How to Improve Your Vertical Leap
Explosiveness is a kind of umbrella term for a mixture of skill, flexibility, conditioning, power and strength that is the number one sought-after trait in many sports, especially Basketball. However, the appropriate training for developing explosiveness is not widely known, unlike training for endurance or pure strength. If you, for whatever reason, are looking to boost your vertical leap, you must know that you need to be training for explosiveness as they go hand in hand. We'll be looking at how to develop your vertical jump in a way that exploits all the assets of 'explosiveness'.
There are four major areas that you have to train to jump higher, and they are – core, power, strength, and flexibility.
An explosive maneuver in Basketball
What things should I look for in my jump training?
Explosiveness matters a lot in a sport like Basketball. It is important for the athlete to jump higher, run faster, and react faster. The vertical jump and explosiveness of anyone can be trained through a safe, progressive, and structured training program which concentrates on the core, power, strength and flexibility. By making sure all four of these key points are covered, you can be sure to expect positive results from your training.
Core
Typically, the majority of sportsmen will consider their “jumping strength” to be a direct result of their muscles around their hips (called the glutes) and legs. What isn't so obvious is the huge role played by your core (which is basically everything from your abs to the bottom of your hips, including the back) when it comes to jumping. The core acts as a hub of each working muscle fiber that is involved in initiating and following through your jump. It naturally follows that the core simply cannot be ignored in your training, and is one of the most important areas to spend time on. Don't limit yourself to just doing your standard 'crunch' or sit-up, these are no doubt the foundation of any good core exercise program, but you must be using innovative exercises which strengthen your core from by varying the range of motion, like you would see in twisted abcrunches.
Does it look strange to you? Well explosive training should!
Power
Power plays an important role in allowing you to jump higher. Plyometrics are exercises which entail some type of volatile movement which require super quick muscle contraction, enabling you to quickly funnel your strength into doing something useful. In physics, it is defined as force multiplied by velocity, so you can think of it as a combination of speed and strength. This is fundamentally what explosiveness is all about, so any exercises that necessitate 'power' are perfect, and this is just what plyometrics will do. Plyometric movements typically make use of the gravitational force to accumulate power in the muscles, and after that you instantly discharge this accumulated power in the reverse direction. It can be likened to stretching a rubber band and then seeing it do something strange - go flying! The stored power is efficiently utilized to generate what is known as a 'volatile' movement.
Strength
By increasing the strength in and around your hips and legs, you will essentially be increasing the 'force' of the equation of power, which ultimately leads to increased power, or explosiveness. The more power you can use on the ground beneath you, the higher you're going to be jumping. Strength can be increased in a number of ways, weightlifting being the most obvious. But remember you won't be jumping at all if you're injured, so make sure you follow a safe program that teaches good form and doesn't overwork the body beyond its limits.
Flexibility
Flexibility can be described as an 'array' of movements taking place in sequence, in your joints. You want to increase the elasticity in your hip flexors, hamstrings, calves and achilles, which are all areas that are heavily involved in your leap. While it might seem like something that doesn't make a huge difference, other than reduce the risk of injury, there is far more to the role played by flexibility in your jump. By increasing the range of movement, you are essentially giving your power more room to act, meaning better results.
The days are long gone when stretching is a simple 5 minute exercise done before 'serious' training. There are different types of stretching, from static to dynamic and passive to active. Be aware that they all have different pros and cons, but the point is you should be incorporating them all. Since the exercises won't really tire you out, there's no excuse NOT to be doing them alongside your regular workout.
Online Training Programs
As important as your vertical leap is, the reality is no sport really requires you to pursue training it to an extreme. However, if you are keen on increasing your vertical leap, you can check out some vertical jump training programs that have helped others significantly boost their jump scores.
