This is episode 4 of the Dunk Talk Podcast. I’m Dylan Haugen, joined by my co-host Hunter Castona, and our guest is Josh Ruble, a 22-year-old, 6’0”, 190-pound dunker whose progression over the last two years has been one of the cleanest I’ve watched in real time. When I first saw Josh, he was maybe Windmilling. Since then he’s landed Dubble Ups, a J-Rich, Eastbays, a left-hand Eastbay, a behind-the-back, plus 15+ other new dunks. He’s also racking up some of the most impressive weight room numbers in the dunk world: 405 back squat, 260 power clean, 455 deadlift, 500-pound calf raise.
Background and what got him into it
Josh grew up playing basketball, football, and baseball. Baseball didn’t stick. Football did. He always had a love-hate thing with basketball but he loved jumping, which is the part that survived. His framing on the episode is one I’ve started using: if you’re going to dunk without playing basketball, the structured jumping route is way easier on your body than playing 30+ pickup games on top of your training cycle.
Josh’s main inspiration was Isaiah Rivera. His first memory of a dunker is Isaiah in his driveway jumping over his siblings. He thought that was the coolest thing in the world and tucked it in the back of his head. The other early influence was Jordan Kilganon through Instagram, back when the platform only let you post one video at a time and personal accounts (not dunk-specific ones like “josh.dunks”) carried all the dunk content.
First dunk at 15, off-one, off-one only for a while
Josh got his first dunk at 15, sophomore year of high school, a couple months before turning 16. He’d grabbed rim earlier that same year. Seven or eight months later he was dunking off one with one hand, which is how he jumped exclusively at the time. He couldn’t off-two at all yet. He’d been lifting since right after eighth grade (he was 5’7”, 115 pounds at the start) and is at 6’0”, 190 now. Eight straight years of lifting before he was even thinking about it as a dunk-training thing.
His regret from this period is the same one a lot of guys our age have. His dad would get mad if Josh lowered the rim. He’d sneak it down when his dad was at work and raise it back up before he got home. Even when he did lower it, he was just doing one-handers and two-handers, no Windmills, no trick dunks. He didn’t hit his first Windmill until senior year of high school, and he hit it on 10′ for the first time he ever tried, never having practiced it on a low rim. That’s an absurd path to take to a first Windmill and it’s also why low-rim practice came up on this episode the way it does on every other one. Hunter and I have both said it: the dunkers who don’t get the low-rim window have to make it up later by either grinding sessions on a real rim or by doing technique work against a wall without jumping. Josh has been doing the wall work since I recommended it.
Two years of consistent sessions, starting January 2022
Josh’s first “session” was him setting his phone up on a chair with a backpack behind it to record the rim, Snapchat-quality footage, by himself, in January 2022. From there it’s been roughly two years of consistent sessions with a three-to-four-month break in the middle (more on that below). When he started those sessions, his bag was a one-hander, a two-hander, and a reverse. That’s it. The Windmill from senior year was gone. The technique was gone. It rebuilt from there.
His sessions have grown. The most recent one at his old high school gym had 12 people tagged in the video (10 of them able to throw down at least a one-hander) plus actual fans in the stands watching. Josh’s mom is a coach at that school, his sister still goes there, and the athletic director is the kind of guy who hears “some serious dunkers are coming over” and puts the bleachers down for the audience. It’s a really good gym arrangement and a model for what local dunk sessions can look like if you have the right connection.
THP, the four-month break that was the worst mistake
Josh started THP in April 2022. He ran it for six to eight months and then took a three-to-four-month break because he got burnt out on dunking. He calls that break the worst mistake he’s made in the last two years. The reason isn’t that THP is the only program that works. The reason is that stopping the jumping entirely sent his progression backwards. He came back to THP after the break and has been on it consistently for about a year and a half. He gives THP direct credit for his jump height climb and for the way he learned to power clean.
This is the same point Hunter and I keep landing on across episodes: programs work when you actually run them. They don’t work when you take the “I know better, I’ll swap this exercise” approach (which I have done many times). The fix isn’t a better program. The fix is accountability, whether it’s a coach, a streak, or the dunk community watching.
Lifting numbers that genuinely turn heads
Josh’s weight room ceiling came out of football. Power clean technique, squat technique, the foundation of his strength all came from his high school football strength coach. Then he stacked another 6+ years of training on top.
His all-time peaks:
- 405 back squat with a belt
- 260 power clean
- 250 hang clean
- 315 front squat with a belt
- 500 calf raise
- 315–320 bench press (he can hit 275 any given day right now)
- 455 deadlift, with the goal of 500
Josh’s current numbers are a bit lower than the all-time peaks because he’s actively cutting body weight to improve his relative strength and his vertical. He’s already dropped 10–15 pounds of mass that he says wasn’t translating to vertical, which is one of the more honest training trades I’ve seen a dunker make.
