ANYONE can improve their vertical jump and learn how to jump higher!
The key to jumping higher is learning the role your body type plays. Age, gender, race e.t.c., are not as important as most people think. You need to do an assessment of your own individual response to certain exercise routines, as this varies from one person to another. Giving you a list of exercises simply doesn’t cut it if you want real hops…you NEED a sequence based on exercises for your given body type, aiming at your weaknesses. These exercises should sequence from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.
Some Essential Steps To Get You Started
1. Assess your present strength and your expertise with prior types of exercise. The most effective way to experience gains is to build a totally new strength platform. Then start performing an explosion phase. This will result in further inches.
2. Practice Lifts. Total body conditioning is a key factor for such an athlete and there is no superior exercise than the full back squat. This gives you progressive increases on spinal loading, which, in turn, stabilizes you under tension, and as well improves stretch-response of hip muscles and hamstrings.
3. Root the squat centrally within the majority of your lower body workouts. 6-8 decent lifts gets the best strength improvements and vertical carryover. For the upper body days, the philosophy is the same, with the core exercises being bench press, overhead press variations, pull-ups and dips. Keep in mind to work often overlooked muscles at the end of your workout – muscles such as hip flexors, the shins , transverse abdominals e.t.c.
4. Ensure that you use a lifting technique in a safe and efficient way. Undergo 3-5 week strength phases for both lower and upper body. Done correctly, you ought to see gains of 5% each week. Following this, you will be able to see how your jump is bound to increase.
5. Correctly utilize explosive and plyometric training as well as your strength training. These are your “field workouts” and are finished ahead of your weight exercises. That is, on Day 1 you begin by using a sequence of tempo runs, sprints and low-intensity plyometrics (after the proper warm-up of course). By the time Phase 3 comes around, this will have gradually lessened to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyometrics.
6. Concentration on the heavier weights should fade as you progress through the phases.
7. Visualization is important – imagine yourself exploding upwards. Visualize yourself with big leg muscles that are tightened like springs, set to blast you up into the air. Say to yourself “I feel myself getting more powerful and much lighter.” Then jump once more. You ought to observe a noticeable improvement in your vertical leap. (Sports psychologists have long documented the usefulness 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.
