Increase Your Vertical Jumping

Do you feel like you are stuck to the ground? Have you ever dreamed of dunking on someone, or blocking the shot of the tallest guy on the other team? All these dreams are possible and they all involve vertical jumping ability. If you can increase your vertical jump, you will be able to accomplish athletic feats you only dreamed of, like spiking a volleyball and dunking a basketball. Believe it or not, with extra explosive power that comes with an increased vertical, you will even run and accelerate faster! So the question is, how can you increase your vertical and what exactly does it take to get consistent results?

There are a few major factors at work during a vertical jump. Once you understand what it takes to leave the ground behind, you will know which training regimens will be the most effective. It has been found that the height of a vertical jump is directly related to the acceleration of the center of gravity when the feet are last touching the ground. In other words, the faster your body is moving upward when your feet leave the ground, the higher your vertical jump. What does it take to increase the speed of your center of gravity? There are a few major factors involved.

Relative strength is your personal strength to weight ratio. Who do you think will jump higher, a powerlifter who weighs in at 300 lbs and can squat 800 pounds, or an olympic lifter who weights in at 150 lbs but can squat 450 lbs? If you guessed the olympic lifter, you are right! But why is this true? It is true because the olympic lifter can squat three times his bodyweight, and although the power lifter can squat almost twice as much as the olympic lifter, when the power lifter wants to jump he has to propel all 300 lbs of his body upward. The powerlifter is built like a rhino, and while super strong, we all know a grasshopper jumps much higher than a rhino.

It is all about strength to weight ratio, or relative strength. So how do you increase it? By either losing weight or becoming stronger. You can rapidly increase your relative strength through deadlifts and squats. The next piece of the huge vertical puzzle is called reactive strength. Have you ever seen those guys who are as skinny as twigs but can practically headbutt the rim? They have an attribute called plyometric ability, or reactive strength. Those guys rely on the elasticity of their tendons to store energy from a run up and direct that energy into the ground rapidly on their last step, propelling their body upward.

You can increase this aspect of athletic ability by a type of training exercise that is called plyometric training. Plyometric training exercises are exercises meant to increase your body's ability to store and release energy more effectively. If you have both of these aspects of strength, the only aspect left that could help you increase your vertical is called speed strength, or the rate at which your body develops force. This is a byproduct of olympic lifting. Once you have these three aspects, all you need is some mobility and you will be flying high in no time!