Over the years I’ve coached thousands of athletes to jump higher…
From middle school age kids to professional and olympic level athletes…
There are 3 main reasons I’ve seen that hold any athlete back from jumping high enough to dunk.
The good news is that they are easy to fix…
…and once you do, you’ll be able to immediately see improvement in your athleticism and your game…
Reason #1 – They Don’t Even Try To Work On Jumping Higher Because They Think That Genetics Have Doomed Them
I hear this all the time: “I’m white (hispanic, indian, insert any other kind of nationality here) will I be able to dunk?”.
Understand this: It’s NOT about the color of your skin, it’s about how you train your muscles to act explosively.?
Yes, some people are born with a higher amount of fast twitch muscle fibers than others. Thats life.?
But if you’re one of us normal athletes, you simply need to train your slow-twitch muscle fiber to act more like fast twitch and condition your body to use it’s available muscle power more explosively.?
And there are specific, calculated ways to do that.?
I’ve coached plenty of athletes who had very average athleticism before applying correct jump training principles.?
Thinking you can’t achieve elite athleticism because you’re a certain nationality is just plain wrong.?
I was always an average athlete until I started training properly…
Once I did I got my 2 foot running vertical to 44 inches, which at 6’4 got my head to the rim*:
Reason #2 – They Train For Muscle Size & Endurance Instead Of EXPLOSION
This is where I see most athletes go wrong
They don’t train for the specific outcome they want (explosive jumping power)
Jumping is an explosive movement. It happens in short spurts.
But most people train their endurance instead of their explosive capacity.?
Here’s an example:
Lets say you have a 25 inch vertical and you train by jumping ?12 inches high, a hundred times a day…
What are you training yourself to do??
You’re teaching your muscles to jump 12 inches over a long period of time.?
You’re training your jumping ENDURANCE… not your explosive ability.?
And your vertical is likely going to go down because your body thinks that you want to be able to jump 12 inches for long periods of time, so it adapts itself to that goal.
And your vertical is likely going to go down because your body thinks that you want to be able to jump 12 inches for long periods of time… so it adapts itself to that goal.?
Instead you need to be focusing on high intensity with fewer repetitions.?
It’s all about Quality vs. Quantity.
You’d never see a sprinter train for the 100M dash by running the mile so why would you train that way?
When you start to change from endurance type training to focusing on explosion you’ll find yourself jumping higher naturally
Reason #3 – They Only Train ONE Aspect Of Correct Vertical Jump Training
Most athletes think that they just need to get their legs stronger to jump higher.?
While strength is necessary to jumping high, if you ONLY have strength you’ll always be limited.?
There are 9 aspects of correct vertical jump training.?
For example…
In the lab there’s something we call “rate of force” development
It’s how FAST you can use your strength.
What if you were strong enough to squat with a car on your back but you could only move it very slowly?
You might be super strong but you wouldnt be moving very fast.
That kind of strength alone isn’t going to help you jump high you also need quickness.
When you combine strength and quickness together you get explosiveness.?
(and strength and quickness are only 2 aspects)
Over the years, I’ve performed hundreds of tests on myself and my athletes using special research equipment called an EMG machine (electromyography) that tracks muscle activity…
This showed me what exercises actually work for jumping higher and what ones dont…
The single best exercise we discovered and developed in our research lab (that we nicknamed “JAS“) is a “hybrid” exercise…
Which means that it trains strength, quickness and several other aspects all at the same time.
It’s what I teach to top athletes all over the world and that’s why it works so well, because it hits several aspects in one exercise?(If want a copy of it for free you can grab one here).
If you implement these 3 tips into your training, you’ll start immediately improving not only your vertical leap but your overall athleticism.?
I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, including myself. 🙂
Put it to work. You’ll be glad you did.
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