What is the best way to train vertical jump?
Ask the question on an internet forum or social media, and you’ll often get a response that points you towards a particular fixed 12-week program. The problem is, that arranging training efforts around a “program” has the unfortunate side-effects of making your body yield to whatever exercise bias that program is created with.
Some coaches favor strength and barbell work. Some push particular types of plyometric work. Others put a high mark on bodyweight training and core conditioning. Smart coaches will include an emphasis on specific jump efforts within the training program. Ultimately, training must be specific to be effective, and it is the intensity, density and sequencing of these specific variables that athletes must be aware of to help them intuitively push themselves to another level of performance.
The best vertical jump (or speed, or any sort of power-performance training) program out there is one that takes the most important elements of jumping, and arranges them around the athlete. Any program can work for a period of time, but to reach ones highest potential, athletes need to perform a high specific volume of relevant training exercises, and do so in a way that fits them best.
Below is an excerpt from my latest training book, Vertical Ignition, which focuses on some of these concepts.
The Absolute Essentials of Vertical Jump, and Athletic Power Training
Strength training and plyometrics are awesome, but they aren’t the deciding factor in whether or not an athlete runs a faster 40-yard dash over the course of their career. Specific practice jumping, sprinting or throwing is the first and foremost determinant of athletic success. Here are the primary parts of vertical jump training:
- A variety of sport specific jumping efforts
- Maximal sprints, both accelerating and maximal velocity in nature
- Speed endurance sprints of 40-80 meters for one leg jumpers
- Overloaded versions of jumping and sprinting
- General strength and fitness training
Before we get any further, it’s important that you know the how and why of each type of training in terms of improving an athlete’s speed, power, and of course, vertical jumping ability.
Sport Specific Maximal Jumping Efforts
If you want to get better at something, then you must practice it often, and in many cases, every single day. If you want to sprint faster, then you must practice sprinting as fast as you possibly can, with full rest, and preferably timed, or against competition. If you want to jump higher, then you must practice jumping as high as you can, preferably in a competitive environment that pushes you to your highest level.
For some reason, and maybe due to the advent of so many ways to do resistance training, high and low reps, and everything in between, we look at jump training in a way that anything but actually jumping is somehow the secret to a higher vertical. In reality, unless you are jumping maximally and jumping often, you aren’t going to see yourself reaching your highest potential. Jumping in itself is a somewhat complex skill, particularly jumping off the run, and it must be nurtured on a regular basis to reach its peak level.
Maximal Sprinting
Maximal sprinting is a close brother to maximal jumping. From a biomechanical viewpoint, maximal sprinting is actually jumping from one leg to the other. Simply put, sprinting is jumping, and very fast jumping at that. With this in mind, know that any successful jumper in track and field worth his or her salt is going to be engaged in a sprint program that pushes them to get faster on a regular basis. Many coaches have their jumpers sprint right alongside the sprinters, highlighting the importance of getting better at that skill. If you want to jump high, you need to run fast. If you want to get fast, then you have to sprint maximally on a regular basis.
Overloaded Maximal Jumping
Many athletes can reach a very high level of performance simply by jumping and sprinting maximally, and doing so often. Although doing only one’s specific movement is a wonderful way to train, eventually the brain and nervous system need even more overload to push the body to a new level, at least with most athletes. There are a gifted few out there who can just jump and sprint, and never do a plyometric in their life, and be just fine. If you were one of those gifted few, chances are that you would be busy right now doing between the legs dunks over whatever volunteers you can find, rather than reading a book on how to properly implement plyometrics into your regimen.
Although some athletes who demonstrate freakish natural ability may be able to skate by without doing much else aside from jumping all the time, even world-class performers often benefit from a form of overload. Plyometrics, or jumping drills that use either gravity or repetition as a form of elastic overload have a lot to offer the just about any jumping athlete out there. There are countless stories of athletes making fabulous gains on their jumping ability from the performance of a plyometric program. Plyometric training can offer an overloading stimulus to the jumping athlete in the form of either raw force or repetition, each with its own unique stimulus on the body.
General Strength and Fitness
After actual jumping, sprinting and plyometrics comes everything else. Many athletes (and even many coaches) make the false association that strength training is the most important aspect of jumping higher. Strength and barbell training is a very important aspect of a better vertical jump, but it is only a means to an end and not an end of itself. We’ll go into further detail on this when we get to the type of weight training that you’ll see in the Vertical Ignition system.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some freaky athletes out there who have made huge gains through programs that revolve around strength training, but these aren’t the athletes you see winning dunk contests or high jump competitions. Many big weightlifters are the best at standing jumps, which are by nature, the most similar to weightlifting, where a running jump has more in common with sprinting than moving a barbell.
