What goes up must come down! Vertical jumping is one of the critical skills an athlete can have. How high they jump can often make the difference between victory and defeat. It isn’t just the high jump at the Olympics that measures athletic performance. The football wide receiver needs to reach higher than the fullback to pull in the touchdown pass. The basketball power forward needs a massive vertical jump to achieve the slam-dunk score.

The high vertical jump skill takes years of dedication, training and practice to perfect. The athlete’s legs need to be developed to power vertical jumping and then absorb the massive destructive impact of landing. The strain on feet, ankles, calves, knees and thighs is enormous.

What training gives an athlete the vertical jumping skill?

The low squat ankle jump is an exercise developed on the basketball training courts. It requires a crouched starting point, on the toes. It is not possible to jump from the heels, so all the power is built up from the tips of the toes through the feet to the ankles and calves. Bouncing up and down from this crouched position, just working the feet and calf muscles stretches the tissues, breaking it down so it can grow again stronger and bigger.

Old fashioned skipping rope works too

Athletes who want to increase their vertical, as it is called, go back to the childhood game of skipping to systematically build lower leg strength. In particular they do it back and forth along a length of smooth track. Skipping on one foot while stretching the other leg then alternating. It isn’t speed that is the aim here but building of muscle tissue in those crucial legs. It is all about doing as many repetitions as you can to build your aerobic stamina at the same time. After all a basketball center will leap hundreds of times in single game.

Try 4-star vertical jumping to increase your own vertical jump. Imagine a two-foot square on the floor in front of you. Begin by standing on one of the corners of the square then jump two-footed forwards onto the next corner. Jump again two-footed sideways onto corner three then backwards to corner four and the other sideways back to corner one. Then keep jumping, going clockwise and counterclockwise in equal numbers of times to be sure of working all muscles equally.

Look after your knees

Vertical Jumping is hard on your knees. Imagine those thousands upon thousands of pounding impacts involved in just walking. Jogging is great for most leg muscles and for stamina building but it can be death on knees. Be sure to wear the right impact absorbing shoes when jogging and avoid running anywhere but on resilient turf.

These three exercise routines alone will gradually build anybody’s vertical jumping ability and give him or her the edge on the sports field. The only question left to answer is; do you have the determination to jump for the stars?

If you want to jump higher within two weeks, click on the link below and find out what some basketball players do to improve their jumping technique.