Learn How to Dunk or 10 Ways to Improve Your Vertical Jump

[Melba Hemingway]

Let's be blunt about it: if you play basketball, there's two leagues
of people - those who can dunk, and those who cannot. Although you
might think it's just a question of height, this is not at all the
case. Of course, being tall helps, but even average height people -
5ft 9 or 5ft 10 - can learn to perform amazing dunks. How? It's
obvious - by improving their vertical jump. Now, there is a lot of
ways to skin the jumping cat, but not all are equally effective (and
some can actually be rather dangerous). I've put together a collection
of tips and tricks that helped me improve my vertical jump from near
nothing (after knee surgery on my jump leg and rehabilitation) to over
30 inches within 9 months.
Tip 10) Always warm up before exercise. Trying to push your muscles to
the max without warming up appropriately before (with light exercises
such as running up or down stairs, or jumping with a jumprope) is a
bad idea and can easily lead to strains and other problems.
Tip 9) A basic jumping exercise is the squat with weight. While
standing, slowly bend your knees with your back straight. Go down
pretty low (you shouldn't feel any pain or be uncomfortable), then
slowly go back up. Doing this slow is key for building up quad muscle
volume and power. Start without weights and increase difficulty by
gradually raising the number of repetitions. People with major jumping
power can easily do 100+ such squats. If you hold a weight such a
dumbbell or barbell, hold it behind your head, in one vertical line
with your spine.
Tip 8) Separate weight training days from speed/plyometric days.
Medical studies have shown that mixing these different types of
exercises is actually bad for the results.
Tip 7) Use jumping rope. Although sometimes shunned as "uncool", it is
the basic plyometric exercise and one of the best ways to improve the
explosiveness and power of your legs.
Tip 6) Never relax and let go during your waking time. During my
rehab, I was hell-bent on getting my leg back to the same power level
as before, and beyond that. I didn't just exercise every day - I did
it nearly permanently. Of course, you can't do heavy squats or
plyometrics all the time because your legs can just do so much until
they tire. However, even little things like walking toe-heel style
instead of flat-footed, standing on half-bent legs while doing
household stuff, or playing with your quads and calves while sitting,
are very effective when done regularly over a long period of time.
Tip 5) Calf exercise. It's not only the big upper leg muscle groups
that determine your total jump height. Powerful calves can easily add
another couple of inches that you may be missing for a resounding
dunk. The basic calf exercise is toe raises: stand upright, raise on
your toes, go down, and repeat it 50-100 times. When your calves feel
hot and burning, it's time to make a break. A somewhat better
variation is: stand on some stable horizontal ledge only with your
toes and front part of the foot. Hold yourself at something with your
hand. Go down with your heels about 30-45 degrees below the ledge,
then push up until you are on your toes. Repeat as many times as you
need to tire your calves. Again, key is slow and steady. Don't pump up
and down. It may be easier, but the effect is nowhere near the same.
Tip 4) Don't overwork your leg muscles. Our muscles grow best when
subjected to a cycle-wise load: a heavy workout, then a day of rest or
just light exercise. To push your maximum jumping ability, you need
the large leg muscles to perform at their peak (and beyond). When
overworked, they are unable to deliver that performance, and your jump
does not improve despite exercising. A sign of overworking is when
your leg muscles ache or burn.
Tip 3) Don't just jump mindlessly. Focus on jumping completely. With
every jump, aim to leap as high as you can. Scientific tests have
shown that persistent focus on a physical activity improves the
results by 10-20% on average.
Tip 2) Don't expect results too soon, and never give up. I know
several guys who bought expensive plyometric programs or jumpsoles
expecting some kind of miracle within a few days. There's no such
thing though, so once they didn't see the quick results, their
determination sizzled away and their jumpsoles would sit gathering
dust. Although there are good programs around, there's no miracles.
The only thing that will radically improve your vertical is tenacity.
Exercise a lot. Regularly. Make it your habit. Do it for months. Then
- and only then - the really impressive results will come.
Tip 1) Plyometric exercise. You may have heard the word. Basically it
stands for making a muscle contract immediately following relaxation,
and repeating it many times. Applied to jumping in a basic case, it
means that you jump, go down in the knees when you land relaxing your
muscles, and immediately jump up again from the crouched position.
This is tiring as hell, and for a reason - it puts the maximum stress
on the large leg muscles. If you are not used to it, your legs will
probably ache after a few dozen repetitions. However, nothing beats
this kind of exercise if you want to improve your jump quickly.
These tips should already get you underway, but they are just the tip
of the iceberg. There's a bunch of other highly effective, yet not so
widely known techniques on quickly improving your vertical. Check out
http://www.howtodunk.org for a lot more effective, hands-on info on
learning to dunk.