Do you desire to increase your vertical jumping today? It does not matter what sport you play, vertical jump training will make you a better athlete. Basketball and volleyball are probably the most popular sport where jumping higher is important. You will have a better jump shot, block shots easier, and get more rebounds or in volleyball, block shots or spike easier, when you improve your vertical. The following article will give you three tips to help you increase your vertical and learn how to jump higher.

1. Weight Lifting and Plyometric Exercises

You can increase vertical explosion with plyometric exercises. Plyometrics helps develop quick muscle fibers needed to improve vertical by training your muscles to explode quickly. Over time, plyometric training increases the amount of force you can produce and therefore plyometrics are effective in making you more explosive. This leads to improved sports performance, a higher vertical jump, and faster sprinting times.

To clear a myth up, plyometric exercises are not made for improving conditioning or endurance. They are specifically designed for improving reactive and explosive strength. Plyometric training offer a wide array of benefits ranging from improve vertical jump, improved sprinting speed, better explosiveness, improved ability to absorb force, and better agility. Plyometrics are meant to be performed very fast, attempting to reach maximum and with long rest periods in between sets. Too often you see athletes trying to do 5 sets of 10 depth jumps with 1 minute of rest in between. This may help develop endurance, but not explosiveness, which is needed to increase vertical or jump higher.

2. Sprints, Intervals, and Agility Drills

One example of an exercise to increase your vertical and lateral agility is what I call the skaters exercise. Not only does it require that you jump as high as you can but you must quickly change directions. Place a cone or some other target about 2 steps away from each other. Stand behind one of the cones with the other to one side. Jump laterally to the other cone and land on one foot. Quickly jump off of the same foot back to the starting cone. The movement will look like an ice speed skater, hence the name.

Sprints and intervals are perfect supplements to increase vertical because they improve the reaction time of muscles. Your legs build a quick fiber muscle between the hamstrings, quadriceps, and calves that are pulled during jumps. Seems interesting? Strong jumpers are also fast runners because they integrate timed sprints (100 yards, suicides, and agility drills) that create a scheduled reaction to their reflexes.

3. Lose Excess Weight

Common sense tells us that excess weight can make it more challenging to jump higher. Besides putting extra stress on your ankles and knees, excess fat on your body will weigh you down. Simply by changing your diet, reducing sugars, and junk food will assist your body in losing the excess fat thus making you seem to “fly” ever higher. Good nutrition is vital for those desiring to improve vertical and jump higher.