Jump Training and Workouts Which Boost Your Basketball Performance

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Learning how to increase your vertical jump is a skill you need as a basketball player. By enhancing this skill, you will perform better in every game and you’ll have a better chance of becoming the MVP on your team. The problem is, not everyone are born with a killer natural vertical and not all people are gifted with the ability to jump high like a Lebron. However, there is a way for you to add some inches to your vertical leap.

The Muscles to Focus On

One method that is very effective for increasing your jump is to strengthen your core as well as your lower body by doing some strength workout sessions. Leaner and stronger legs can be achieved only as long as you are carrying out the right exercises. This way you’ll be able to jump higher and your speed will be improved simultaneously. Be aware though, because too much strength exercising will most likely harm your performance and will be counterproductive, therefore you must do it in moderation so keep that in mind.

Flexibility and Injury Prevention

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Stretching is one of the keys to improving your flexibility and avoiding injury

Flexibility exercises are also known to improve the strength and speed of your legs and increase your vertical leap height. The best thing about these exercises is that even though they force you to use major muscle groups, it wouldn’t lead to injuries. In fact, experts developed these routines particularly to help increase your range of motion and make you less susceptible to injuries. When the muscles are not too tight during jumps, jumping high will be a lot simpler.

Bear in mind that a well-developed and flexible muscle would imply higher jumping capability. This is the main reason you must also pay attention regarding how you can improve these departments so that you’ll also be able to improve your jumping ability.

Apart from your lower body, the core muscles play an enormous role in jumping high. In order for a jump to be explosive, the core muscles needs to charge in high amounts of energy towards the lower extremities of your body.

And just like any other major muscle in the body, you have to workout to improve your core muscles. Part of your exercise routine will be doing one-legged squats and various kinds of planking. By doing this, you will not only improve your strength but you will also improve your stamina because strengthening your core and stabilizers makes you more resistant to fatigue.

Train All The Variables

There are nine variables that have an effect on vertical jumping. To make sure that all the variables are covered, using a vertical leap training program will be helpful. Going through the whole 9 yards will assure you that you’ll learn how to jump high. Sadly, almost all programs only focus on one or two variables, and neglect other variables, particularly nutrition.

After studying this issue carefully and trying out many vertical leap programs I can say with full confidence that the most recommended ones nowadays are The Jump Manual, which is a Jacob Hiller’s program that covers nine variables with a multi-faceted approach.

Then there’s Vert Shock, which is a systematic plan by Adam Folker and is on the rise. See here how it really works.

And here’s some more general information that helps to understand how the Jump Manual works:

If you happen to be one of those people who are too lazy to watch an informative 10 minutes video that explains the physics of jumping, I’ll make this easier on you.

In a nutshell this video shows the immense effect that plyometrics has on vertical jumping. Plyometrics sort of teach the muscles to adapt to a new movement pattern. But plyometrics alone, as great as they are, will not cut it if you want to jump high. Therefore there needs to be another important factor present in your training, that’s weight training. For the best results plyometrics should be combined with weight training to yield optimal results.

There are only a handful of programs today that combine these 2 aspects together and the jump manual is one of them. The jump manual is actually the only one that does it well. It turns out that there has to be a certain ratio between strength and ploymetrics, and even a slight deviation from can decrease your results significantly.

For this reason, if you don’t have an experience, building a multi facet plan for jumping higher on your own is not recommended, since you wouldn’t know how to balance it. Therefore, going with a ready made program like the jump manual is a much option. You would save yourself a lot of trouble down the road and your path for increasing your vertical will be more streamlined.

Extra Resources

1) Coach Craig Marker – The Science of Strength Training for Vertical Jump and Change of Direction | Breaking Muscle – http://breakingmuscle.com/strength-conditioning/the-science-of-strength-training-for-vertical-jump-and-change-of-direction

2) How to Increase Flexibility for a Vertical Jump by Jen Weir | LIVESTRONG.COM – http://www.livestrong.com/article/111769-increase-flexibility-vertical-jump/

3) Article by Jonathan Williams on how to get in shape and jump higher through stability and core exercises | Muscle & Fitness – http://www.muscleandfitness.com/workouts/workout-routines/jump-your-way-fitness-program

4) Vert Shock discount – should you decide to buy the program, use this discount to get 50% off the original price.

Author:

10 years ago, I've set out on a quest to dunk a basketball on a 10-foot rim. In order to achieve my dream, I decided to use The Jump Manual program. After having tremendous success with it, I made the decision to help others by turning this website into a useful resource for anyone seeking to jump higher. Learn more about my vertical jump evolution here.

3 comments

  1. Nice post Matthew.
    What would you say is more important in the list of priorities, would it be leg flexibility or core muscle strength? I sometimes just don’t have enough time to complete the stretching part after the workouts or the core exercises. Would it be ok to finish up with just stretching and do the core training on my off days?

  2. What exercises do you think are best for a 14 year old and is it ok to do jump training if I play basketball daily. I’m also doing strength and conditioning training, do you think it will be appropriate for me to insert jump training into my routine?

  3. Hey man, I just finished week 9 of the jump manual and I must admit the results so far are very good. In week 6, I was already dunking easily with one hand and now I’m almost able to dunk with 2 hands. When starting out I could barely throw down a regular one hand dunk and now I don’t need to exert too much force to do that. But I feel like I haven’t made any progress in the last 1.5 weeks. Do you know what the problem might be? I tried emailing Jacob twice about it but I haven’t got a response. Did you have the same problem near the end of the program?

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