How To Increase Vertical Jump For Free
What can you expect by increasing your vertical jump ? The answer lies in the sport you play and if it’s required to outperform other players. In basketball, your capabilities of strong vertical jumping is everything in relation to your jump shots, blocks, and rebounds. You can be an underdog if you cannot reach up and above competitors for rebounds because rebounds determine the success of a game. Defensive players must block out opponents when creating a solid position; point guards must have a straight vertical in order to get shots over taller players. The world of basketball depends on your vertical jumping; in this article, you’re going to learn three tips to help increase vertical jumps today.
1. Plyometric Training and Weight Lifting
You can increase vertical explosion with plyometric exercises. Plyometrics helps develop quick muscle fibers needed to improve vertical by training your muscles to explode quickly. Over time, plyometric training increases the amount of force you can produce and therefore plyometrics are effective in making you more explosive. This leads to improved sports performance, a higher vertical jump, and faster sprinting times.
The plyometric exercises typically are quick reactions to resistance like gravity or weights. It could be simply jumping as high as you can until you can not reach your maximum jump any more. Some exercises may include jumping over or on top of boxes, then jumping down off them. With plyometric exercises, it is important that each rep attempt is quick and attempt to achieve the maximum every time. Along with strength training, plyometrics provides a perfect complement to increase your vertical jump quickly.
2. Intervals, Sprints, and Agility Drills
One example of an exercise to increase your vertical and lateral agility is what I call the skaters exercise. Not only does it require that you jump as high as you can but you must quickly change directions. Place a cone or some other target about 2 steps away from each other. Stand behind one of the cones with the other to one side. Jump laterally to the other cone and land on one foot. Quickly jump off of the same foot back to the starting cone. The movement will look like an ice speed skater, hence the name.
Sprints and intervals are perfect supplements to increase vertical because they improve the reaction time of muscles. Your legs build a quick fiber muscle between the hamstrings, quadriceps, and calves that are pulled during jumps. Seems interesting? Strong jumpers are also fast runners because they integrate timed sprints (100 yards, suicides, and agility drills) that create a scheduled reaction to their reflexes.
3. Lose Excess Weight
Excess weight does put more stress on your ankles and knees. You will improve your vertical jump by simply reducing the overall fat deposit of your body. This means you may have to change your diet, less “junk” food to healthy alternatives. Basketball players are encouraged to have more muscle than fat because it improves one’s speed, reaction time, and agility on the court. Common sense tells us it will also increase your jumping abilities.
Tags: Track and Field