Five keys to increasing vertical jump: the pillars of a successful jumping program

So you want to increase your vertical jump? It is not that complicated, but it will be of great help in all kinds of sports. Obviously, if you want to dunk in basketball or go to the net in volleyball, you have to get up high. Not your sport? Increasing your vertical jump will help you in other sports. It will make you faster off blocks on the court, it will give you explosive speed off the line of scrimmage in soccer, and it will develop fast, powerful legs for skiing. But how do you jump higher? Here are five key components to a jump training program.

1. Plyometric jump workouts

Plyometric exercises consist of a stretching and lengthening phase, followed by a rapid contraction. In plain language, this means you hit the muscle and then immediately bounce back. For jump training, research shows that the most effective exercise for increasing vertical jump is the depth jump gold drop-jump. In a depth or drop jump, you start on a box, jump off the box, and explode with maximum effort (after a good warm-up, of course). Sports physiologists have tested many different box heights, but 10-12 inches is enough to get the most benefit with much less risk of injury than jumping off a box taller than 20 inches. Some key considerations:

• quality not quantity. You are going to rest between each jump and you are not going to do many jumps per session. Most importantly, you want to measure every jump. Once you start to lose height, stop immediately. You do not want to practice a submaximal effort. You want to train yourself to go higher.
• not so often. Since you’re doing your best, you can’t do this every day. Depending on age and base fitness level, 2-3 times a week should be about right.

2. Strength training and Olympic lifting

Power is the ability to develop strength quickly. Plyometrics works with explosive power. Strength is the ability to develop maximum force. For this, you’ll want to go back to the classics: squats and deadlifts. In all cases, paying close attention to the spine and avoiding any curvature is essential for your health. There is a correlation between vertical jump and leg power on the one hand, and leg strength on the other, so you need to work on strength to give it your best shot.

Deadlifts, both straight-leg and bent-leg, are excellent exercises for strengthening the “dorsal chain,” that is, the muscles of the rear from the back itself to the gluteals (butt) and hamstrings. Start light and build up over several workouts.

The traditional squat is a somewhat dangerous exercise and some of the best strength coaches, like Mike Boyle, discourage it even for their professional football players. A safer alternative is the front squat, in which you rest the bar on your collarbone. This encourages good form and prevents you from rounding your spine or leaning too far forward and also challenges your core muscles. Top trainers like Boyle and Gray Cook actually prefer single-leg squats. These are very safe, excellent training and will reveal imbalances in your strength. I find it best not to go too low. Some people with balance problems may try to cheat and stay too high. So a good guideline is to do it near a bench press bench and sink down until your butt touches, but doesn’t rest on the bench. If you’re 6’10”, that may be too short. Essentially, you want to go where your thigh is parallel to the floor, but not too much further, as that puts a lot of pressure on your knees.

Once you’re comfortable with these exercises, you’re ready to move on to Olympic lifting. Studies have shown that of all the strength exercises, the cleaning power is the best predictor of vertical jump ability. Ideally, you’ll get proper instruction from a qualified trainer, as this is a complex exercise, but there are also some good instructional videos on YouTube. Essentially, a power clean is a deadlift that brings the bar up to your shoulders.

This requires building up speed with your legs during the initial phase so that momentum carries the bar past your hips so you can sink into it and bring the bar to your shoulders. Please do not do an energy clearing of that description. I have longer descriptions on my website, but even better is getting a real trainer to help you learn this exercise. The only point I want to make here is that, like the jump itself, the power clean is an explosive and compound exercise. Because of that, it works the same way as jumping and overloads the muscles in the same way, making it a fantastic component to any jumping training program. Did I mention that you must receive proper instruction? Please!

3. Core strengthening

Quick, what is the vertical jump world record holder Kadour Ziani’s favorite exercise? squats? plyometrics? No. It’s the spiders. To make a spider, you lie on the ground face down, spread the eagle out in an X. Then you stand up so still in an X that you’re on your fingers and toes. From there, you can just hold it or even “scratch”, “walk” back and forth, or go around in circles. It’s a killer core exercise.

So what does core strengthening have to do with vertical jumping? Simple: core strength will give you rigidity in your torso. So when your legs generate that massive force you’re building through plyometrics and strength training, you want to transfer that force into a vertical jump, not dissipate it into a wet noodle body.

If you’re not ready for spiders, you can start with front and side planks and back extensions. Front planks are basically like a push-up position, but you hold it at the top for 1-4 minutes, depending on how strong you are. The side planks are like this, but rotated 90 degrees, so your chest faces the wall, not the floor. In back extensions, you place your hip pad with your feet under a roller on a roman chair. If you don’t have one at your gym (I don’t), you can use an exercise ball for your hips and put your feet under a dumbbell rack. And while on the exercise ball, roll over and do some sit-ups on top of the ball, which gives you a greater range of motion and a better workout than doing sit-ups on the floor.

4. Stretch and Flexibility

You should allocate a scheduled time each week for dedicated stretching and flexibility work. Ideally, you don’t want to do a lot of stretching right before jumping training. Why? Because it will temporarily weaken the muscle a bit. It’s best to do a good warm-up and just do some basic stretching. But outside of strength and power training, you want to work on your flexibility by doing a few long sessions, as well as multiple sessions throughout the day. The best gains come from holding a position for a long time (1-2 minutes) and then also holding that period with frequent reviews throughout the day if your work or school schedule allows. Reviews can be as short as 10 seconds with your foot on the back of a chair.

Why bother with all this? Two reasons. One, you don’t want all that strength and power you’ve developed to be affected because your body can’t move like it should. Second, you also don’t want your form to be messed up due to an inability to move properly or due to an imbalance from one side to the other.

5. Proper nutrition.

Obviously, you want to eat your vegetables. Lots of broccoli. That’s true whether you’re training or not. However, if you’re training hard, you’ll want to make sure you have adequate nutrition. Research is divided on the subject, but I take a multivitamin to fill in the gaps. More importantly, you want to get enough high-quality protein without too much fat. The best source of this is whey protein. The best deal I’ve found right now (October 2009) is a 10-pound bag of NOW Nutrition ordered through Bodybuilding.com, but look around. As a general guideline, you’d like your total protein (including what you get from broccoli) to be equal to about 1 gram per pound of lean body mass (that is, your body mass minus your fat mass). Ideally, you’ll take it throughout the day in doses of about 20 grams, as you can’t use large amounts of protein and excess protein in one dose will simply turn to fat.

One more tip: Some research suggests that 20g of whey protein taken without other calories just before bed may promote the release of human growth hormone during deep sleep. That can be a huge boost to your recovery.

Conclution

Remember, these are just a few key components to a successful vertical jump training program, but it’s far from exhaustive. You still need to use common sense and that means warming up before you work out or else you’re looking for an injury, and getting plenty of rest otherwise your body can’t recover and you won’t make adequate gains. Remember, rest includes getting enough sleep as well as rest days after strength training.

Train hard, train smart, jump high!