Jumping Higher By Teaching Yourself To Load Your Muscles
One reason that some athletes are "naturally" jumping higher than others is that they have learned how to load their muscles properly right before jumping, allowing them to jump higher than most those around them. Loading the muscles before takeoff is an essential part of jumping higher. It can be one of the trickiest things to learn in the jumping process, and is what holds some people back from reaching the high levels of vertical leap (35+ inches) that they desire. The simple fact is that although the process of loading can be learned, it is a difficult and frusterating process to those who were not born with a natural ability to do so.
But first, lets get an idea of what loading looks like by watching the following videos:
Observe how both Vince Carter and Nate Robinson jump, by studying their footwork and the actions of their legs throughout the jump. I would highly, HIGHLY recommend studying these jumpers form, and well as the form of other well known jumpers, and engraving that image into your mind before you begin working on this yourself. It is a very technical and complicated motion, which can take a good athlete years to master. We are going to do our best to break down the mechanics and basic stages of it, in order to assist you in your learning and overall goal of jumping higher.
1. The Approach- Notice in the videos how the athletes bound towards their destination, taking large, smooth strides, covering a lot of distance in a quick amount of time. This bounding motion is what allows you to smoothly transition into the next step of a proper load for jumping higher, the plant.
2. The Plant- Watch the videos once again and observe how the athletes firmly plant their feet into the ground before takeoff. This is actually the last step of the process that we are going to call "the plant". It begins on your last bounding step, and ends when both feet make contact with the ground. Referring to the videos again, notice that both leapers have both feet off the ground and make a strong and powerful motion toward the area in which they eventually land and plant their feet. This is the hardest part to learn to do properly, and can only be truly learned by studying the form of jumpers who have already mastered it, and practicing with a true passion and will to begin jumping higher.
3. The Load- The loading phase is the stage where you get all the power which you will be using to blast up and off the ground, and is also where many athletes lose many potential vertical inches and fall short of reaching their full potential. The phase of "the plant" where both your feet are off of the ground and are powerfully moving to the planted position is what allows your muscles to build up massive amounts of power (we will go over the science of this in a later article). You are essentially building up the most explosive power possible in your legs by recreating the situations you go through in plyometric exercise. Once you have built up the maximum amount of potential energy during the loading stage, your are ready for the final step, take off.
4. Take Off- This is the final stage of jumping higher by loading your legs where you convert all your potential energy into a massive force as you thrust your arms upward towards the sky and push off the ground with all your might, skying into the air like you never thought possible before.
If after watching the videos of Vince Carter and Nate Robinson loading before their huge vertical leaps, and reading through this article, you know you do not load for your jump properly, than there is both good news and bad news. The bad news is that it can be a terribly difficult and frusterating process to master, requiring hours of trial and error, practice, and hard work. The good news? The good news is that there are MANY inches of vertical leap that you have yet to obtain, and that by mastering the technique of loading your legs to begin jumping higher, you will add a handful of inches to your vertical leap by only improving your form.
If you liked this article, make sure to check out our other articles, as well our ratings of the top vertical jump programs, including our Jump Manual Review, which currently holds the number one rating on our site!