Being able to jump just a little bit higher, isn’t that the goal of life?

But seriously, increasing your vertical is pretty important for many reasons, from improving your overall athleticism to becoming more explosive in-game.

And while it’s a great goal, learning how to jump higher can be at times a simple, and at other times a complex, process.

Whether you’re a basketball player that wants to be able to touch the rim, a volleyball player that wants to be a better defender, or simply someone training for the high jump, a higher vertical can help.

There are loads of different methods and techniques you can use from performing different exercises to perfecting your jumping technique, all of which can contribute immensely to your ability to jump.

if you’re a professional sports player, casual sports enthusiast, or someone that just wants to add a few inches to their vertical, there is something out there that’ll work for you.

That’s why we’re gonna look at a couple of tips and tricks that you can start using today to see a rapid increase in your vertical jump.

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Testing Our Vertical Jump

Before starting anything, we first need to figure out how we’re gonna measure our jump height. This is important to get right from the start to avoid confusion later on.

For professional sports players or people that use certain gyms, you’re likely already familiar with the most popular tool used for measuring one’s vertical; The Vertec.

This is the vertical leap testing tool you see used by many college and professional teams, and for good reason. It’s a pretty accurate tool that’s easy to use. The problem is, the price for it can be a turn-off, averaging about $500 each.

If you don’t already have access to a Vertec or can’t afford to shell out that kind of money, using a simple measuring tape or marked wall is more than enough to start measuring your vertical.

Measuring tape works just as well

Whichever measuring option you choose, be consistent with it.

Measuring Your Vertical

To properly measure your vertical, first measure your reach when standing flat on the floor with your arm fully extended straight overhead.

Then measure your reach from a static jump and subtract your jumping reach from the standing reach to get your static vertical.

An example would be a reach of 80 inches standing and a reach of 95 inches jumping, which would make your total static vertical 15 inches.

Perform this action about three to five times, then get the average of the trials, and now you have your average vertical or average jump height.

You can also repeat the same steps to measure your running vertical jump by subtracting it from your standing reach to get your running vertical or max jump height.

Now that you’ve got your vertical, you’re probably asking yourself:

Well, go ahead and compare the results you got with the rating system in the following table.

Using the table, you can tell where you rank relative to most people when it comes to your vertical jump.

Keep in mind that these are max jump height averages for adults.

For reference, the average jump height in the NBA is 28″, so if you get an excellent rating, then you’re already a tall jumper!

How to Jump with Proper Form

We’ll start improving our jump height by refining our current form when jumping.

Believe it or not, there’s actually a proper way to jump that maximizes your reach, and this form can be applied to both a standing and running jump.

For some, it’s in getting this technique down correctly that’ll lead to the greatest results in your vertical jump in the least amount of time.

You’ll see many skip over this fundamental when learning how to jump high, especially people looking to learn how to dunk, only to realize how critical it is to their performance later on.

The proper form can be broken down into a three-step process:

First Step

From starting position, have your legs directly underneath your hips. This is done to harness more energy to push your body up.

Legs that are spread apart too narrow or too wide lead to a weak foundation when pushing up. Keep your feet in a neutral position facing forwards and bend the knees to activate the hip.

Second Step

Dip your knees and hip while also throwing your arms behind your body for added momentum. All of this is done in rapid succession, with the hip located behind the knees, and the back kept straight.

Third Step

Extend your legs and push off from the balls of your feet while throwing your arms upwards; a common mistake is to direct your motion forwards instead of up.

Once your feet leave the ground, extend your arms completely (reaching with only one arm can let you reach a higher point). When going back down, soften the landing by bending your knees slightly.

Be careful not to have your knees cave inwards or outwards; a good tip is to dip them similar to when you first prepared to leap.

I stress the importance of the descent back down to prevent injury, especially in the knees.

Knee problems can arise from poor form

The likelihood of this occurring can be reduced just by using proper form and following a steady progression.

I would also say that applies to any motion you perform to help scale back the risk of getting hurt and minimizing any injuries.

Exercises That Increase Your Vertical Jump

Once you have the proper form down, you can focus on increasing your vertical jump through by using exercises that work well for jumping higher.

Vertical jump training exercises adapt your muscles to the jumping motion and develop your leap in the areas of speed, strength, and explosiveness.

They mainly target these five muscles, which are the primary muscles used when jumping:

Each of these muscles play a major role in your ability to get off the ground, and by training each one, you’ll significantly improve your ability to jump.

There are two types of exercises that increase overall power and explosiveness: plyometrics and weight training.

