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How to improve my vertical jump?

C

cchen

Diamond Member
I wanna improve my vertical jump for vball, and I figure that I'll start now. What kind of exercises will give me good results?

Also I wanna cut down my thighs, which are thunder thighs~! What can I do to cut them down?
 
Walk on your tippy toes.

Really. Or get those funky shoes. They actually work. My buddy in college gained like a foot in vertical leap. I already had a 36" leap so I didn't need it as bad as he did.

I was a vball player in my younger days too. Weakside hitter in college.
 


<< I thought only girls have thunder thighs... >>



man... ok.... i mean.... i need to tone down my thighs...
 
cchen,

Toe lifts with a heavy weight across the shoulders is the most effective method. Jumping ability comes mostly from your calve muscles, and that will build strength in them. Ankle weights are also a decent approach, but not quite as good.

Russ, NCNE
 


<< how does one go about measuring your vertical leap? >>



Yardstick nailed to the wall.

Russ, NCNE

 
What about stomach muscles? I've read that strong stomach muscles help you jump higher as well...
 
To measure vertical leap, in college, we had this thing attached to a wall with something like popsicle sticks attached to it. You had to tippy toe and try to touch the highest point you can. Then you jump straight up without a running start and the difference between the jump and the tippy toe distance is your vert.
 
I had a friend in college who said he got great results from the "strength shoe". Losing weight overall can't hurt either.
 
well I'm 5'8" and 140 pounds, and most of my weight resides on my thighs, which is why I need to cut them down...
 
There are a lot of exercises you can do to increase your vert. Getting a pair of jump soles (those "funky looking shoes") do work, but usually only if you follow their work out program which involves running sprints and hopping around and making yourself look like an idiot in the gym. In addition to this, they cost around $100 a pair. If you want to go the weight lifting way, I suggest doing what one ATer has mentioned and that is raising yourself up and down on your toes. You can either do this on a stairwell, or you can use a weight machine to do it. I find it works better if you do it one leg at a time, rather than using both legs, but either way will work. As another ATer mentioned as well, yes, strengthening your abs should help increase your vert as well. Finally, other exercises you can do are squats, as well as placing one leg on a 2 foot block or so, jumping stright up as high as you can go, and coming down with the other foot on the block and repeating this over and over again. Finally, being flexible in your legs is always important as well. This will also increase your vert. As for your thunder thighs, I guess light squats with a high number of reps might solve such a thing...don't know about that though. I have the same problem.🙁
 
timing is part of it... it's not very fun or cool looking to practice jumping when you're not playing a sport, but give it a shot. do the drill where you jump up and slap the wall as high as you can. repeat. repeat. repeat. etc. not only will you condition all the muscles used in jumping, you'll also LEARN to use all those muscles very efficiently.

combined with the previous suggestions, all this should do some good. remember for encouragement: if you can jump for crap now, that just means you have lots of room for improvement...whereas in highschool I was kinda topped out at my natural ability (adequate for a white boy, but not fantastic) unless I wanted to really bust my ass like nothing else to improve it.

edit: oh yeah, it'll be important to combine ab workouts with the repetitive jumping exercises; they'll protect your back if you keep them fairly tense upon landing after each jump... otherwise you can do some long-term damage.
 


<< timing is part of it... it's not very fun or cool looking to practice jumping when you're not playing a sport, but give it a shot. do the drill where you jump up and slap the wall as high as you can. repeat. repeat. repeat. etc. not only will you condition all the muscles used in jumping, you'll also LEARN to use all those muscles very efficiently.

combined with the previous suggestions, all this should do some good. remember for encouragement: if you can jump for crap now, that just means you have lots of room for improvement...whereas in highschool I was kinda topped out at my natural ability (adequate for a white boy, but not fantastic) unless I wanted to really bust my ass like nothing else to improve it. >>



That's another thing...if you're going to be jumping around a lot in volleyball, you might need to build up your jumping endurance as well as your height. A good thing to do is jump up and touch the backboard of basketball hoop as many times as you can and as fast as you can and repeat it a couple more times until you can barely stand. Works really well. =)
 
abs are very important for vball as well... they help with yer jumping and to push yer arms over the net instead of just straight up.... hehe, if you get that high 🙂 personally i touch about 11' 2" so i get a fair amount over the net
 
That's another thing...if you're going to be jumping around a lot in volleyball, you might need to build up your jumping endurance as well as your height. A good thing to do is jump up and touch the backboard of basketball hoop as many times as you can and as fast as you can and repeat it a couple more times until you can barely stand. Works really well. =)

Absolutely correct. If you don't have a basketball net, you can get a little stool or chair and jump back and forth over it as many times as you can in a certain amount of time or a certain number of times.

Damn, 11' 2"? How tall are you?
 
played NCAA volleyball

all good points so far - calf raises, etc. Big thing to build vertical in addition to some weight training is - lose weight, gain strength.

Do 5 sets of 10-15 reps max-jumps. take your normal approach (I was a OH/MB) and jump as high as you can. do it 10-15 times for one set. trust me you'll start "feelin da pain" after about two sets. if you can't do 5 sets, no biggie just do as many as you can before it gets excruciating "no pain-no gain". this was the biggest drill coach had us do, sheer torture. He kept sayin "keep at it boy, get the vertical up!"

also you can jump on a small arobic <sp?> trampoline with bungee like cords tied to your hips for resistence.

<----about 38"
 


<< i heard that if u buy the new jordans, ur vertical will increase by 6". >>



Yeah, that's what they say on paper, but in reality, it's only 5.5"😉
 


<< That's another thing...if you're going to be jumping around a lot in volleyball, you might need to build up your jumping endurance as well as your height. A good thing to do is jump up and touch the backboard of basketball hoop as many times as you can and as fast as you can and repeat it a couple more times until you can barely stand. Works really well. =)

Absolutely correct. If you don't have a basketball net, you can get a little stool or chair and jump back and forth over it as many times as you can in a certain amount of time or a certain number of times.

Damn, 11' 2"? How tall are you? >>



Oh yeah, forgot about that one. Yeah, a stool or chair might be a little to high to be jumping over though, I would suggest a shoe box and jump over it sideways. It's high enough and won't make you fall flat on your face if you accidently clip it with your feet (make sure you take out the shoes first though.) 😉
 


<< <----about 38" >>



Got you by an inch, Spidey.🙂 Well, at least I did about a hundred years ago when I was playing ball. Nowadays, you can just about slide a piece of paper between the soles of my shoes and the floor - if you move quickly!

Russ, NCNE

 
6'8" 🙂 thats only a 34" vertical.. but not bad for a tall white guy 😀 btw, i know for sure that i've jumped higher then i do on the tests... when adrenaline is pumping in games i've jumped a bit higher.. i've had my entire arm/shoulder above the net when attacking the ball
 
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