Begin Jumping Higher: Loading Your Legs

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!

Plyometric Training: Why it is important to YOU!

Plyometric Training

What is plyometric training?

Plyometric Training is an intense workout in which you shock your bodies muscles and nervous system by performing the loading and contracting motions in an extremely short amount of time. By doing this, you are tricking your bodies nervous system into allowing your muslce to perform fast and powerful explosive movements. It isn't a magic pill that will make you jump six inches higher overnight, but it has proven to be vital in any vertical jump training program.

What kind of exercises are "plyometric"?

Plyometric exercises are any exercises that are performed, usually in a jumping motion, quickly and explosively. Squats, deadlifts, or cleans would not be considered a form of plyometric exercise, but rather power lifts. Some exercises that are generally seeing in a plyometric training program are depth jumps, box jumps, side box jumps, one footed box jumps, jumping rope, etc. (many others exist as well as tons of variations of varying difficulty).

Is plyometric training safe?

Although this topic is contreversial, we believe that plyometric exercises are completely safe, as long as you know your limits when performing the exercises and build up to higher and more complicated motions and workouts. A beginner could easily make the mistake of doing exercises that require too much strength and practice to perform properly, resulting in injury. One way to keep plyometric exercises easier on your joints is to perform them on a soft surface, such as grass or a mat in the gym.

Can anyone perform a plyometric training routine?

While anyone can perform a plyometric workout, it is generally recommended that if you already do not have a strong base of strength, that you work on your overall body strength first, with emphasis on the lower body. The your strength, especially in your legs, will determine the potential of plyometric training to increase your vertical leap. If you are a very strong individual already, there is a lot of stored energy and power within your muscles that just needs to be trained to perform in a quick and explosive manner. However, if you are relatively weak, there isn't going to be much stored power and explosiveness within you to convert into added inches on your vertical leap through plyometric training.

Conclusion

It has been proven time and again that plyometric training, although far from the only factor, is one of the most important tools at your disposal if you are training to increase your vertical jump. It is what converts your overall muscular strength into quick and explosive athletic motions that will translate into you jumping your way to higher performance on the athletic field/court.

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!

Ten Tips To Jump Higher

Ten Tips To Jump Higher

We've recently had a few email's for us to put out a list of tips to jump higher. While there are far more than ten tips to jump higher, here are then that we find to be extremely important.

1. Get Motivated, Stay Motivated- Motivation is one of the necessities of jumping higher. Without motivation and a drive to accomplish your goal you will never increase your vertical leap by more than a few small inches. To get the large gains you desire, you can't ever lose sight of you goal.

2. Invest in a Quality Vertical Jump Program- While we have heard many stories of athletes gaining inches on their vertical leap without a professional program, odds are you will quite simply reach your destination far more quickly if you do get one.

3. Build a solid strength foundation- Before working on training your explosive power you must have a proper strength foundation. If you have a weak lower body there will be limits to how much success you will have by training vertical explosion.

4. Eat Right, Consider Supplementing- Nutrition will always be a staple in any workout program and especially in a vertical jump workout. Without proper nutrition you are starving your body and muscles of the fuel they need to build strength, power, and explosion.

5. Eat Enough!- You must constantly be eating, and not just anything, healthy foods are a must. If you are not eating more calories in a day than you burn, your body will not be able to gain strength nor muscle. With that said....

6. Lose excess body fat- If you have some spare fat that you clearly do not need, GET RID OF IT. Consider that if you weighed 150 pounds and have a body fat percentage of 15-20% you could be carrying up to 30 pounds of weight that will hold you down. If you have a 30 inch vertical leap and drop 15 pounds of fat from 20% body fat to 10%, you would gain 3 inches of vertical leap! (Weight in muscle is a good thing so don't go and because a toothpick. Be careful to diet properly and mostly fat while keeping muscle).

7. Don't Neglect Your Upper Body- Upper body training is far and away the most overlooked aspect of a proper vertical jump training program. Strength in your back, shoulders, arms and chest can create a tremendous amount of force and upward momentum in a proper vertical leap.

8. Proper Workouts- Working out properly is more important than most people think. Don't just go through the motions. Prepare for you workout and complete each rep of every set with maximum effort. Click here for more on proper vertical jumping workouts.

9. Rest, Recovery, and Sleep!- You must at all costs avoid the pitfall that is over-training. People who fall victim to over-training hit plateaus and are unable to continue their vertical leap gains. Resting after workouts, proper recovery, and at least eight hours of sleep each and every night are absolutely vital to giving your body the time and energy it needs to repair itself and continue the rigorous workouts you are putting it through.

10. Set Goals and Stick to Them- Having goals is a key aspect of a majority of the successful people in the world. Studies have been done showing that people with goals are far more likely to succeed than those without. Set a goal short term and long term goal for your vertical leap and don't quit until you reach it. We recommend either purchasing or creating a device to accurately track your progress, as it is fun to watch your vertical leap grow. Check out the higher end Tandem Sports Vertical Jump Challenger, or the simple and effective SkyMeter Vertical Jump Improvement Device. Both do a great job of measuring vertical leap.

So there you have it, ten quick tips to jump higher.

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!

Preparing For Vertical Jumping Workouts

How to Properly Prepare Yourself for Quality Vertical Jumping Workouts

One important factor that many athletes overlook in their training is properly preparing themselves for their vertical jumping workouts. If you find yourself ever going straight from what you were doing right into your first set you are more than likely at fault of this, and not nearly maximizing your potential gains. What should you change? The answer is the following:

1. Take time to ease out of the hectic world that surrounds you. Put a few minutes aside to relax and prepare your body for the arduous vertical jumping workout that lay ahead.

2. Eat and Supplement (if you use supplements): Eating before a workout will give your body the neccessary energy to blast through your vertical jumping workouts with full strength and intensity. Imagine you were going on a long road trip, would you dare attempt to make it to your destination without filling up your gas tank? Food is the fuel of the body, so eat up. We recommend a food sourse high in carbohydrates and protein. The carbs will supply you energy while the protein will give your muscles a the building blocks they need to grow.

3. Take five minutes to mentally envision the vertical jumping workouts and exercises you are about to perform. Imagine yourself blasting through the workout, using perfect form during every single set, and each and every repitition. Also picture yourself doing each and every exercise with full effort and intensity. This will help you to see what you need to do before you ever even begin a set. Numerous studies have been done on visualization, commonly leading to the same conclusion that visualizing what you are about to do before you take action often leads to better results.

4. STRETCH! Stretching is one of the most important aspects of a successful and fully optimized workout, yet it is all to ofter over looked and skipped all together. Stretching is one of the best ways to prevent injury during vertical jumping workouts, and will start the process of lossening up your tight muscles, getting them warmed up and ready to go. Which brings us to the next point...warming up.

5. Using a few simple movement exercises such as jump roping, skipping, jogging, etc. to get your muscles into workout mode. This is a must because the exercises that you will be doing during your vertical jumping workouts will be far too explosive and strenuous on the body to go straight into. Warm up exercises will help you bridge the gap between stretching and your actual vertical jump workout.

Putting it all together. You are relaxed, fueled up, mentally prepared, lossened and warmed up now. It is now time for you to begin your vertical jumping workouts and perform them exactly as you envisioned, with perfect form and the utmost intensity on each and every set and repitition. This is the proper way to get ready for your training, and by doing so you will help your results sky rocket through the roof and see gains in your vertical leap that you never thought possible.

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!