If you play basketball or volleyball (or know someone who does), one of the biggest things you want to know is how to increase your vertical jump or how to dunk.

            Sit down, young grasshopper, and listen to uncle Igor (by the way, you get bonus points if you know from which movie “young grasshopper” comes from).

Original source: here.

            As with anything else, the key to increasing your vertical jump optimally is to individualize. Because programs that improve one person’s vertical jump may not improve another person’s vertical jump. The way you individualize is by assessing. After all, if you’re not assessing, you are guessing 😉

Correct Muscular Imbalances 

A vertical jump is a finely tuned and coordinated action between the quadriceps (the front of the thigh), the hamstrings (the back of the thigh), the glutes (the butt muscles), and to a lesser extent, the calves, abdominals and lower back.

So if some of those muscles are either sleeping, or contracting too late in the sequence, it will take inches off your vertical jump. See, jumping isn’t just about the strength of the muscles, but also about the correct sequence or order in which those muscles contract.

So the first part to increasing your vertical jump is correcting your muscular imbalances. To identify muscular imbalances, you have to assess. After all, if you’re not assessing, you are guessing (did I say that before?).

It’s beyond the scope of this article to teach you to assess muscular imbalances, but if you want a more personalized, hands-on approach, let me know.

Figure Out if you’re Stronger than You Are Fast, or Faster than You Are Strong 

You know those popular jumping programs out there, that involve a lot of plyometrics? They’re only partially right. If the reason that you can’t jump high enough are lack of explosiveness, plyometrics will do a great job in developing it. But if you already have explosiveness, and still not jumping high enough, plyometrics won’t do much for you.

So there’s a simple test that you can do to help you figure things out (I describe this and many other tests in detail in my book, Unlimited Progress).

Here’s the test:

  1. Do a vertical jump, and measure how high you were able to jump.
  2. You know how before you jump up, you squat down? Hold that squatting down position for 5 seconds, and then jump up as high as possible.
  3. Calculate the difference between jump #1 and jump #2.

If the difference between the two is less than 10% (for example, if you first jump was 30 inches, and your second was 28), focus on plyometrics and jumping exercises.

If the difference between the two is more than 10%, focus on strength training.

You see, the vertical jump is an expression of power. Power consists of two things: force and rate of force development (how quickly you can express that force).

Force is developed through strength training, and rate of force development is developed through plyometrics.

So after doing the right exercise program for 3-6 weeks, re-do the test. Your results may change. If before, you saw that you were stronger than you are fast, this time around, you may find that you’re faster than you are strong. In which case, the emphasis in your training would shift from plyometrics to strength training.

And that, young grasshopper, is how to increase your vertical jump.