The Missouri session with Donovan
The week before recording, Hunter went down to Missouri to dunk with Josh and Donovan Hawkins. Josh said it was the most fun he’d ever had dunking. Donovan kept calling out Josh’s style. Josh would lose a ball, barely save it, finish a one-hander, and Donovan would say “the style on that was crazy.” Josh said his J-Rich looked better than Donovan’s. Donovan’s response: “yeah, you did the splits more.” Then he hit a J-Rich first try anyway. Josh and Hunter both lost the ball on their attempts.
Donovan also tried Josh’s ball, which Josh keeps over-inflated because his strategy on lobs is to throw the ball above the rim and chase it. Donovan started bouncing the ball on the court because of how much air was in it, almost hit a bounce dunk first try, and the whole story is the kind of detail you only get from session footage. Donovan’s own episode is one of our favorites: how Donovan Hawkins became one of the best dunkers in the world.
Goals heading into Dunk Camp (Wisconsin) and beyond
Josh is going to the Wisconsin Dunk Camp this summer. His running vertical goal is 44″ (he tested 40–42 on a Verttec two years ago). He doesn’t care about standing vertical, which I agree with. The Verttec sessions are about your max-approach number.
Dunk goals are:
- Short-term: a legit 360 Windmill from a different angle (his current version is more like a 180 because he can’t fully rotate yet).
- Mid-term: the Elbow dunk. He’s grabbed rim with his elbow twice in his life. By all accounts he should be hitting this, and Hunter and I told him as much on the episode.
- Long-term: Underboth (Donovan’s suggestion), eventually a 48″ vertical. At 6’0”, a 48″ vertical puts his head at the rim.
Bigger picture, Josh isn’t actively chasing the contest scene. He’d enter one if it presented itself naturally, but he doesn’t consider himself contest-consistent yet. He’s open to entering the Dunk Camp contest and seeing what happens. His framing matches Hunter’s on Ep 3: you’re not really a pro until you beat one, and the rest is just chasing how high you can humanly jump.
Influences and who Josh studies
For Josh, the technique study list is Kilganon and Isaiah (same plant as him, both his earliest inspirations). For style, it’s Tyler Curry and Connor Barton, with Donovan as the newer name. The throwback list is Jonathan Clark (older era, same plant, very productive into his 30s), Reemix (left-right, his scoops off the backboard are still some of the most ridiculous variations on a Dubble Up the dunk world has documented), and T-Dub / Team Flight Brothers.
The NBA list is shorter, mostly because Josh shares my opinion that the NBA dunker vertical claims are inflated by 5–10 inches. (Michael Jordan’s 48″? If that were true, his head would be six inches above the rim. His head was over the rim sometimes. Six inches above it, no.) For functional jumping comparison Josh names LeBron, who his dad has an unlikely connection to (his dad was the team doctor for LeBron’s sophomore-year high school football team in Akron). For pure dunking talent inside the league he lists Derrick Jones Jr., Mac McClung, and Zach LaVine. He calls them basically pro dunkers in NBA jerseys.
Josh has also been studying Travis Reynolds’ technique, specifically the short penultimate step that Josh shares. Travis was the first dunk account Josh ever followed and the reason Josh eventually started his own. He’s on our Travis Reynolds episode.
The Dylan + Kilganon 10,000-times story
One of the things that surprised me about Josh’s journey is that the route into the dunk community is different for every one of us, and mine is honestly embarrassing in hindsight. Back when I had a small YouTube channel (about 700 subs) and was trying to figure out why my videos weren’t getting views, I saw another small creator reach out to a big YouTuber with “I’ll say your name 100,000 times if you give me a shout-out.” I figured I’d do a smaller version: 10,000 times.
I messaged about 20 people on Instagram. I didn’t know who Jordan Kilganon was. I just saw he had followers and that the content was basketball-adjacent. He was one of the people I messaged. He said yes. I sat through a three-hour livestream saying “Jordan Kilganon” 10,000 times. The video is still up on YouTube.
That’s the moment I scrolled through Kilganon’s account and went “oh, pro dunking exists, and that’s exactly what I want to do.” Kilganon’s shout-out also got me past 1,000 subscribers. I still talk to him. I’ve never brought up the livestream. Full episode on his GOAT case here: how Jordan Kilganon became the greatest dunker of all time. (Two years after that livestream I ended up signing with Shaq’s DunkMan League as the youngest pro dunker in the world, which is still wild to type.)
Who Josh wants to see in person next
The list of dunkers Josh most wants to see in person besides Kilganon and Isaiah: the entire Utah dunk crew, 1FootGod (Jordan Southerland) at Dunk Camp this year, Dan Gross (left-right, Josh has been studying him since he was still in college), and the North Carolina guys including Travis Reynolds. Hunter and I are also setting up an episode with T-Dub, who is still lowering rims sometimes at almost 38 years old, which is its own story.
Where to find Josh
Josh is “josh.dunks” on Instagram and YouTube. Those are his two main platforms. Go give him a follow. Hunter is “hunter.dunks” on the same platforms. Minnesota Dunk Squad has its own channel as well, and we’ve got more guests lined up including Donovan, T-Dub, and most of the people who showed up on this episode by name. Leave a comment if there’s someone specific you want me and Hunter to interview next.