By Nate Loken | March 30 2021 |
When you close your eyes do you see yourself soaring through the air like an elegant kangaroo reaching up to the heavens? Do you long to brush your fingertips against the clouds in the sky?
Probably not because that’s kind of weird.
Having a high vertical jump is beneficial to many different sports from dunking a basketball to heading a corner kick. In this article, I am going to outline some of the things that have helped me increase my vertical jump and give some suggestions on designing your own program for training your vertical. Keep in mind that there are many different ways to get a higher vertical, I am only giving you one point of view.
The first step to increasing your vertical is pretty obvious: you have to work out - your jump touch is not going to improve if you don’t put in the work. I recommend doing workouts that combine jump training with upper body and core work. It gives you sufficient time to recover between sets. Again, this is not a rule, this simply works for me, and that may change as I train more.
There are three different pillars necessary for increasing your vertical jump: stability, strength and explosiveness. Your training program should move through three different stages, each with an emphasis on a different pillar. It’s important to note that you shouldn’t suddenly switch from stability-based exercises to strength-building exercises. Mixing exercises from different phases is really helpful. As well, just because you are putting an emphasis on explosiveness, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do some stability exercises; make sure to maintain the work you’ve done over past phases.
I prefer to approach my jump training with a more anaerobic focus. Anaerobic exercise is any exercise that breaks down glucose for energy without using oxygen (usually exercises with low repetitions and high intensity.) (Healthline) I find that this complements jumping a lot, since jumping is inherently a high-intensity activity without many repetitions back-to-back.
Stability
Stability is the base of vertical training; it involves a lot of balance and dynamic holds. This section of your program helps you develop control over your body. By training with a stability emphasis, it becomes easier to accomplish different exercise variations that work specific parts of your leg muscles. It's also important for jump execution: by being balanced and in control of your muscles, you are able to engage your muscles simultaneously to push yourself higher into the air.
Admittedly, this is the worst part of a workout program. Stability exercises can feel very unproductive and dull at times. It doesn’t help that standing on one foot doesn’t make you look like a very dedicated athlete, but don’t worry, it pays off in the long run.
This phase should be the shortest of the three and a lot of the exercises should use only your body weight as resistance for the beginning of your program. Some good stability exercises are single leg calf raises, single leg russian deadlifts, drop to split squat or snapdowns to partial squat, pistol squats, and skater squats.
Strength
Strength should be the longest phase of your training program. This is the meat of your training (both literally and figuratively.) It builds potential jumping strength. Plyometrics, the next phase, is the part where your potential strength gets harnessed.
During your strength training, you want to push yourself with heavy weight and as high repetitions as you can muster. This phase is the most self-explanatory, there isn’t a whole lot more to say.
The exercises that I recommend for strength building are russian deadlifts, squats, glute bridges (feel free to add weight to this one, but I recommend doing some research on how to do a proper glute bridge with weight), calf raises, bulgarian split squats, and cossack squats.
Plyometrics
Plyometrics are any exercise where your muscles exert maximum force in a short amount of time (aka explosive exercises.) This phase of your training can be the most challenging. During exercises with an emphasis on plyometrics, you want to be pushing yourself very hard for short amounts of time. Always make sure to take enough recovery time between sets because these types of exercises can take a lot out of you. An important aspect to consider during this phase is that explosiveness in jumping doesn’t come solely from your legs. To become really skilled at jumping, you want to be channeling your entire body into the jump. Does that sound hard? Yes, because it is.
Don’t expect to be able to do this until you're a very experienced athlete. The important thing is making sure you’re using more than only your legs to propel yourself upwards, swing your arms into the air, flex your feet downward as you jump and squeeze your core.
Good explosive exercises for your jump program are broad jumps, medicine ball throw downs (which are more working on channeling your whole body into one movement) and any of the plyometric exercises from this video.
Measuring your vertical jump
There are many different ways to measure your vertical jump. Many are very high quality, but also expensive.
A Vertec is one of the best and most expensive measuring tools you can use. This tool makes it easy to adjust the height and also helps you visualize your destination, which allows you to touch as high as you can. Some Vertecs can cost up to $800.
Easy and cheaper methods include taking a hand-held measuring wheel and attaching it to a wall or using high objects with reference points. For the latter, I recommend using a basketball net or a wall with distinct markings. I believe that the most cost effective way to measure your vertical jump is to use a hand-held measuring wheel along the wall; they don’t cost too much and it lets you get fairly precise measurements.
Before you measure your jump, measure your standing, one-arm reach. When you record your jump, subtract your maximum jump touch from your standing reach touch. If you are training your jump for a specific sport, then you should absolutely mimic the form for that jump when you measure it (unless you do high jump).
Other Aspects of Jumping High
Training the other parts of your body can help you improve your vertical because the body is all connected. Maintain a balance and train your core and upper body. Obviously these don’t contribute to your jump as much, but they are still useful.
Flexibility and dynamic stretching are also very helpful when training your vertical. Dynamic stretching is very useful to do at the beginning of a workout, while flexibility is great for cooling down and ending your workout.
If you’re having trouble jumping higher, one solution may be losing weight. Simply put, the more weight you lose, the less you have to lift into the air. For losing weight some of the best solutions are running, lifting weights and managing your eating habits.
If you have more questions, leave a comment, email me at lokenn@limestone.on.ca or contact us through our website.
Vertec image citation:
I wonder what an elegant kangaroo would look like...
I suddenly feel the need to reach for the sky
What's your vertical, Nate?