When you try to improve your vertical jumping you need to focus on theses three areas. Power, speed and flexibility. These are the three keys to jumping higher. Working on any one area will help you, but the real impact comes when you make improvements on all three areas as the effects layer upon themselves.
Any program you set yourself up with or you spend the money on to purchase has ot have all three facets involved if you want to see real benefits. By taking a closer look we can see how they affect the jumping process.
Power
The power aspect is where your explosive strength comes from. This revolves around weights and building up the muscles in the legs, abdomen, chest and arms. It’s not just the legs that are involved in jumping and some people miss this whole concept, you need strength in your core for balance and additional power. The strength in your chest and arms contributes to the momentum you can build up by throwing your upper body upwards as you are leaping. By developing all these major muscle groups you are able to become a much more explosive and complete jumper.
Speed
The speed aspect comes into play as you take advantage of your fast twitch muscles and teach them to contract and expand quicker allowing you to essentially spring out of your shoes. These are the types of exercise that involve short bursts of quick movements such as sprints, running lines in a gym or jumping side to side as quickly as possible. When your quickness and speed are built up this translates into explosive jumping where you can quickly get off the ground and really drive yourself upwards.
Flexibility
The final aspect that needs to be worked on is flexibility. The more flexible the joints are that are involved in the jumping process the longer the range of motion. The longer the range of motion, the more energy can be built up. Imagine a pitcher who couldn’t bring his arm all the way back to throw a pitch, he wouldn’ be able to build up the full momentum of bringing his arm all the way back and then throwing it forward, gaining more speed the further his arm goes. This same effect occurs when you try to improve your vertical. If you cannot bend your hips, knees and ankles enough to extend their range of motion the optimum amount you will never be reaching your peak vertical jumping ability.
While it is important to work on each of these areas, for anyone to receive the biggest boost and to start jumping higher they need to spend time on each area. Some areas may be easier for certain athletes and there will be a tendency to gravitate towards those particular training exercises, but in the end all areas must be worked on to improve your vertical!
If you are currently trying to build a program to increase your vertical jumping you really should check out some of the programs available online. One I can highly recommend is the Jump Manual program by Jacob Hiller. Take a look at his site and you can see where the value comes in.
The best part is if it is something you think will help improve your vertical it can be ordered and delivered to you online. That means you could start to improve your vertical almost immediately, no waiting for a package in the mail, no trying to put together your own program with hit and miss tactics, just pure proven strategies and techniques. Take a look here and see what you think, The Jump Manual.
