The Vertical Project Jump Program Review

Written by Jack Woodrup for VerticalJumping.com

The Vertical Project is one of, if not, the best selling jump program on the market today. It makes many bold claims, the biggest being that it can double your vertical leap. Is it any good? Er, no actually!

Quality of Information

In terms of overall comprehensiveness across all the important aspects of a training program (training, recovery, and nutrition), the Vertical Project is well covered.

It goes into detail examining the jumping motion itself, how to specifically train each phase of a jump, the different training techniques, and the very important principles of recovery including supplementation, rest, and recuperation through its Window Plan.

The Window Plan is actually quite interesting. It has incorporated just about every recovery technique known to man. Whilst this is good to a certain degree, it does seem like an exercise in "thud factoring". The thud factor is when people write great big long reports just to impress people by the loudness of the thud as you plonk it on the desk.

The Window plan has so many different recovery techniques in it that it would be virtually impossible to do them all out (which I suspect is just one of the many reasons why nobody has ever been able to claim the refund). It also ignores that fact that you will get about 95% of the recovery benefit just by eating right, getting plenty of sleep, and doing some light stretching. All of the stuff about magnetic mattresses and sleeping with the window open, is, excuse the pun, just window dressing, and in our opinion is designed to 1) make it impossible to do and therefore impossible to claim your refund, and 2) to make Luke Lowery seem smarter than he is.

In terms of exercise selection the Vertical Project covers a lot of ground that should target in some way all the major jumping muscles. It incorporates the standard jump/plyometrics, weights, as well as some emerging techniques such as pool training and isometrics.

On the downside of exercise selection, the Vertical Project advises that you train 6 days per week. 3 days dedicated to the upper body and 3 days dedicated to the lower body. To put it bluntly, this is way too much emphasis on the upper body.

Training your upper body for so many days just eats into your recovery time. For more information about an appropriate upper body regime in a jump program you can read our article dedicated to the topic: Upper Body Training

Customization

Despite its bold claims of being customized to the individual athlete, the training program as described, is essentially just a list of exercises. The only part of the program that is customizable to the individual athlete is that set and reps schemes is based on your UPN (Uncompromised Performance Number - which in non-hyperbole speak is just a fancy way of saying 'pre-testing') scores.

The UPN's are hardly revolutionary. Basing your program on an athletes capabilities at the beginning has been around for a while. I mean seriously, if athlete can only squat a 1RM of 200 pounds you are not going to prescribe him 250 pounds for 3 reps right off the bat.

This is disappointing because the author seems to know his training theory and should know better. Any athletic coach will tell you that when designing a program you need to take into account the needs of each individual athlete. Once size doesn't fit all. But then again, the author of this program has never really let the truth get in the way of making a sale.

Another unfortunate criticism of the Vertical Project is that the program doesn't allow for the possibility that some athletes coming into it may already be relatively strong in some areas and weak in others. There seems to some big assumptions made about the athletes relative abilities that will effect how well they do with this program.

Packaging

The Vertical project comes as a downloadable ebook. It is set up into a number of volumes with plenty of pictures showing the exercises. It does have some links to external web sites which whilst clever, is a bit lazy and looks unprofessional. It also doesn't help that some of the links are no longer valid.

Some of the pictures are also a bit out of focus or badly lit indicating that they may have been taken a while ago as digital imagining technology has come along way.

Generally speaking though the format is easy to follow, broken up into easy to refer to sections, well written, and the download is pretty straight forward process.

Value For Money

This is the area that really lets the program down. It previously cost $297 which was a ridiculous price to pay. It is currently selling for $97 which is obviously much cheaper, but unfortunately, for this program, is also still too much to pay.

The Vertical Project comes with a number of interesting bonuses. The nutrition guide in particular covers all the bases any aspiring athlete should know when setting their diet. The abdominals ebook that comes with this program is also a nice read, although not in any way shape or form relevant to improving your vertical jump.

There is also a bonus about altitude jumps (sometimes known as shock jumps), and also the authors so called super secret exercise - 1 legged hyper extensions. All are enjoyable enough reads although none of them are anything to get too excited about.

The author previously justified the high price on the grounds that his program is so amazingly awesome and ground breaking that $297 is a small amount to pay for a freakish vertical jump. The sad reality is that it isn't really that awesome, nor is it that ground breaking. Even at $97 it is over priced and in no way represents particularly good value for money.

The high price of the Vertical Project also serves another more dubious purpose that we discuss in our must read report on jump program marketing tricks.

