webb. However, attaining this level of physicality will be tough. The muscles in my arms are getting weaker from the disease, I can tell. My outside shot has diminished some. But I still have bad days and good days. I don't believe my legs have been affected. Maybe Buck Johnson and Trent Richardson, who showed up at my tournament in July, can advise me on dunking.

I hear there are machines today that target specific muscles that can help. I don't want to buy a super expensive machine though especially if it has dubious outcomes. I want to dunk. I want to rise up 8 inches above the rim palming the ball and slam it through. I am reserving the right to use a slightly smaller women's ball. Dear readers please respond but remember it's not official yet, until I do a little more research. Archibald Googled 'who is the oldest dunker?

J' Erving can still dunk. Not sure that gives me much comfort. The best dunker in NBA history can still dunk. Here's how I break it down:. Against me: Disease and age. Favorable to me: I used to be able to grab the rim about 30 years ago.

I am 6 feet and one-half of an inch tall.