5 Killer Vertical Jump Exercises

There are seven basic vertical jump exercises that are the core of every vertical training program. Although there are many advanced exercises that can help you gain much more with your vertical jump, these exercises will always be used as a part of your training routine and you can improve your vertical jump right now by including these exercises in your training.

It is the king of all exercises. Vertical explosion depends on how much power your quadriceps can produce and how quick they can produce them. Squats are the most important and the most effective exercise in improving the power of your quadriceps, and hamstrings.

Keep the following things in mind so you don’t injure yourself.

Keep your back arched at all time. If it is curved then you risk lower back injury and that is the worst thing that can happen to your body.

Make sure you are not lifting more weight than you can handle. It might lead to misalliance which in turn may lead to back injury. If you think you can handle really heavy weights always keep someone to spot you.

When you go down make sure you go to the point where your thighs are at right angle to your calves. You can go further down to the point when your thighs are parallel to the ground, but don’t go below that.

Make sure you don’t put all the weight on your toes. Spread it equally on your entire feet.Your knees shouldn’t go over your toes.

Since you are training to increase your vertical explosion, you need to explode back up as soon as you reach the lowest position in your squats. This will teach your muscles to produce the power quickly which is essential for vertical explosion. So if you take 4-5 seconds to go down, it should take you one second to come back up. This will give your muscles insane vertical explosion power.

As squats are to quadriceps, dead-lifts are to hams. Your hams are equally important in your vertical explosion. They are also required to produce power while jumping. In addition to the hams, dead-lifts also train your lower back, calves and the gluts.

Although it may be a little hard to get the hang of it in the starting, dead-lift will soon become your favorite exercises as it is simply amazing and the results it produces are phenomenal.

Keep the back arched. If it is curved you are risking back injury.

Don’t bend your knees completely while going down. Just bend them slightly and make your hips go back.

With heavy weight it might get a little difficult to get hold of the grip. Your palms might start to hurt. Develop a better grip by squeezing a wet towel. It will also help you with dunking if you are into that.

For explosiveness there is nothing better than depth jumps. Depth jumps train your muscles for speed and explosiveness.

Do not over do these exercise. Take it slowly.  They put a lot of strain in your body and might cause some injury.

Whatever sport you are playing, it is important to learn how to jump according to the sport. Every sport has a different technique for jumping and to excel at the sport, you should excel at the jumping technique. For example, in basketball you will want to learn how to dunk and to do that you will have to practice running jumps with a ball.

On the other hand, for volleyball, you will have to practice standing jumps to improve your spiking.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but having a strong upper body helps a lot in jumping higher. This is one vertical jump exercise which will help you increase your vertical leap along with building a solid core.

Almost everyone who has ever been to a gym knows how to do bench press. If you don’t here is a short video explaining how to do it.