This one was just me. No guest, no co-host, just me, Dylan Haugen, catching everybody up on where my dunking has been over the past year, because it has been all over the place. Three months ago I was dunking on 8-foot rims off my wrong foot because my knee would not let me do anything else. Now I am getting ready for the biggest dunk contest ever put together. Here is the whole ride, the good stretches and the bad ones, in order.
I have been honest about being inconsistent with the podcast lately, so if you are a dunker who wants to come on, message me, because I am trying to get at least one person a week from here on out. A lot of the recent content has come from being around other guys, like the sessions I did with Cam Hazzard, and the interviews I filmed at The Dunk Camp.
Last Summer: Chasing My Weaknesses
A year ago I was in a good place. I was consistent with my dunks, hitting Between the Legs, Behind the Back, and 360 Windmill, but I honestly was not improving much. So I put my focus on my two biggest weaknesses, my off-dribble and my left hand, and it paid off with my first off-dribble Behind the Back and Eastbay on a 9’10.75” rim. Around then I flew to North Carolina for about ten days and trained with Travis Reynolds, Ben Hopkins, and Bishop Ukata. Being around like-minded people every single day is the fastest way I know to level up.
A Stretch of Travel, Shows, and Contests
When I got back I hit a run of events. I did a dunk show at the Daniel Freetag camp and closed it with a Dubble Up Elbow, then flew to LA and dunked with Dunkademics and Dom, and went at Vier Sunday in a dunk-horse setup at Venice Beach with some NBA guys watching. I also found a gym near me, H4 Sports Academy in Edina, that has hosted some of my best sessions since, including a big one with a ton of the Minnesota Dunk Squad guys.
The contest highlight of that stretch was an Inverted Scorpion over somebody, which as far as I know had never been done in a contest before. That is a dunk I first messed with on low rims years ago. Jordan Kilganon may well have done it on a low rim before me, but I brought it to 10 feet and then to a contest, which meant a lot. I kept the momentum into the fall and went back-to-back at the Nickel Dickle contest in Waconia, and across all of 2025 I did not lose a single dunk contest besides the one at Dunk Camp.
The Knee Injury That Cost Me Months
Then it turned. First an annoying ankle thing, then, on one of my last jumps at a huge fifteen-person session, I felt something deep at the bottom of my left patella tendon that I had never felt before. Every tendon injury feels like the end of the world the first time, and this one dragged. I got back to feeling good right before a big contest in Maryland, got flown out, and did really well, hitting Between the Legs, a Dubble Up X over three people, and a Dubble Up Elbow to close.
The problem is what happened after. I tweaked that same spot in my knee again, and this time it was months. For a long stretch I could not even jump off my normal plant. I was going to the gym on Saturdays and dunking on 8 feet off my wrong foot just to feel athletic, then benching and doing muscle-ups because that was all I could do. Every time I thought I was back, I did something dumb like a staff basketball game or a few no-warmup dunks at a Globetrotters event and set myself right back.
The Comeback: PRs and New Dunks
I finally broke the cycle on a random day when I tested my vertical almost as an afterthought and PRed at a 42-inch running vert on a jump that did not even feel maxed out. That gave me the confidence to push, and from there it snowballed. I started stacking sessions: my first 360 Between the Legs off-dribble, my first Underboth since early 2025, my first 360 Eastbay off-dribble, and eventually my first 360 Windmill. One session I hit six new dunks in a single day, including a two-hand Dwight tap and a handoff 180 Eastbay first try.
The theme I have talked about for years finally clicked. I had done everything I could at my old vertical and just needed a few more inches to unlock the next tier, and this was the stretch where those inches showed up. Suddenly 360 Underboth, 360 Inverter, and 360 Behind the Back all felt within reach instead of like far-off goals.
Fixing My Weak Quads in the Weight Room
Someone in a reaction video guessed I probably do not strength train properly, which is fair since I never talk about it. I train under JumpX with Tom Barnes and Austin Young, and have since I was fifteen. Coming out of the knee injury I realized my quads were badly weak, so I hammered leg extensions up to 140 pounds each leg and worked deep belt squats from about 158 pounds all the way up past 290. That base is a big reason I could handle two real jump sessions a week again, which is a lot of volume for me.
DunkMan Media Day and Dunk Camp
The best session of the whole run lined up perfectly, healthy and deloaded at a super nice gym in Wisconsin, where I hit a 360 Eastbay off-dribble first try and one of my best Windmills ever. Not long after, I got flown to Atlanta for DunkMan League Media Day with Mac McClung, Shelly McEwen, Doug Anderson, Cam, and fifteen-plus other guys, and on my day to dunk I hit Double V Space, a Hide and Seek, and an Underboth first try off a lob.
Then came Dunk Camp, where I dunked mostly with Piotr Zawislak and Nate, all three of us the same age and all going crazy. I hit my first Windmill Elbow off a handoff and hung, plus a 360 Scoop off a lob. I also got to do a presentation with Dennis Yu on personal branding, AI, and social media for dunkers, which ties right into why I document all of this in the first place.
Prepping for the Biggest Dunk Contest Ever
That brings me to now. I am officially in the DunkMan League, Shaq’s new league, competing against the best dunkers in the world for 500,000 dollars. Just being there is wild to me. These next few sessions are about feeling out which dunks I have consistent enough to actually throw in the biggest contest ever assembled. If you follow the sport, this is the moment it has been building toward, and I could not be more excited to be part of it.
If you want the earlier chapters of this story, I broke down how I changed my training after turning 18, and there are more guests and DunkMan athletes coming to the show soon. If you are a dunker who wants on, reach out.