This is episode 28 of the Dunk Talk Podcast, just me and Hunter Castona on a topic episode. I’m Dylan Haugen, and the question we set ourselves was simple: if we were handed a kid between 9 and 13 who wants to dunk someday, what would we actually have them do? Both of us have strong opinions here because we both got parts of this right by accident and missed parts we’re still paying for. This is the full beginner playbook as we’d run it today.
Rule 1: Low rim first, and treat it as the main event
If you take one thing from this article, take this: at 9 to 13 years old, low-rim sessions are the training. Not a warmup for training. The training. Both Hunter and I built our base this way without knowing it. I was outside with a mini ball on a small hoop pretending to be NBA players. Hunter had a skills hoop in his unfinished basement and a door hoop before that. Neither of us thought we were building vertical. We were, massively.
Jump technique matters more than dunk technique at this age. If you want your first dunk, the reps that get you there are thousands of max-effort jumps on a rim you can actually finish on. There is no value in throwing yourself at 10’ every week when you’re not close. Get a rim where you make 3 or 4 dunks out of 10 attempts. When that becomes 7 or 8 out of 10, raise it. Repeat until the rim runs out of height. That ladder is also your progress tracker: if you were making 3 of 10 on 9’6” and two weeks later you’re making 8, you have hard evidence the training is working.
Rule 2: Don’t quit your other sports
Neither of us thinks a 10-year-old should specialize in dunking. Play everything. Hunter played basketball, baseball, and football through middle school. The motor patterns from other sports transfer in ways that surprise you later: Killer John credits soccer footwork as a big reason his approach is so clean, and Travis Slayen of the Utah Dunkers has one of the most aggressive penultimate steps in amateur dunking, which traces straight back to his soccer years. JaySmoove swam competitively until 21 and became a pro power dunker anyway.
That said, the single best combination for a future dunker is basketball plus low rim. Almost every elite dunker played basketball as a kid: Isaiah Rivera, Jordan Kilganon, Jordan Southerland, Smoove. Basketball teaches the plants (coaches literally drill left-right and right-left footwork), gives you in-game jumping reps, and builds the strength base that lets guys start dunking in college seemingly out of nowhere. Donovan Hawkins is the famous exception, and even he had years of low-rim volume.
The other reason not to quit: you have time. Chen from China is 39 and still dunking at a world-class level. Southerland is past 30 and arguably at his peak. The dunking career window is long. Childhood isn’t.
Rule 3: Puberty is a training variable
Everyone matures on a different clock and the difference is enormous. I went through puberty right as I started taking dunking seriously, which is a big part of why my early progress looked so fast: once you hit that window your vertical can climb five inches with no training change at all, and your capacity to train hard jumps with it. My brother is two years younger and several inches shorter than I was at his age. Different clock, same genes. If you’re 12 and frustrated that older kids are out-jumping you, a lot of what you’re seeing is biology timing, not destiny. Keep stacking reps and be ready when your window opens.
Rule 4: Learn lifting technique years before you lift heavy
I learned squat and power clean technique around 12 or 13 from a trainer, and it’s one of the luckiest breaks of my training life. Hunter learned Olympic lifts late, in a crowded high school class where the teacher couldn’t watch anyone closely, and the cost was real: when he started THP he spent nine months stuck pulling 135 on power cleans because his technique capped him. Once he stripped the weight down and rebuilt the movement (hip drive, shrug, getting under the bar), he went from 135 to 205 in about four months. The strength was there the whole time. The technique was the bottleneck.
So the recommendation for a young kid: learn the movements early (squat, lunge, deadlift, power clean, even snatch) with an empty bar or light load, purely as skill practice. Around 13 or 14, start loading progressively. Neither of us is a certified strength coach and you should treat the exact ages with appropriate skepticism, but “technique years before load” is the principle we’d both bet on.
Rule 5: Record yourself and study the best
The highest-leverage free habit in jump training: record every session and compare your footage side-by-side with the best jumpers who share your plant. I’m left-right, so my references are Kilganon and Isaiah. I look at pump height, transfer location, block foot, penultimate length, approach speed. The details you can’t feel in the moment are obvious on video.
Two caveats. First, elite technique isn’t uniform: Travis Reynolds jumps with a very short penultimate and Kilganon pushes a huge one, and both get extremely high, so your body will settle into its own version. Tom Barnes has one of the least conventional techniques in pro dunking and has flight times close to 50 inches. Second, “it feels comfortable” is not validation. My between-the-legs on a 7’6” rim feels great when I do the whole transfer near the floor, and that version would never survive on 10’. Comfortable and correct overlap less than you’d hope at the start. Model the best, keep what survives at full intensity.
Rule 6: Upper body helps more than people admit (and you won’t get “too big”)
Hunter’s experience: when he added calisthenics and upper-body work, his dunk power and hand speed visibly improved, and lifts like power cleans got easier. Shoulders and back are the priorities, especially back, because spin dunks and big transfers load the spine and dunkers’ backs fail constantly (Hunter’s has, Travis Reynolds’ famously did). Maxing bench does nothing for your vertical; build useful upper-body strength, not mirror strength.
And on the “don’t get too big for jumping” worry: for a natural athlete it’s nearly impossible. Tom Barnes is huge, lifts heavy in every category, and is nowhere near too big to jump. Out of a million serious jumpers maybe five would ever hit that ceiling. The thing that actually matters is body fat. Stay lean, ideally near or under 10-12 percent. Bulk in blocks if you need strength, but extra fat is dead weight on every jump, and the rare guys who jump high while heavy (think Zion Williamson) are coasting on technique foundations built when they were lighter.
The short version
- Low-rim sessions, three times a week, on a rim where you make 3-4 of 10. Raise it as you improve.
- Keep playing your sports, especially basketball. Specialize later.
- Expect puberty to bend your progress curve, in both directions, on its own schedule.
- Learn lifting technique at 12-13 with light loads. Load at 13-14+.
- Record everything. Compare against elite jumpers with your plant.
- Build shoulders and back, stay lean, and stop worrying about getting too big.
If you want the longer version of how this played out in my own training, episode 16 covers what I’d change if I restarted my own journey, and episode 23 breaks down the year I went from 37.5 to 41.5 inches. We’ll keep doing these topic episodes between interviews, so comment on YouTube with what you want covered next.