ANYBODY can improve their vertical jump and learn how to jump higher!
The key to jumping higher is understanding the role your body type plays. Age, gender, race e.t.c., are not as important as most people think. You need to assess your body’s individual response to certain exercise routines, as this changes from person to person. Just assigning you a list of exercises simply doesn’t cut it if you want to really jump higher…you NEED a sequence based on exercises for your given body type, concentrated on your weaknesses. This group of exercises should cycle from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.
Some Crucial Steps To Get You Started
1. Assess your current level of fitness and your expertise with previous types of exercise. The most effective way to get gains is to build a brand new strength foundation. Then start performing an explosion phase. This will result in even more inches.
2. Practice Lifts. Total body conditioning 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 provides stabilization under tension, and as well increases 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 developments and vertical carryover. For the upper body days, use the same philosophy, with the core exercises being bench press, overhead press variations, pull-ups and dips. Keep in mind the overlooked muscles towards 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 secure and efficient style. Undergo 3-5 week strength phases for upper and lower body. Done in the proper manner, you should see gains of 5% each week. Following this, you will be able to see how your jump is bound to increase.
5. Correctly use explosive and plyometric training as well as your strength training. These are your “field workouts” and are completed ahead of your weight exercises. E.g., 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 switched to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyos.
6. Emphasis 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 propel you higher. Say to yourself “I feel myself getting more strong and much lighter.” After that jump once more. You should notice a marked improvement in your vertical jump. (Sports psychologists have long documented the effectiveness of “mental practice” in increasing one’s performance in sports.)
To get the most out of your vertical jumping exercises, you must consider a vertical jump training program. To get more information on How To Improve Your Vertical, check out these Vertical Jump Program Reviews to find out which are rated the best.
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