1. WARMING UP First you need to warm up your muscles in order to prevent injuries. Stretch properly, and jog around for a few minutes. Use a jumprope if you have one. Jumping rope definitely helps your conditioning.

2. Deep Knee Bends Be standing. Bend your knees slowly while keeping your back straight. Slowly crouch down as low as possible until it hurts and slowly rise back up. Do this 15 times. Over time increase to 20, 30, etc.

3. Deep Knee Bend Jumps Be standing. Crouch down as described above but fairly quickly, almost touching your bottom to the ground, then explode upwards as high as you can. The moment you land, immediately crouch and launch back up again. Do this 15 times, and when you can, increase to 20, 30, etc.

4. Toe Raises Stand regularly, then raise up onto the tips of your toes. Lower back down. Don't just rock up and down, do it slowly but steadily. Repeat this 30-50 times.

5. Toe-Raise with Weights If you have any sort of weights, holding them while doing these toe raises will help. Use small weights (a mere 5 or 10 pounds is fine) and work your way up.

6. Lunges This is another great exercises to increase vertical leap as it helps build the muscle in your quads. You can use dumbbells or you can start without any weight. Start in a standing position and lunge forward with one leg until your knee is at a 90 degree angle and then push yourself back to a standing position. Repeat with the other leg. Make sure to keep your torso upright when performing the lunge.

7. Step Ups For this exercise you can use a bench or a chair. Start by standing in front of the bench and then putting one foot flat on the bench and step up on the bench. Step back down to the floor and repeat with your other leg. This is another great vertical jump workout exercise and helps build the quads.

8. Stomach Crunches I believe that sit-ups are bad for your back. Stomach crunches, where while lying on your back, using your ab muscles and keeping your back straight, you rise up just enough to lift your shoulders off the ground, are better.

9. Jumping Rope Jumping rope definitely helps your vertical leap. Jump Rope for 3 minutes. Rest for 60 seconds. Complete 5 rounds.

10. Rebound Jump Start with a Milk Crate - progress to using a chair. Place crate/chair out about three feet from the wall. Stand on crate/chair. Jump to floor. Immediately on landing jump upward attempting to touch as high on the wall as possible. Swing arms upward on upward jump off floor to gain maximum height for touch on wall jump. Eventually adding weight in each hand will extend usefulness of this exercise.

11. Standing Jump Stand facing a brick or block wall. From standing position, jump as high as you can touching the wall with your right hand. Repeat jump 10 times. Repeat jump 10 times touching wall with left hand. 20 jumps constitute one repetition of this exercise. Do 3, 4, or 5 repetitions

12. Split Jump Begin in semi-squat position, with arms at sides. Jump upward swinging both arms up and out. As legs straighten, lift and spread them parallel to the floor in a split position. At same time, while in the air, bend body at waist with arms extended outward trying to touch your toes. Repeat rapidly with not hesitation between jumps. Each jump is one repetition.