I’m Travis Reynolds, a professional dunker from North Carolina. Episode 21 of the Dunk Talk Podcast with Dylan Haugen and Hunter Castona was the first time I told my whole story in one place: the chubby kid years, the 40 pound cut, the ten months it took to land one dunk, and the injuries that shaped how I train now. The full episode is at the top of this page, and the show’s own write-up is over on the Dunk Talk episode article. Dylan also wrote a feature on my journey from his side of the mic. This is the short version in my own words.
A Chubby Kid Who Got Bit by Jumping
I grew up playing a handful of sports without being great at any of them. Some basketball, some flag football. Honestly, I was a chubby, overweight kid. The moment that changed everything was around 11 or 12, watching a classmate touch something on a hoop that I couldn’t. That flipped a switch. I stopped caring about being good at any one sport and started caring about how high I could get off the ground.
The summer of 2014 is when pro dunking really entered my world. I saw Jonathan Clark’s 360 Elbow at an LA Fitness and my whole framework for what was physically possible shifted. Around that same time I started following Isaiah Rivera, basically from his very first dunk, and tracked his progression in real time. Years later Dylan and Hunter did a whole episode on how Isaiah became the highest jumper in the world, and I can say I watched almost every step of it happen live.
First Dunk at 15, Then a Long Plateau
I got my first dunk on a 10 foot rim in April 2018, at 15 years old. Then I plateaued hard. For about a year and a half I was a one-hander and two-hander dunker only. No Windmills, no trick dunks. The reason was simple: I was jumping every single day with no structured training, no real warmup, and about 210 pounds of bodyweight crushing my knees.
By the end of 2019 my knees gave out. Textbook jumper’s knee. That low point turned into the inflection point of my whole career, because it pushed me to join THP, Isaiah’s training program, for treatment and training in one place.
THP and the 40 Pound Cut
THP gave me two things I had never had: real lifting consistency and structured load management. I went from 210 pounds at the end of 2019 to 170 by June 2020. Forty pounds in about six months, from cleaning up my diet and actually training instead of just jumping. That cut alone added real inches to my vertical, and it got me out of jumper’s knee at the same time.
Once the weight was off and the strength base was in place, the trick bag started to open. Windmills, Tomahawks, and then the dunk that became my thing.
Ten Months for One Dunk
The Behind the Back is the dunk I’m most known for. Half the comments on my videos are some version of “the Behind the Back.” What people don’t always see is what it cost. I worked that dunk from January 2020 to October 2020, every single session, on a low rim every day, and landed it after ten months of dedicated work. It was the “this is real” moment of my career.
That grind taught me the lesson I go back to constantly: the dunk you want is on the other side of a rep count most people won’t do. It’s the same approach that later got me through the Dunk Camp black band set, which I talk about in my article on off-hand training and the finger injury.
The North Carolina Dunk Squad
My home crew is the North Carolina Dunk Squad. Ben has been my best friend since we were 3 years old, and we started dunking together in 2014. Obi is our 6’6″ guy I met through Instagram. Dan Gross is about an hour and a half from me, and Sam comes in from the Raleigh area when scheduling works. We rotate between my YMCA, the blue gym, and High Point University’s practice facility when school is out.
The High Point gym is where I hit my Eastbay Elbow, on a flimsy rim the school eventually had to replace because Dan and I kept destroying it. It’s also where Jordan Kilganon and Isaiah came down during COVID for one of the most legendary North Carolina sessions ever recorded.
The Back Injury That Changed My Training
The hard injury I carry now is my back. It came from lifting, not dunking. An accumulation of bad barbell technique in my first couple of years of training caught up with me, and the result is that I can’t squat with a barbell on my back anymore. Every leg session has to be designed around that: Smith machine squats, hex bar deadlifts, machine variations.
I also manage quad tendinopathy that flares when I overload, and I stay careful with my Achilles. So I don’t jump every day anymore. I run one or two real sessions a week, plus standing low rim technique work in between. That’s the practice that unlocked the Behind the Back in the first place, and it’s what I come back to whenever I’m ramping up from a flare.
“I’ve been injured for six months at a time before with a back injury. I just went through seven weeks of this, and every single time I come out of it stronger, because it’s not the end of the world.”
Travis Reynolds, Dunk Talk #54
Why I Measure Every Rim
I’m probably the dunker most people associate with rim height precision. I use a laser measurer for almost every session in my home gym and post the exact height in my captions, down to fractions of an inch. It’s not about proving anything. It’s data hygiene. If my vertical is trending up or down week over week, I want to know the rim height isn’t the variable. Dylan and Mason Baker have their own take on it in the rim measuring debate episode, and mine is simply: be honest in your captions, and know your numbers.
What I’m Chasing
The list right now: the Behind the Back over a person, a contest-ready Eastbay Elbow, and staying healthy enough to keep dunking at this level through my mid twenties. That last one is the underrated goal. Everything I learned about training through injury is in the story of my seven weeks dunking left-handed, and everything I believe about documenting the journey is in why all dunkers should make long-form content.
The full conversation is in the video above. If you want the rest of the story as it happens, I’m @TravisDunks on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and there’s more about me on the About page.
