Increase Verical Jump

Jersey

Jersey

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What are some good exercises or routines to increase ones vertical leap?

I used to play basketball everyday, but that was 10 years ago. Now my skills are lacking and was wondering what were some good drills for me to perform to specifically improve my jumping.
 
Squats
Depth jumps
Plyo jumps over an angled rope
Plyo calf raises

For assistance, do some deadlifting and pistols and hill sprints.

For me, bodyweight squats + plyo calf raises + plyo jumps increased my leap tremendously over the course of several months (I did them daily). This was 10 years ago, but I haven't lost the leap in all these years, and I found that heavy squatting actually improved it, despite the weight gain.
 
Powercleans have helped me. I can dunk again, but now I weigh about 40lbs more than the last time I could.
 
Thanks...by depth jumps do you mean standing long jump or broad jump?
 
HULKAMANIA said:
EEG, will you describe a plyo calf raise?
Click to expand...
Stand with the toes of one foot at the edge of a stair, hold something heavy in your hands or on your back, and bounce.

I know some people will recommend hill sprints and sled pulling before calf raises, but that's what I did to improve my jump, and what helped me dunk at 6' while still a teenager.

As for depth jumps, stand on something about a foot high, jump down and immediately jump up as high up as you can. Start with a low height, 3 feet is already getting into dangerous territory if you're not very proficient.
 
Barut,

Good call man. Power Cleans will definatly help with your explosiveness and should add quite a bit onto your vertical. GL!
 
Deadlift, then go right into squat jumps, depth jumps, or any type of jumping movment would do, works well.
 
I envy you guys. Dunking is one of those athletic feats that I've always wanted to accomplish, but never did. Maybe I should add this to my goals for 2006.
 
Jersey said:
What are some good exercises or routines to increase ones vertical leap?

I used to play basketball everyday, but that was 10 years ago. Now my skills are lacking and was wondering what were some good drills for me to perform to specifically improve my jumping.
Click to expand...


When I built to dunking from a standing jump (6'3" and long arms help with this btw) I did:

Set upon set of different types of body-weight calf raises (some may call it pylos, didn't have a clue what those were back then). One legged, toes in, toes out, off steps or phone books. I'd go till it burned the sweet burn then do a dozen more. What was fun is that I did this at a job where I closed the store at midnight and we never had customers. So I was paid to work on my vertical. I also jumped rope (again, often at work.. lol). The calf raises really gave me the explosiveness to where I could stand under the hoop and spring up for a 2 handed dunk. I used calf raises throughout playing volleyball in college (club level only :().

When I was first getting to dunk I bought "Strength shoes" which basically let you do calf raises while performing other exercises. The strength show jumping squat killed, for 15 seconds bang your knees off your chest, land, repeat.

Since you referenced basketball 2 additional items helped my dunking. First, I learned to palm a basketball. Slowly I worked my hands till I could palm the "Big Ball" (about 50% larger, meant for enforcing arc when you shoot). Second I bought an adjustable backback and mounted it low enough that I could dunk. Then I'd practice dunking and slowly raised the rim till it was a bit over 10 feet. Learning proper form on the dunk helps as you don't have to be able to jump as high (it really is more complicated than just fly up and slam). Then again I was never good at running dunks, I could do them but they looked like white-guy layups :) Oh, one last note. Being able to dunk and swat shots was nice, can't say it made me stand out. I probably should have spent that time working on shooting. C'est la guerre....
 
I used to be able to dunk a mini basketball when I was 15, I was only 5'7. My legs were alot stronger and bigger due to soccer and basketball. I could probably never dunk a BB because I don't think I could ever palm one. I actually made a bet with a friend about verticals so I wanted some tips, everyone has been very helpful.
 
Jersey said:
I used to be able to dunk a mini basketball when I was 15, I was only 5'7. My legs were alot stronger and bigger due to soccer and basketball. I could probably never dunk a BB because I don't think I could ever palm one. I actually made a bet with a friend about verticals so I wanted some tips, everyone has been very helpful.
Click to expand...

Oh, well that does clarify a bit.

Vert is generally measured by seeing who can touch the highest on something (backboard for cheap people, a device that looks like a japanese fan that turns when hit on the higher end).

One trick to beat your friend, jump two footed with legs about shoulder width apart like a volleyball player. VBall players usually get higher verts than BBall because of how they jump (2 feet at once, very straight up). BBall players often focus on forward leaping for dunks. You'll jump higher with a more straight-up jump.

Hope it helps some.
 
there's an awesome training program you can find on the net, it's called 'air alert III' (if u can't find it i can send u the .pdf) i'm 5'11 210 lbs and can dunk with either hand. the program added 5 or 6 inches to my vert, in like 3 months or however long it is.
 
I was always a one foot leaper, I have seen volleyball players test their verticals using that fan thing but since we don't have access we were going to use a bb net. I tried this like a year ago and was about one inch under rim.
 
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