Weight Training

With weight training, you’re incorporating weights to an exercise that add resistance to your body as you perform an explosive movement.

In this manner, you train for both strength and power by applying a negative force that pushes your muscles to exert more effort.

Because you’re dealing with weights, regardless of the exercise you do it is important to get warmed-up before each session and handle the equipment with care.

You may also want to get somebody to spot you during training sessions in case something goes wrong.

Being careful while exercising is always something to keep in mind, but this applies even more when handling gym equipment like weights.

Examples of weight training exercises that develop your jump include:

Weighted Step-ups

In essence, these are simple step-ups with resistance added to them to increase the difficulty of the exercise.

Step 1. Put one foot onto an elevated platform and step up onto that platform.

Step 2. While maintaining a one-footed stance on the elevated surface, take your opposite leg, and perform a high knee.

All of this is done while holding weights at the sides that you curl up in unison with your high knee action on the elevated platform.

Weighted Step-ups

Step 3. Take your high knee and bring it back down to the floor, bringing your weights down to your sides, and removing your pointer foot from the elevated platform.

Alternate to your opposite foot as the pointer and repeat the process.

Weighted step-ups are great for building strength in the quadriceps and can be incorporated fairly well into a cardio workout.

Medicine-Ball Broad Jump

In this exercise, we’re using a medicine ball for the added resistance it provides to this jumping exercise.

Although the focus of this exercise is maximizing your leap forwards instead of up, the benefits still transfer over to your ability to jump vertically.

Medicine-Ball Broad Jump

Stand a few feet away from a wall while holding the medicine ball.

Make sure you have plenty of space in between for you to leap forwards.

Step 1. Start with the medicine ball overhead, arms extended upwards, and feet spread apart hip-to-shoulder width.

Step 2. Bring the medicine ball down to your chest as you bend your knees and dip into a squatting position, building up energy.

Step 3. Push off of the balls of your feet as you jump forwards while throwing the medicine ball towards the wall.

Step 4. Land with bent knees to soften the landing and come back into the squatting position.

Step 5. Catch the medicine ball as it rebounds off the wall and back towards you, or if you are farther away, let the medicine ball fall to the ground. Pick it back up and repeat the exercise.

The medicine ball lends itself to many uses in a variety of different exercises, so don’t feel constrained to workout described here.

These two weight training exercises work well in improving your ability to jump, and both are great inclusions to consider for the weight training portion of your jump training regimen.

Plyometrics

Plyometrics form the back bone of most jump training exercises.

Because these exercises are high intensity, they push your muscles to exert maximum effort through short intervals, which when done correctly increases your overall force.

The reason why plyometric exercises are so commonly used is because of their effectiveness; they require high muscle recruitment in order to complete each motion.

When done repeatedly in the form of a workout, the movements lead to a high muscle tear rate, which when coupled with proper resting, builds muscle mass.

Most plyometric exercises involve explosive movements of some form which are done quickly and at maximum intensity.

The bulk of exercises that improve on our jump are plyometric exercises, and a few common examples are jumping rope, jump squats, and clapping push-ups.

If you really want to jump higher, you’re gonna want to include plyometrics in your training sessions.

Jump Rope

Jump ropes are a great warmup exercise

Jumping rope is a good warm-up for the muscles and gets the blood flowing throughout the body, making it a fantastic addition to any high jump stretches you may have pre-workout.

it’s important to have a proper warm-up to prevent injuries; performance also tends to improve when you’re limber.

Besides stretching, jump rope is an excellent exercise that helps with balance and coordination.

Other plyometric exercises that should be used in a workout for jumping higher include:

Depth Jumps

Depth Jumps are a challenging plyometric exercise, but a good one.

It’s pretty common to see depth jumps as a part of most jump training routines.

Depth Jumps

Step 1. Start on an elevated platform such as a box that is a few inches high.

Step 2. Take one foot out as you descend to the ground, but before touching the floor you want to land with both feet.

Yes, you read that correctly; you basically want to delay the movement of you back foot (the one still on the platform) until the last second.

Right before landing, take that same foot and bring it down quickly so that you land with both feet. At the same time, your arms are behind you, getting ready to perform a swinging motion.

Step 3. As you land, kick off the ground from the balls of our feet and push yourself up while swinging your arms upwards to add force from the swing into the jump.

We perform this movement quickly to reduce our time on the ground.

Step 4. In the air have your arms and legs fully extended, and as you descend slightly bend the knees to land safely. You can then repeat the exercises as needed.

The nature of this exercise is to be highly explosive in that short window where you make contact with the floor.

