You Can Jump Higher
ANYBODY can increase their vertical leap and learn how to jump higher!
The key is learning how your body type affects this. Age, sex, race e.t.c., are not the deciding factors. You need to do an assessment of your own individual reaction to training, as this changes from person to person. Giving you a list of exercises simply doesn’t cut it if you want to really jump higher…you NEED a cycle based on exercises for your given body type, aimed at your weaknesses. This group of exercises should sequence from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.
Some Important Steps To Get You Started
1. Assess your present strength and your expertise with prior types of exercise. The most effective way to get gains is to construct a totally new strength foundation. After this start utilizing an explosion segment. This will result in even more inches.
2. Perform Lifts. Entire body strength is the key for such an athlete and there is no superior exercise than the full back squat. This provides you with progressive increases on spinal loading, which, in turn, stabilizes you under tension, and also improves stretch-response of both hamstrings and hip muscles.
3. The squat should be the main exercise of your lower body workouts. 6-8 decent lifts gets the best strength improvements and vertical carryover. On the days of your upper body workouts, use the same philosophy, 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 effective style. 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 completed pre-weights. E.g., on Day 1 you start by using a series 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 slowly lessened to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyos.
6. Emphasis on the heavier weights should fade as you advance through the phases.
7. Visualization is important - imagine yourself exploding upwards. Picture 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.” After that jump again. You should notice a marked increase in your vertical jump. (Sports psychologists have long recognized the effectiveness of “mental practice” in increasing athletic performance.)
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.
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