ANYONE can increase their vertical leap and learn how to jump higher!
The key to jumping higher is learning the role your body type plays. Age, sex, race e.t.c., are not the deciding factors. You need to assess your body’s individual response to training, as this changes from one person to another. Just assigning you a list of exercises just doesn’t cut it if you want real hops…you NEED a cycle based on exercises for your given body type, aimed at your weaknesses. These exercises ought to cycle from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.
Some Fundamental Steps To Get You Started
1. Assess your present level of fitness and your level of experience with prior methods of training. The best way to experience gains is to build a totally new strength foundation. Then start utilizing an explosion phase. This will result in even more inches.
2. Do Lifts. Total body strength is a key factor for such an athlete and there is no better exercise than the full back squat. This gives you progressive increases on spinal loading, which, in turn, stabilizes you under tension, and in addition improves stretch-response of hip muscles and hamstrings.
3. Make the squat the core exercise of your lower body workouts. 6-8 decent lifts gets the best strength developments and vertical carryover. For the upper body days, use the same philosophy, with the core exercises being bench press, overhead press variations, pull-ups and dips. Remember to work often overlooked muscles at the end of the workout – muscles such as hip flexors, the shins , transverse abdominals e.t.c.
4. Make sure to use a lifting technique in a safe and effective manner. Undergo 3-5 week strength phases for upper and lower body. Done in the proper manner, visible gains of 5+% on each lift should be seen weekly. Following this, you will start to envision how your jump is guaranteed to increase.
5. Properly utilize explosive and plyometric training as well as your strength training. These are your “field workouts” and are finished prior to your weight exercises. That is, on Day 1 you begin by using a series of tempo runs, sprints and low-intensity plyometrics (after a dynamic warm-up of course). By the time Phase 3 comes around, this will have gradually switched to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyos.
6. Concentration on the heavier weights should fade as you proceed through the phases.
7. Visualize by closing your eyes, imagining yourself exploding upwards. Visualize yourself with big leg muscles that are tightened like springs, prepared to blast you up into the air. Say to yourself “I feel myself getting more strong and much lighter.” Then jump again. You should notice a marked improvement in your vertical leap. (Sports psychologists have long documented the effectiveness of “mental practice” in increasing one’s performance in sports.)
One final thought – the core of improving performance in any sport is the core (center) of your body…your midsection. To improve your midsection check out this information on how to get a six pack.
