The Single Most Effective Vertical Jump Exercise Ever

If you have seen any good vertical jump program you will see some good exercises that you can use such as deadlifts, squats, box jumps, bounding and so on. These are all excellent choices to help you develop your jumping ability. However, above all of these in terms of effectiveness stands one exercise that should be in ALL jump programs.

The exercise I am talking about does more for your movement efficiency than any other, and is more specific to your jumping goals than any other. On top of that it is also extremely sports specific which is great if you are trying to jump higher to help perfom better in your chosen sport.

So what on earth i this brilliant vertical jump exercise that gives such amazing results? The exercise I am referring to is none other than going out and performing some maximum effort jumping. Surprised? Well, don’t be. It really is that simple. As is the case with most things, the best way to improve at something is to actually go out and do it.

Jumping, especially in a sports setting where you might be diving for a ball, trying to avoid a defender etc, is a fine motor skill. The best way to develop it is by actually doing it. Volleyball spiking is a great example. You need to time the jump as well as co-ordinate yourself to hit the ball with a lot of force, all while in the air. This isn’t as simple as just jumping up straight and down in the air. In the early stages the movement will often feel unnatural, but the more you do it the more fluid it becomes and the higher you will jump.

Sadly, despite the obvious benefits that doing sports specific jumping practice has, it is rarely included in any of the vertical jump programs you can buy. Vertical Mastery is about the only one that does. Most vertical jump programs consist of all sorts of different exercises that do different things, but they overlook the most obvious and most effective – going and jumping.

Practicing your jumping technique will help you jump higher in a variety of ways. First and foremost though it will improve your movement efficiency! This improvement offers up some potentially huge benefits. If you have less than stellar co-ordination then you will be severely limiting your potential jump height. Poor efficiency means you cannot fire your muscles in the correct order to create a smooth and powerful jumping motion.

Practicing jumping also helps develop explosive strength and reactive strength in a manner specific to jumping. The other exercises such as skipping, bounding, weighted step ups, squats and so on all help develop those things as well, just not as well for jumping as actually jumping.

In its simplest form athletic training is really just your efforts to force your body to adapt to the new stimulus. So in order to get stronger you need to consistently get into the gym and lift progressively heavier weights. Doing so tells your body that it needs to make the required changes to meet the demands you are placing on it. Vertical jump training is no different. If you want to jump higher you must go out and regularly try to jump continuously higher. The more you practice jumping high the greater reinforcement of the message to your body and the quicker it will adapt.

One thing maximum effort jumping doesn’t do well is to develop a good job of is increasing your maximum strength levels. This is better achieved using weights. Getting stronger can be very important (and beneficial) if this is your weakness. But unless you have sufficiently developed your movement efficiency first, any strength gains will not necessarily carry over to an increase in jump height that well.

So if your vertical jump development has stalled, it might be a good time to de-clutter your approach and get back to basics with some good old fashioned sports specific jumping practice. The truth is there are very few people who are great at the skill of jumping. A bit of practice and your results might surprise you.