Unlock Your Potential: How to Improve Your Vertical Jump

Introduction: A high vertical jump isn't just for basketball players or athletes; it's a testament to explosive power, athleticism, and overall fitness. Whether you're aiming to dunk a basketball or simply enhance your athletic performance, improving your vertical jump can be a rewarding goal. In this guide, we'll explore effective strategies and exercises to help you maximize your vertical leap potential.

Understanding the Vertical Jump: The vertical jump is a measure of how high an individual can elevate off the ground from a standing position. It involves a combination of strength, power, and technique. Improving your vertical jump requires targeted training that addresses each of these components.

If you want to jump higher, we highly recommend picking a time of year to dedicate solely to improving your physicality. A good jump program is limited in confounding variables produced by practicing or playing your sport. Identify when you play your sport the least to dedicate the most time to your strength and conditioning. With that said, let’s look at a brief sample overview of how I improved my jumping ability… THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN.

Our vertical jump training works. Here’s an overview of how you can improve.

*Note: THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN.

For the best results, seek a professional that is capable of tailoring a program specific to your strengths and weaknesses.

Strength

Building lower body strength is crucial for improving your vertical jump. Focus on compound exercises that target the muscles involved in jumping, such as squats, lunges, deadlifts, and calf raises. Aim for a mix of exercises that target both the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calf muscles to develop a well-rounded foundation of strength.

For our purposes we will address two aspects of strength, Max Effort Strength (ME) and Reactive Strength. Your back squat is a simple metric to use for ME. It should be close to, or above 1.5x bodyweight. Reactive Strength index (RSI) is a critical measurement we use at Elite Speed that breaks down several of the factors related to to jump performance. These include but are not limited to ground contact time, sport specific force application, and jump height.

Rules to what follows:

1. Jump as high as you can on each jumping effort
2. Make sure you rest between efforts and between days – do not tax the nervous system extra on off days
   1. If you don’t have adequate rest in order to jump the highest you can on that day, you aren’t getting the highest quality reps to improve vert.
3. Try to limit sport practice or games
4. Vary the stimulus every few weeks but have some consistency in progression week to week.

SAMPLE STRENGTH DAY:

Monday: Max Effort Strength

• Ex: A1. Back Squat 6 x 2, 90% or more for low reps
• Ex: A2. Jump Squats (continuous as high as possible) 6 x 5

Wednesday: Strength-Endurance or Hypertrophy

• Ex: A1. Barbell Step-ups 4 x 10
• Ex: A2. Step-up Jump Switches 3 x 10 es

Friday: Power

• Ex: A1. Trap Bar Jumps 3 x 3 – low weight, move fast/high
• Ex: A2. Hurdle hops to box jump 3 x 3 –
• Ex: A3. Sport specific application, approach jump, max vert touch, etc

Saturday: Strength – no jumping, build single leg strength in all planes

• Ex: A1. Bulgarian Split Squat 3 x 4 es
• Ex: A2. Lateral Lunges 3 x 6 es

Mobility

An emphasis must be made on mobility rather than flexibility. Mobility is active range of motion though a given, plane, axis, and direction. Proper mobility training elicits muscle tissue to hold variable tension through any given ROM. The best jumpers hold incredible amounts tension in their muscles at the right period of time and at optimal joint angles. Great jumpers prep the body like a coiled spring upwards and downwards, releasing great amounts of energy in optimal sport specific directions.

  

Sleep

Don't underestimate the importance of rest and recovery in the vertical jump training process. Muscles need time to repair and grow stronger after intense workouts. Make sure to prioritize adequate sleep, nutrition, and recovery strategies such as foam rolling and stretching to optimize your progress.

No, we won’t actually help you sleep however, sleep is of paramount value to jump skill and ability. Many studies have shown reduced sleep can lead to a reduction in performance. Sleeping 6 or less hours per night has been shown to reduce nervous system efficiency, affect cognitive function, and decrease motivational output. Nervous system efficacy is critical for jump performance and determines systemic output. According to the Sleepfoundation.org, young athletes can benefit from up to 10-12 hours of sleep per night. Read more about Nervous System Overload Here.

Plyometric Exercises: Plyometric exercises are explosive movements that help improve power and speed. Incorporate exercises like box jumps, depth jumps, and jump squats into your workout routine. These exercises teach your muscles to generate force quickly, leading to greater vertical jump height.

Evaluation Of The Demands Of Your Particular Sport

At Elite, we train the strengths of each individual athlete while simultaneously shoring up their weaknesses in any jumping technique. In basketball and volleyball, max jump height won’t always be achieved. These sports are more about optimizing jumps whereas a sport like track and field is always about achieving maximal height or distance.

Track Your Progress

Improving your vertical jump requires dedication, consistency, and smart training. By incorporating strength training, plyometrics, jump technique, flexibility, and rest into your workout routine, you can unlock your true jumping potential. Remember to track your progress, celebrate your achievements, and stay patient as you work towards your goals.

With the right approach and commitment, you can take your vertical jump to new heights and elevate your athletic performance to the next level.

At Elite, we apply jumping in a wide variety of ways. We use unilateral & bilateral jump training as well as randomized, weighted, and overspeed executions. Jumping needs to be methodical and progressive. It doesn’t always need to be overcomplicated. Most athletes need to learn how to express force, absorb force and harness it. Jumpers need to learn how to land before they can progress to reactive or overspeed training. Everyone is different. Jumping will always be about quality over quantity. Quality allows quantity!

For the best fitness center in Colorado, check out The Elite Performance Center at eliteperformcenter.com