ANYONE can increase their vertical leap and learn how to jump higher!
The key to increasing you vertical jump is learning how your body type affects this. Age, sex, race e.t.c., do not play as important a role. You need to assess your body’s individual reaction to training, as this varies from one person to another. Giving you exercises simply 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. This group of exercises should sequence from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.
Basic Steps To Get Started
1. Assess your present strength and your level of experience with previous types of working out. The best way to get gains is to construct a totally new strength foundation. Then start performing an explosion phase. This will result in even more inches.
2. Practice 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 also increases stretch-response of hip muscles and hamstrings.
3. Root the squat centrally within the majority of your lower body workouts. 6-8 quality 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. Make sure to use a lifting technique in a safe and effective way. Undergo 3-5 week strength phases for upper and lower body. Done properly, observable 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 ahead of your weight exercises. That is, on Day 1 you begin 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 plyometrics.
6. Emphasis 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, ready to propel you higher. Say to yourself “I feel myself getting more strong and much lighter.” After that jump again. You should observe a noticeable improvement in your vertical leap. (Sports psychologists have long recognized 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.