It’s important to keep in mind that we want to reduce contact with the floor as much as possible, so pushing off quickly at maximum intensity is the ideal action.

Box Jumps

Box jumps are another great plyometric exercise that will help with both explosiveness and coordination. As a warm-up for this exercise, practice jumping up and down with proper form and swinging your arms up and down while extending your hip.

Box Jumps

If you have no previous experience with box jumps, start with either a 12-inch or 6-inch box.

This is a good precaution to take to avoid potentially hurting yourself when performing the workout, and it helps you familiarize yourself with the motion.

Step 1. From the starting position, your feet are spread hip to shoulder-width apart and your arms are brought back in preparation to perform an upwards swing motion.

Bend the knees slightly and drop your hip back. keep a tall spine and a straight back through the entire exercise.

The form used in the starting position is going to build the force that is going to push you up onto the box.

Step 2. Push off the ground from the balls of your feet and swing your arms up, leap onto the box, and landing on both of your feet.

Step 3. Once you have landed on the box you want to step up fully and pause for a second before continuing. From here you can either leap back down with proper landing or simply step down to begin the next repetition.

Some things to keep in mind are to avoid having your knees collapse inwards when landing, and to prevent your back from rounding over by keeping it straight.

be sure to maintain a firm stance throughout the entire secession both when you jump and land.

Vertical Jump Training Program

Now that we’ve talked about different plyometric and weight training exercises, I understand that one of the main issues you may be struggling with when trying to learn how to jump higher is simply a lack of focus.

You probably feel that with all of the information online it’s hard to compile everything into a solid training regimen, and the reality is that it can be both tricky and time-consuming to research the best course of action for improving your vertical.

That’s why if you’re really serious about increasing your jump height and you’re willing to put in the time and effort to reach that goal, I recommend you look into vertical leap programs that take away the hassle of doing everything yourself.

One of the better programs in this space that can get results relatively quickly is Vert Shock.

What Is Vert Shock?

Vert Shock is a vertical jump training program developed by Adam Folker and Justin “Jus Fly” Darlington, two fairly well-known people in the basketball community.

The Vert Shock Program

With Vert Shock, you get access to an intensive 8-week program that is made for you to see an increase of 9 to 15 inches in your vertical. It includes printable workout plans in the form of pdfs that have a full breakdown for each day of the week, as well as videos where professional athletes show you how to properly do each exercise.

The Vert Shock program is marketed more towards basketball players as the main focus is to learn how to dunk, but the program itself works for anyone wanting to increase their vertical as it consists of the same practices you would naturally undergo such as highly intensive sessions where you perform plyometric exercises.

With this program, you get access to a lot of resources for efficiently increasing your jump height, and if you want to learn more you can check the rest of the information on the official site.

You can also see my Vert Shock review where I go over the program and my personal experience with it.

Mental Training

The last bit of training you’re likely to undergo before being able to jump higher is mental training. It may sound crazy, but believe me when I say that your mentality going into the jump has a huge impact on how high you can reach.

Visualization

Visualization is one of the most powerful exercises for the mind as it has a great impact on your overall performance.

Visualization has massive benefits

With visualization, you fixate your mind on your goal of jumping higher, which will make you more perceptive to the number of steps you take, your form while running, and how you transfer your momentum into the jump.

This is a powerful tool that allows you to perform self-analysis and potentially uncover weak areas during practice that you may have not been aware of previously.

Another form of mental training is perseverance, and this is critical to your success in general. Being able to stick to the routine of intense exercises and putting in hard work is the only way you’re going to see real results, but after a while, it can be tough to keep going.

Building the muscle in your brain that tells you to keep going is a crucial part of getting results regardless of what method of exercise you decide on.

How to Jump Higher

To recap let’s quickly summarize everything we’ve gone over on adding inches to our vertical jump.

We first go over how to measure our vertical, then we revise the proper form for jumping which can be applied to both a running and standing jump.

From here we delve into three different types of training:

Plyometrics – These exercises work on developing your speed and explosiveness, two very important factors that contribute the most to your results; when in doubt, use these exercises to jump higher.

Weight Training – Slightly less critical than plyometrics, weights help with building strength which improves overall stability and adds the total force you generate.

Mental Training – One of many mental training exercises, visualization plays a big role in dictating your level of confidence and awareness, and can be used to practice during rest days.

Alongside all of this, proper nutrition and rest are critical, and many jump-specific exercises work well in addition to the ones mentioned. Hopefully, with all of this information, you’ll be flying high in no time!