Do basketball players cut their calf muscles to jump higher ?

My friend thinks basketball players have surgery to shorten their calf muscles in order to jump higher , I think this is BS . Has anyone heard of this?Do basketball players cut their calf muscles to jump higher ?
From a strictly biological standpoint, that's just stupid. The muscle is what supplies the power to jump. When you remove muscle, you lose power, simple as that. Not to mention the painful recovery and physical therapy, and a knee that will never be as good as it was. You are very correct, it's total bullshit, call him on it :)
Your friend is wrong, and you are right.

From a thinking standpoint, consider that surgery is very expensive. I am sure that health insurance does not cover this type of operation.

Second, they type of surgery you are talking about is major surgery. So unless this baskball player's name happens to be Wolverine, we are talking about at least 4-6 MONTHS just sitting/laying around and doing nothing while the muscle repairs itself. (4-6 Months is a fast number. But I am using it for the sake of discussion. It actually takes much longer for a muscle to regrow)

Again, just kinda think about what such an operation would do. They would cut open the legs, take a piece of muscle out to shorten the calves, then somehow sew the muscles and tendons together. That's a grisly thought, and if surgeons could repair muscle like that, then why is Steve Francis out for the entire season because of a partially torn quadricep? The answer is it takes about 5 weeks for a small muscle to regrow and 8+ months for a big muscle to regrow.

After the 4-6 months, you would still need to rehab the muscle itself, and that's just the calves. You are doing basically nothing physical during that time (because you can't walk), so the rest of your body will be out of shape.

Finally, think about when this surgery is going to be done. No surgeon in the U.S. will do this type of unnecessary please-make-this-basketball-hopeful-jump鈥?operation on a kid. So that means you have to be 18.

It just would not make sense that a college player to be allowed to sit out and recover for a year, just to get an imagined 4-6 of vertical jump. Why would they spend time, money, and effort recruiting someone who is just going to sit there? Especially when there are countless other athletes banging on the door, begging for a chance to play basketball.

That was the thinking part. I'm sure there is more that can be said but the whole idea is that is just plain would not make sense to have surgery to jump higher.

Now for the physical part.

I am going to give credit to the Vertical Jump Bible to this information. I am paraphrasing. The calves play a surprisingly small role in jumping when you compare it to other parts of the body. Try locking your knees and jumping with just your calves. See how high you can jump. Now try keeping your toes up and try jumping without your calves at all. You will find that you jump higher with the other body parts minus your calves.

I do not want to turn this into a Vertical jump lesson, so I will just say that squatting 1 and a half times your body weight or more, is MUCh more important to jumping, then being able to calve raise 700 pounds.

So, I suppose you could say, well, I guess basketball players cut their thigh muscles to jump higher. I suppose if your friend is silly enough to think that basketball players cut their calves, he could say this.

Then, you would also want to consider that basketball players (and the very large majority of athletes) stretch. Stretching lengthens the muscle (at least for a short time). Why would they do this if a shorter muscle is better?

Your friend is probably thinking short muscles are more explosive. That's an anatomy lesson that probably got confused. Type-II b muscles or short muscles as they are called, are indeed more explosive. But that is not because they are "short." More correctly, they are muscles with "fast twitch fibers" and the number of those types of muscles a person has is pure, raw, and utter genetics.

You can train either muscle types to make what you have stronger, but the actual number/combination of fast twitch fibers to slow twitch fibers of what you have does not EVER change.

You have a very interesting friend.Do basketball players cut their calf muscles to jump higher ?
My friend, I am sorry to say but what your friend said was absolutely absurd. Cutting your calf muscle would do nothing to increase your vertical because by cutting your calf muscle you would be relieving the amount of force that can be exerted upon the court thrusting you into the air. ...... Hope I helped
I haven't heard of anyone doing this but I'm assuming NBA players earn their muscles through honest work in the gym. Besides, it's not just the calves that increase hops. The body has to work as one unit.Do basketball players cut their calf muscles to jump higher ?
YES!VEAL IS ALSO GOOD
they cant have a surgery that cuts muscles to be better player i dont know where ur friend heard that from
Your friend is wrong lol.
NO YOUR FRIEND IS A TRICK lol
haha wtf no
What on earth.. thats dumb... I agree that it is B.S... Have you seen Ray Allens Calf Muscles?