Vertical jumping will improve your speed, agility, and explosiveness. Its training effect crosses over into all sports. For example, vertical jumping improves the acceleration and top-end speed of sprinting. The purpose of vertical jump training is to boost the maximum force your muscle can exert. However, to enhance your vertical jump, it is essential to do it correctly. Jumping and jumping will not improve jumping. The segments of your jump must be coordinated and synchronized to maximize the result.

To be faster and more explosive, you must improve your muscles’ power and force absorption rate.

How to Improve Vertical Jump Height

Body Fat

Your body weight significantly impacts your vertical jump height. The lighter your body is, the less weight your body must move. Therefore, reducing body fat through a proper diet and exercise will help to improve your jumping height, speed, explosiveness, and power.

Breathing

To jump higher, you need core tension and pressure before the jump. To do this, inhale through your nose to create intra-abdominal pressure. This will stiffen your core. Also, it will stabilize your spine. When you compress the core in your jump, the compression is like a spring that explodes the countermovement of the jump. These two things are essential to jump higher.

Knee Bend

The knee bend also makes up a big part of the spring, the coil, to jump higher. Seventy degrees is the maximal and optimal angle to bend your knees. This angle generates the greatest amount of force to jump. Your hips, knees, and ankles are coordinated at this angle to create and generate the most force possible.

If you jump with your knees at a 90-degree angle, you will lose the compression force into the floor and the coordination and synchronization of your hips, knees, and ankles. The knee bend helps the ankles and hip stiffen to absorb force and compress it into the floor to transfer into your jump. The knee bend action creates a trampoline effect.

Fast Eccentric Motion

The stretch reflex is activated from fast eccentric motion. When a muscle stretches quickly, the stretch reflex absorbs the energy into the muscle that can be used to jump higher. The trampoline is the best example to visualize the stretch reflex. The more force you apply through the jump on the trampoline, the higher the trampoline will propel you into the air. Your muscles have the same capability.

Another example is bouncing a ball. If you drop a tennis ball from shoulder height, it bounces back up. Slamming the ball against the ground will cause it to bounce very high into the air.

An important note about the stretch reflex is that the elastic energy produced from the eccentric, fast motion must be used within a second, or it dissipates. So, it is essential to teach your muscles how to absorb force.

How fast you move eccentrically in your squat makes a huge difference. If you just move slow, you won’t gain or gather enough force elastically to transfer it into the concentric part of your jump.

You must squat fast eccentrically to activate the stretch reflex to store the elastic energy required to jump higher.

Arm Swing

If you don’t swing your arms back while jumping, you will not gain and lose an essential part of force development to spring from the floor. If your arms swing down and back, it augments compression and produces the coordination to jump higher. The coordination of the arm swing is essential to maximize your jump potential.

Compress

Think of vertical jumping as compression. You must inhale, bend your knees, and swing your arms back with synchronization and coordination to increase the compression of your feet into the floor. All these things must create the whole to generate the most force possible. So, think compression when you jump.

If one segment is off, you will diminish your jump potential. Therefore, practice and repetition of coordination and synchronization are critical, not just jumping and jumping to jump higher.

Here is a video to help you understand how to vertical jump with more detail to maximize your potential!

For more info about speed and explosive power, check out the book- INSTANT STRENGTH.