Jump Your Best: With The Aid Of Five Workout Routines Catered To Improve Your Leaping Potential
by S.G.R.BYou’re a human being, so you can’t simply imagine you’re a bird and fly, right? It’s the same with achieving your highest vertical leap—it takes work. Because we’re limited in our latent abilities, making progress in anything requires work. A great discipline to get into, if you want your highest vertical jump, is to practice diligently these 5 jumps.
The first jump you should try is a bit challenging, since you fight against your normal tendencies. Begin standing, then leap into the air restricting yourself to the use of your heels alone, and as you leave the floor, point your toes as vertically as you can. You need to keep those heels off the floor, and prevent those knees from bending at all as you jump or hit the ground. When you do land, immediately leap back up quickly, as if you were standing on hot lava: don’t sit there!
The second exercise you’ll do is commonly called the “box jump.” If you can, use plyometric boxes to do this. Get a box or platform—or make one—that’s as high as your vertical leap. Start on top of the box, hop down and then land like a cat, smoothly. Absorb the shock with your knees, and you may even squat to do it. Keep raising the starting height, until you can’t land smoothly.
The third jumping exercise is really an obvious one: the vertical jump. This really helps add to your leap, gaining your highest vertical. Simply jump up, hard as you can and land on something stable, like a box made for this purpose. The real trick will be to jump down and then immediately back up. You’ll want to make sure you land on something that will be steady and even adjustable.
Fourth on the list is the step stool jump. This requires more forward-thinking, as you’ll need several heights, about 4-5 total will do. Put them in a row or semi-circle, from smallest to biggest, and simply do the vertical jump at each one, leaping down and then back up as swiftly as you can. Allowing only a little rest is the key to train for the highest vertical jump.
The fifth jump on the docket is actually two jumps combined, the vertical and the box jump. You begin standing on a box as high as your vertical jump now stands. Hop down from it. As soon as you land, reverse course and explode into a vertical jump. This will teach your body to absorb impact, explode into action and then jump as high as you can. Don’t stop when you feel the agonizing burn, you’ll reach your goal!