This is not another vertical jump article. Rather, it’s a compilation, and rear-view mirror analysis of what I consider to be my best, or at least most interesting, vertical jump articles in the last 5 years.
With so many expensive programs on jump training available, it’s always nice to be able to help out aspiring athletes, as well as coaches through the medium of free vertical jump articles. There was a day when I was young where I saw hyped up vertical jump training programs everywhere, yet I had no idea what they were based on, or why I should buy or use them. It is my goal now to help athletes (and coaches) everywhere understand more about why training is what it is, and to be able to make intelligent choices in their own pursuit of ultimate performance.
To that end, I’ve gathered together 5 (actually 6) vertical jump articles that are my personal favorites that I’ve published on Just Fly Sports. The purpose of the list below is not only to highlight some of my favorite articles, but also to take a new look at some of these articles in light of my growth as a coach over the last several years.
Honorable Mention: The Five Elements of Dunking
#5. Long Sprints for Reactive Vertical Power, Part IV
#4. Vertical Jump Training Arrangement 101, Part II
#3. The Top 5 Exercises for Single Leg Jumpers
#2. Interview with Jordan Kilganon: Dunking Every Day for Vertical Gains and Overtraining Misconceptions
#1. A Training Program for Single Leg Jumping
Honorable Mention: The Five Elements of Dunking
( Just Fly Sports | The Five Elements of Dunking )
Key Points:
- Different types of athletes tend to respond differently to different approaches to training
- Your best training program will generally be organized around your own response to exercise intensity, duration and frequency
Nearly making the top 5 was a Charles Poliquin inspired piece on athletic response to training and performance. Things like fiber typing have a pretty big impact on what types of training you’ll tend to do best with, as well as how often you should do it.
Some time after this article, I had a chat with Henk Kraiijenhof at the Central Virginia Sports Performance seminar that confirmed and built on the ideas of this article, and if I were to add anything to this piece since I wrote it, it is that athletes need to largely train towards their strengths (although addressing weaknesses in off-season periods can be helpful). Sprinters that are very powerful and fast twitch are better suited for lower volume programs, and shorter sprint durations in training, while moderately or lower fast-twitch sprinters will usually do better with longer sprint durations. Speed jumpers will do better utilizing more plyometrics in their training program, while force jumpers will find more gains by making strength and barbell training represent a higher program proportion.
From training to tapering and peaking, the implications of the “type” of athlete you are become extremely important the further in the training game you go. Don’t expect to go searching for that one training template of an Olympic gold medalist and think you’re set for life, but rather, find out how you respond to training as an individual.
#5. Long Sprints for Reactive Vertical Power, Part IV
( Just Fly Sports | Long Sprints for Reactive Vertical Power, Part IV )
Key Points:
- Long sprinting has some useful upsides for athletes seeking better jumps off one leg
- Some athletes who are mentally driven to get a large volume of work in can benefit from properly programmed long sprints
- Historically, cross-cultural track and field jump training programs have included at least some element of speed endurance
I really liked writing this series because the concept is so counter-intuitive. Why would doing something in the endurance realm have the potential to improve something so far into the explosive side of things? I’ve seen enough jumpers who have had far better seasons when the sprinting workload was higher to realize that there must be something at play in the benefits that jump athletes can get from longer (150-400m) sprint training sessions.
In hindsight, two things I would have added to this article would be the thoughts of Tadeusz Starzynski, author of “Explosive Power and Jumping Ability for All Sports”. One thing Starzynski mentioned was that heavier jumpers will often need more long duration sprint type work to help their musculature achieve better contraction/relaxation cycles. Sure enough, every athlete I’ve seen who it has seemed that the longer sprint running was an important part of their success was above the “average” body mass index for their event, and this not being due to high bodyfat, but rather muscle mass and build.
Also, in that same vein, and also integrating some of Frans Bosch’s recent ideas (Starzynski was ahead of his time), Starzynski would have his athletes perform longer sprint repeats (say, 200m) on a terrain/trail course, so that they had to rapidly adapt to things like dips, holes, and rocks along the way. We are now becoming more and more aware that improving movement patterning revolves around introducing new movement patterns that need to be solved (Bernstein).
#4. Vertical Jump Training Arrangement 101, Part 2 of 3
( Just Fly Sports | Vertical Jump Training Arrangement 101, Part 2 of 3 )
Key Points:
- If you want to jump high, you need to practice jumping a lot
- It’s OK to rest less than 48 hours between jumping sessions
- The best training is often the simplest training
I had a tennis player recently ask me what he needed to do to be able to dunk a basketball. The athlete in question is around 6’2, 160, with a strong build, and is one of the more explosive guys on the tennis team. He only plays tennis and does our tennis oriented strength work. He does not play basketball or practice jumping.
I told him to dunk a tennis ball 20x a day, and work his way up towards a basketball. He was shocked at the answer, and didn’t seem to believe me. Instead, he kept asking about doing things like calf raises, or various weightroom lifts. I asked him what the best way to serve a tennis ball faster was, if you normally don’t practice serving, and he started to understand, but still had a look in his eye that he wasn’t entirely convinced with my idea.
As strange is it may seem, athletes do not intuitively look at practicing something more as a way to get better at it. For some reason (insert Daniel Kahneman or David McRaney blurb here) people are always looking for a shortcut, or almost an excuse for why they aren’t quite so good at a particular skill, and take the heuristic that leads to them thinking there is a “secret” regarding that skill they haven’t optimized quite yet.