General fitness is also an important part of jumping higher, as well as just being an athlete. General strength and fitness work refers to bodyweight, or light barbell exercises that are implemented in order to either improve the functional ability of the body (better connection and function of crucial joints), or to improve the aerobic and hormonal response of the body to exercise. The most important aspect of this type of work is better recovery, a must for any athlete seeking a better vertical leap. You’ll see this type of general work administered in the Vertical Ignition system on off-days, and particularly in “deload” weeks, also known as “bridge” weeks. General work by itself is not the biggest factor in a bigger jump, but general work supports and feeds the specific work in the program. Without a level of general strength and fitness, a lower ceiling will be applied to an athlete in terms of what they can ultimately get out of their specific training.
The Need for a Better Training Structure
You see, most speed and vertical jump training programs are based around the bottom of the “sports training pyramid”. They are designed to help those with little relevant training experience achieve some gains in general strength and power, typically through a prescription of barbell work, submaximal plyometrics, and high repetition drills that can build sport skill proficiency.
Statistically speaking, there are a lot more athletes out there with relatively little training experience than those with a good deal of effective training under their belts. This imbalance caters towards the creation and marketing of low-level programs that have little relevance, or effectiveness towards the higher ends of the training spectrum. Unfortunately, this leaves many athletes in a state of struggle, unable to find a training system that meets their level of experience and preparation.
The chart below shows the layers of training that exist in the athletic journey, with the needs of each level being slightly different than the other. Beginner level athletes have far different training needs than elite athletes. The majority of training programs peddled on the internet are designed towards training beginner to intermediate level athletes.
Layers of Training Preparation
There is a lack of widespread programming for populations of escalating training history
Most athletic development “programs” revolve around some sort of bias: strength, plyometrics, special jumping or sprint drill exercises. The bias is typically a reflection of the training methods that were particularly useful to the author for a point in time. Each of these training “tools” is going to have use in the early development of an athlete, but many of them need to fade into the background once an athlete hits higher levels of training. What needs to be at the forefront of training the athlete seeking to break through to the advanced, and especially the elite level is training that is very specific to the quality that is trying to be improved.
To advance to the highest levels of vertical jump performance, specific, maximal jumping and sprinting needs to be the number one training variable that each training day works to improve, not an athlete’s ability to put 30 more pounds on their squat, or become proficient in an odd core exercise routine. Unfortunately, many workouts designed to improve some aspect of athletic power (in our case, measures such as vertical jump and sprint speed), have a concentration of efforts on supporting exercises, and not work that is maximally specific to jumping and sprinting itself. This concentration of training efforts tends to look something like the pyramid below (with exercises of highest priority at the bottom level).
Typical Training Arrangement
Effective for Novices and Some Intermediates
This type of pyramid will work for many athletes who have only been playing their sport for some time. If they have just been playing a sport, something different in terms of plyometric density, plyometric overload, and some barbell work is a welcome change, and will be met with some instant improvements in performance. The problem is that this instant improvement is often associated with the way to train over the long term, and people don’t realize that it was just useful for a season, rather than a lifetime!
We will learn more about how to optimally infuse a variety of jumps into the training when we get to the Vertical Ignition programming. Barbell work could just as easily be at the bottom of the pyramid for many aspiring athletes. Although brief periods of training where barbells are the focus can be a useful break from the grind of purely attempting increases in speed or jumping ability, they should be kept to periods of less than 4-6 weeks as to create minimal interference with optimal long-term skill and speed development. Barbell work is a great nitrous boost for the performance of many athletes, but you can always tell a tight athlete who over-lifts by their restrained and compensating mechanics on the field of play.
Now, the first pyramid of training distribution will work great for a beginner, will help an intermediate, and perhaps even some advanced athletes at particular stages of their training, but it won’t get them much further. There just isn’t enough focus on the primary route of development to really reach the highest level of training. With that in mind, Vertical Ignition workouts are going to look something like the next pyramid of performance distribution.
Adjusted Training Arrangement
Effective for a broader range of athletes, particularly athletes with some training experience
In this pyramid, the most important two qualities are actual sprinting and jumping followed by special strength work, elastic and bodyweight work, and then capped off by selective barbell work.
If you are interested in learning more about this training system, as well as checking out the testimonials of those who have gone through the Vertical Ignition process, check out the link below.
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