Up, Up, and Away (Exercises to Improve Your Vertical Jump)

I don't know if there's something strange in the air lately, but for whatever reason, I've gotten a lot of questions about how to improve a vertical jump. Some individuals are naturally gifted with hops, but for the rest of us who need to work hard to become more powerful, we have to add more explosive movements into our routines. If you want to sky like Jordan, you want to make sure you're using the correct exercises.

This could be you! (Don't quote me on that, though...)

So what determines how high you can jump? There are a couple of factors, but I'll name the most pertinent:

• Muscle fiber distribution. Okay, so, in a nutshell, you have two different types of muscle fibers: type I and type II. Type I fibers (also known as slow twitch), do not fatigue easily. An endurance athlete will have well-developed type I fibers. Think: marathon runner. Type II fibers (also known as fast twitch) are split up into type IIa and IIb, and type IIb is the most easily fatigued. Someone with a higher percentage of type IIb fibers would be a 100 meter sprinter or a javelin thrower. Movements that are really short in nature require more speed and power. The fiber makeup of a muscle is determined by your genetics, but your training can help express and further develop either fast twitch or slow twitch fibers. If you train in an explosive, high-intensity manner, you are going to develop your fast twitch fibers to the best of your genetic ability.
• Rate of force development. This builds on the first bullet point. Let's say you tried to do a power clean for the first time. Initially, while you're learning the movement, you will probably pretty slow moving under the barbell. Two years later, your bar speed will be significantly faster. Granted, you've also become more competent and confident with the movement, and you are stronger, but your rate of force development (RFD) has improved significantly. How quickly you can express force is incredibly important in working your ups.

Now that the bulk of the science-y stuff is out of the way, we can get to the meat of the article: here some exercises that will help you leap tall buildings in a single bound. (Actually, maybe don't try to jump buildings just yet...)

1. Back squats (I have faith I don't need to post a video for this one...)
2. Power cleans
3. Power snatches
4. Push jerks
5. Depth jumps
6. Jumping lunges
7. Bulgarian split squat jumps
8. Low hurdle hops
9. Barbell jumping squats (no need to go heavy, here. Maybe 20-30% of your best squat.)
10. Barbell pogo jumps (similar as the previous exercise, but not as much hip/knee bend)

Ideally, we want to train strength in conjunction with plyometrics. For example, a six week study by Adams and his colleagues found that individuals who performed strength and plyometric exercises, saw a greater increase in vertical jump than the strength group and the plyometrics group alone: 

"Examination of the mean scores shows that the [strength] group increased 3.30 centimeters in vertical jump, the [plyometrics] group increased 3.81 centimeters and the [strength/plyometrics] group increased 10.67 centimeters. The results indicate that both [strength] and [plyometric] training are necessary for improving hip and thigh power production as measured by vertical jumping ability."

 A 10.67 centimeter increase in vertical jump in only 6 weeks is pretty solid! Basically, just jumping a lot will increase your jumping height, but if you perform strength training on top of that, your results will be significantly better.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck, Olympic weightlifting (snatch, clean, and jerk) movements are superior. "Olympic [weightlifting] exercises seemed to produce broader performance improvements than [vertical jump] exercises in physically active subjects," found Tricoli et. al. They continue to say, "groups using the [weightlifting] program increased [10 meter sprinting speed] more than those using the [vertical jump] program." So, not only did these movements effect the jumping height of the test subjects, but it also made them sprint faster!

In short, if you're looking to improve your jumps, try the exercises in the above list. Both strength training and plyometric training can be combined so that you can slam dunk like the pros in no time.

Works Cited:

1. Adams, Kent, John P. O'shea, Katie L. O'shea, and Mike Climstein. "The Effect of Six Weeks of Squat, Plyometric and Squat-Plyometric Training on Power Production." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 6.1 (1992): 36. Web.
2. Chelly, Mohamed Souhaiel, Mourad Fathloun, Najet Cherif, Mohamed Ben Amar, Zouhair Tabka, and Emmanuel Van Praagh. "Effects of a Back Squat Training Program on Leg Power, Jump, and Sprint Performances in Junior Soccer Players." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 23.8 (2009): 2241-249. Web.
3. Makaruk, Hubert, and Tomasz Sacewicz. "Effects of Plyometric Training on Maximal Power Output and Jumping Ability." Human Movement 11.1 (2010): n. pag. Web.
4. Tricoli, Valmor, Leonardo Lamas, Roberto Carnevale, and Carlos Ugrinowitsch. "Short-Term Effects on Lower-Body Functional Power Development: Weightlifting vs. Vertical Jump Training Programs." J Strength Cond Res The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 19.2 (2005): 433. Web.