Increase Vertical Jump - Exercises to Jump Higher

[Kristy Ross]

A question was asked of me once: What are the best exercises to jump
higher and run faster? In other words, the person asking this question
wanted to know how to increase vertical jump. That is not a quick and
easy question to answer because everyone is different, therefore they
have weaknesses in one area, strengths in other areas. So, there will
be different exercises and, depending upon your strengths and
weaknesses, you will need to learn several different exercises in
order to know what to work on and when.
Take for instance the guy who doesn't have a whole lot of strength.
This guy would benefit from building up his strength doing exercises
such as squats. On the other hand, the guy who is plenty strong, but
lacks the spring in his step needed to catch air, he will need to
spend a lot more time doing depth jumps as he develops his training
regimen. Squats would do this second guy no amount of good.
To recap, to learn how to increase vertical jump, you must put your
focus on two areas: speed and vertical jumping ability. In other
words, running speed and jumping ability. Both of these skill require
a huge amount of power. Power is the combination of speed and
strength.
To understand this concept, let's turn our attention to the world-
class sprinter. Imagine, if you will, a sprinter heading forcefully
down the track on his way to Olympic Gold. Only don't just picture
this sprinter in your mind, running full force and burning up the
track. Slow things down, like a movie in slow motion. What you will
see will give you a better understanding of what I am talking about
when I say running speed and jumping ability, backed up by power,
which is speed and strength, is being fully illustrated by this slow
motion sprinter. Because you'll notice that this sprinter isn't
running up the track at all. In fact, he is jumping down the track.
Interesting observation, isn't it? The principle states that the
greater the power, on "force," the more ground the sprinter is going
to sail over. In the runner's world this is called the sprinter's
"stride length." Combine this stride length with how often the
sprinter's feet hits the ground (frequency), and you get a perfect
gauge for how fast the sprinter is sprinting. Knowing the speed he is
capable of, the sprinter can then work either of those two areas to
improve or increase his speed and thereby his performance. For
example, he can increase the length of his stride or he can increase
the frequency of his stride, and either or both of these will increase
his speed or his performance. In the case of the sprinter, the
greatest potential increase will be in increasing the stride length,
because that is where, power is most important to him.