BU PhD student Artem Vyshinskiy (CAS’23, GRS’30) posts videos of himself doing cool dunks on Instagram.

Athletics

His Dunks Pay Big Dividends

BU PhD student Artem Vyshinskiy studies economics, while rising up to become a pro dunker

As Artem Vyshinskiy soars through the air, basketball firmly gripped in both hands, he twists mid-flight, executing a flawless 360-degree spin before slamming the ball through the hoop. He hangs on the rim for a split second, savoring the moment, before landing back on the ground.

“Whenever you hit a new dunk, it’s super exciting,” says Vyshinskiy (CAS’23, GRS’30). “You feel like you’ve reached a new goal. You’ve just done something you’ve never done before.”

To be clear, Vyshinskiy does not play in the NBA. He does not play for the Boston University basketball team. He doesn’t even play club basketball at BU. He’s too busy studying for his PhD in economics to have a big basketball commitment in his life. But at six feet, two inches, he has been blessed with tremendous leaping ability. And with that combination, he enjoys the thrill of dunking a basketball every chance he gets.

“At this age, I don’t think I have the time to focus on basketball,” he says. “While basketball doesn’t give me quick returns, dunking is different because there are a lot of different dunks and there are so many levels to it.”

Vyshinskiy has been working on his dunks since high school senior year, when he surprised himself by dunking a volleyball into the net one day after varsity basketball practice. One of his teammates, who stood six feet, seven inches, and was already successfully dunking, challenged Vyshinskiy to try the skill on a standard 10-foot rim with a basketball—notably bigger than a volleyball and harder to palm in one hand. Vyshinskiy says the ball flew out of his hand when he attempted a one-hander, so his teammate instructed him to use two.

“Suddenly, it worked,” Vyshinskiy says. “I even hung on the rim, so that was exciting.” It helped that his vertical jump height, which measures how high an athlete can leap off the ground from a standing position, is more than 40 inches—an astonishing figure that very few players in the NBA even reach. (It’s said NBA legend Michael Jordan had a vertical leap around 48 inches in his prime.) Generally, untrained male athletes have an average vertical jump of about 16 to 20 inches.

Born in Russia, Vyshinskiy moved to Austria at age 13. Then he arrived in Boston to start his junior year of high school at the Cambridge Arts, Technology & Science Academy, a boarding school in Braintree. Sports had been a part of his life since he was young—he’d run track since elementary school, then added soccer to the mix in high school. He’d dreamt of becoming an athlete for a long time, and he transitioned to varsity basketball after his soccer coach told him his height would be crucial on the courts.

When it came time to apply to colleges, BU was a natural choice for Vyshinskiy to pursue his next academic endeavors. “I really liked Boston, so staying here for college felt natural,” he says. “BU is very international and diverse, much like my high school.”

Outside of studying, Vyshinskiy continued to practice his dunks. In 2021, he started posting dunking videos on Instagram to track his progress, using the name @artem_dunks. He sets up his tripod on the ground, rotating its position across the half-court after every few shots to get the right angles for his 30-second clips. He posts his videos with the intention of inspiring others to see what the human body can accomplish, he says.

“I’d say that’s one of the best ways to track progress, and many professional dunkers and amateur dunkers would advise you to do that,” he says. “If I were to scroll back to two years ago and see where I was, I can definitely see that I’ve gotten better, even from looking at the video at first glance. It’s super motivating because all the hard work that I’m putting in actually pays off.”

He also describes dunking as a flashy display and a fun way to catch the attention of social media users. His Instagram account has amassed over 8,000 followers over the past three years, with several of his videos gaining over a million views. He sees social media as an avenue to showcase his skills, as well as to connect with other dunkers in the basketball community who can help him improve.

To hit his more complex dunks, Vyshinskiy maintains a thorough workout routine, not shown on camera. He rotates through a series of phases—the whole routine takes a month to six weeks to complete.

“I’ll have a strength phase when I’m doing heavy lifting, like squats and deadlifts,” he says, “then, I’ll have a more powerful phase when I’m doing explosive exercises. Last, I enter an elastic phase, which is more focused on plyometrics, like box jumps.”

Vyshinskiy dedicates one or two FitRec sessions a week to attempting full-out dunks, which last one and a half to two and a half hours on average. He explains that jumper’s knee (inflammation of the patellar tendon) is a common problem among dunkers. He has sustained the injury several times, his signal that he should cut back on the full-out sessions. During some sessions, he’ll even count how many jumps he does to allow his body enough time to recover from the intense reps.

All of this is in preparation for The Dunk Camp, an intensive four-day program where athletes improve their dunking skills and vertical jumps through training with top dunkers and specialized coaches. He traveled to the Utah camp this month to train and participate in various contests.

At the camp, Vyshinskiy could also identify where he stands relative to other dunkers. The camp developed dunk levels with the World Dunk Association to classify dunkers into four categories (beginner, intermediate, advanced, elite) based on rim height and skill, similar to martial arts belts. A fifth “master” level for top-tier dunkers is being finalized.

“Right now, I’m getting close to blue level, which is like hitting advanced 10 feet,” he says. “It definitely needs to be my best jumping day and a lot of the things have to align perfectly for me to do that. But I’ll say I’m decently close to that—it’s the third-hardest level.”

Establishing levels in dunking will bring more visibility to the sport. While sports like basketball are more competitive and require training from a young age to play professionally, Vyshinskiy says, dunking is an emerging sport that’s growing continually. It’s a “semi-recreational, semi-competitive sport,” he says, describing the dunking community as supportive and tight-knit.

“Seeing a lot of people I follow on social media dunking in person for the first time felt very inspiring, and the professional dunkers put on an amazing show, as always,” he says. “Dunking is capturing the attention of a lot of people I know, like girls who are five foot six and are close to dunking—it’s actually crazy.

“At the camp, there are people who are over 50 years old who are trying to dunk and have never done any basketball training. They’re just pushing and trying to achieve their goal. And it’s such a rewarding thing and such a fun thing to do, because you can get very creative with it.”

Reflecting on his own performance at the camp, Vyshinskiy says he did quite well and hit all of his regular dunks confidently.

“My high for the entire week was that I punched my first ever between-the-legs dunk on 10 feet, right in front of the world’s best dunker, Jordan Kilganon,” he says, referring to a popular Canadian slam dunker. “That was unforgettable.”

Looking ahead, Vyshinskiy says the connections he formed at Dunk Camp extend beyond his short time there. He helped form the New England Dunkers group to foster a supportive community, hold one another accountable, and work continually towards improvement. Already, four members have participated in the first New England Dunkers session at FitRec.

“It was one of my best sessions ever,” Vyshinskiy says, “because having other people around you pushes you to jump higher and perform at your peak.”