One Last Thing - You Can't Trust This Guy

We can't really review the Vertical Project without first addressing a few issues we have with its author. Firstly, he is a salesman. There is nothing wrong with that in itself, but you should be warned. He is the Don King of the jump training world. Great at self promotion, but somehow always leaves you with a bad taste in his mouth.

If you visit his website he makes some of the most ridiculous claims we have ever read. Our personal favorite is this

"many freely comparing him to the Godfather of Eastern bloc athletic and plyometric training Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky and to outstanding Polish Olympic coach Tadeusz Starzynski."

Just who are these "many" making these ridiculous claims. Nobody in their right mind would seriously compare a guy who spruiks a dodgy creatine pill, kung fu programs, and an over priced, over hyped jump program with a world reknowned coach and sports scientist. Just be very aware, this guy uses every trick in the book to get you to buy his product. It really isn't worth the money.

Conclusion

In looking at the Vertical Project as a whole (obviously ignoring its stupidly inflated price) it is a decent enough program. It has some quality training advice, its section on recovery is very thorough, and if you follow it, you will probably add some inches to your vertical.

Will the program meet its marketing claims and show you how to double your leap? Highly unlikely. The mathematical explanation of how you would go about doubling your vertical as described by the author is utterly ridiculous and flat out does not translate to results in the real world. It is basically a form of escalating density training (EDT) which means more work, less time, often at the expense of quality of work.

That aside, if you want an all in one package and don't mind wasting a lot of money, The Vertical Project will meet your needs. Is it the amazing breakthrough in jump training that the author makes it out to be? No, not even close.

If you want to find out some more information then click on the link below:

The Vertical Project: Double Your Vertical Leap Program

Have you used this program?

Have you used this jump program? What sort of results did you see? Did you feel you got your moneys worth? Was the review made by VerticalJumping.com helpful and accurate? The reviews here are just our opinions and we would love to know your thoughts on this program to help others make a more informed decision. Please share your experience with your fellow vertical jump enthusiasts.

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What Other Visitors Have Said

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Avoid TVP. It is Rubbish 
I personally have not tried the vertical project but have read luke lowry's free master class and some of his other stuff that is up on the internet right ...

Not worth the money 
I suppose if you followed this program completely all the way through you would add quite a few inches to your vertical. However, if you have a seperate ...

The vertical Project: Is Luke Lowrey even his real name? 
Now I don't consider my self the smartest crayon in the box. I may not know how to be a "vertical jump expert or Guru" but I do know if the person who ...

Waste of Money 
It is kinda hard to understand what he wants you to do. I want a program that gets right to the point with the exercises, the rest you need and nutrition....

TVP gives you a lot of knowledge. You can use it or throw it away. 
I purchased the Vertical Jump Project about a month ago and at first I was kinda skeptical about it. I skimmed through the program and thought that this ...

TVP is the best 
You guys are way off when you say he tries to seem like he knows his stuff. Well let me tell you. He does!

I used his program twice, first time I gained ...

TVP 
I dont know why you are telling people it is not worth it and you might only gain a couple inches. Ive gained more inches in one week than i have from ...

They Will Lock You In  Not rated yet
The product itself is good. However, and this is a big however, Luke locks you into his membership program and I have not been yet able to get out.

Here'...

This is my response to my first review  Not rated yet
TVP doesn't require you to squat relatively huge amount of weight and that's why I advise building a base first before using it. The program still has ...

Vertical Project Thoughts  Not rated yet
Vert Project
Good
1) A lot of good programs, and no limit to adding when you stall. 18 different leg programs and customization, great. I bought jump ...

The vertical project did not work for me  Not rated yet
I am 36 years old, 6' tall 210lbs Not American guy. Certainly I read all the advertising around TVP and can see clearly many tricks like authors said "I ...

It works...  Not rated yet
This program is great! You can get great results with this as long as you don't overtrain- I have recently cut the workouts by half and I'm gaining well....

TVP - Definitely not worth the money  Not rated yet
I bought this program several years ago, and while I didn't do the whole program, I did stick with it long enough (4 weeks) that I should have seen some ...

Didn't Work  Not rated yet
I did the entire 15 week program and did not gain a single inch.It also hurt my knees and back.I asked them for a refund and they wouldn't give me one....

Honest Review  Not rated yet
Do not buy the Vertical Project would be my advice to everyone....Its way overpriced..I have VertFreak and Vertical Jump Bible and they are a lot better ...

Luke Lowery has no class  Not rated yet
I bought this program after much debate because you just don't feel like you can trust Luke. He leaves you with a slimy, bad taste in the back of your ...