I wrote this article in the same vein as some popular “Squat every day” books and articles that had been circulating, and particularly one that had mentioned “on the threat of your life, what would you do if you needed to add 100lbs to your squat in the next 40 days?”. Most people in that unfortunate scenario, would probably not follow the typical powerlifting program that has them hitting the squat rack a couple of times a week. Rather, they’d be hittin the iron every day.
The same principle exists for many of the best jumpers in the world, and particularly the best dunkers we see. Now, I will say that dunkers can get away with training more often than say, a high jumper or long jumper due to a greater breadth and variety of movement puzzles the dunker is trying to solve (think about this, there are many more ways to plant and take off for various dunks, while there is really only one way to take off for high/long jump).
If I could make one change to the program I laid out in this particular article, it would be to ditch a lot of the barbell squatting, and instead focus more on pistol squats and skater squats in much of the lower body movement, as they have much more transfer to specific pieces of the jump than their barbell cousins, although both are important. I would also lean towards some more dynamic variations of squatting in this piece, although that may make the program more complicated than it really needs to be!
#3. The Top 5 Exercises for Single Leg Jumpers
( Just Fly Sports | The Top 5 Exercises for Single Leg Jumpers )
Key Points:
- Specific, yet variable takeoffs are the key for building a better single leg jump
- Sprint speed is a crucial factor in long term single leg jump development
- A variety of bounding, quick plyometrics, and intense depth jumps are incredibly useful for the development of single leg jumpers
Single leg jumping is a largely different motor skill than a standing vertical jump, and good luck finding a “jump training” program that addresses this. You’ll need to check out the world of track and field to find some proper materials here, and fortunately, there is a lot of great stuff in that world!
For many athletes, high jumpers and basketballers alike, it takes some work to piece through the myriad of available training means for improving single leg jump, which is why I wanted to put it all together in this article. Single leg jumping as a movement is low variability and high impact, which makes it important to really optimize and understand how to train specifically, and in adequate variation for this type of jumping.
Being a high jumper and track coach for many years, this piece may be the small-scale “magnum opus” of my early career in terms of exercise application for single leg jumping athletes.
#2. Interview with Jordan Kilganon: Dunking Every Day for Vertical Gains and Overtraining Misconceptions
( Just Fly Sports | Interview with Jordan Kilganon )
Key Points:
- The best performers in many skills, and in this case, dunking, don’t have a training program so much as they simply perform their skill in a daily, high volume, and highly motivated state.
- Repetition is a crucial and under-appreciated aspect of high performers
- Much of what we know as overtraining is a result of mental factors
This was one of my favorite pieces to gather together and release. I actually did this article before Jordan was even truly famous, and I was really happy that he was willing to give me some great answers in terms of his long-term training and results. Many people want to somehow condense athletic ability down to a 12-week program, and leave the journey at that, but it is always a much more extensive and long-term road to high performances.
At the time I interviewed Jordan, I was really shocked at his dedication to his craft. How many athletes wanting to jump higher would literally dunk for 3-4 hours a day, or more? If you look at Jordan’s approach, plant, and takeoff, he does some things (particularly his armswing) that most athletes can’t even touch. This is a product of repetition and dedication my friends.
Around the time of writing this, I had just begun to consider athletes who undertook high frequency, yet high variability (again, dunking is pretty high in variability in terms of plant fluctuations in the takeoff) training means. High Frequency, High Variability (HFHV) could be the undertone of a lot of future training articles you’ll be seeing on Just Fly Sports.
#1. A Training Program for Single Leg Jumping
( Just Fly Sports | A Training Program for Single Leg Jumping )
Key Points:
- Training in a “2 on, 1 off” format has a lot of benefits for intermediate/advanced jumpers
- Training with a heavy emphasis on bounding combinations and hurdle hops can have an extremely powerful effect on single leg jumping in a very short period of time
I saved my favorite article for last. I didn’t pick this one as #1 because it was the most scientific, or highlighted a bunch of intellectual musings on my end. I chose it because it is above all things, practical.
I first “discovered” this particular training method when I was 25 years old, and had done some similar type of work in the past year. I took the general layout from Dr. Yuri Verkhoshanski, and then decided to perform this format (with a few tweaks of my own) in a 2 weeks on, 1 week off ideal, as suggested by brilliant Brazilian jumps coach Nelio Moura. The results were magical.
Myself, and others found improvements of up to 6” on their single leg jump in a 3-week time frame. This program delivers an extremely powerful motor learning effect, and is particularly useful in building the inverse-extension reflex that powers sprint strides and single leg jumps alike.
I used variations of this template over the next few years in my own training, my All-American high jumpers, and continue to use many pieces of it in my own work with online clients.
Since this piece is so short, it really demands a read. Also, if you’re looking for a better one leg jump, you really need to make trying this program out for a few blocks as part of your training repertoire.
Please share this article with others if you enjoyed it.
As always, I have a couple of great full-length books out on vertical jump training and performance that are 1/3 of the price of similar products on the market, but contain an exponential amount of useful information. These books have a lot of training theory and philosophy, but most importantly, they contain valuable and highly effective training progressions (particularly Vertical Ignition) that can be applied for a wide range of athletes for an extended period of time.
Free Training Guides!
Sign up for the newsletter, get your FREE eBooks, and receive weekly updates on cutting edge training information that will help take your knowledge of athletic performance to a new level.