Basketball & Jumping Higher

Posted by Gabe Rodriguez on December 16th, 2020

In basketball, there are usually loads of areas in which you could improve. Increasing your shooting average, developing better handles, and in general becoming a more dominant offensive and defensive player all come to mind. However, the place that most players don't focus on all that much is their air game, and more importantly, their jump. For some, it seems like an elusive goal to be able to slam dunk a basketball or jump high enough to be able to block with consistency.

Although there's no doubt that it takes a tremendous amount of athleticism to accomplish this feat, and that genetics play a role in determining your reach, it's not as impossible as one might think. It may be silly to compare yourself to world-class athletes, but players like Spud Webb and Nate Robinson have at least shown us one thing; even for someone short, it's possible. If you genuinely focus on developing your vertical jump, you might just surprise yourself with the results.

Now, let's get into how to approach jump training to maximize your gains safely. First, we'll go ahead and label the two most important ways of training:

• Plyometrics
• Weight training

These two exercise categories will make up all of the various movements you use within each training session, as each approach to training carries tremendous benefits for jumping higher, with the added benefit of getting in shape.

Plyometrics

Plyometrics are comprised mainly of jump-specific exercises that incorporate the jumping motion as a part of the workout to train the same muscles used within the movement. This includes box jumps, depth jumps, jumping squats, and many more.

Weight Training

Weight Training is comprised of resistance training or exercises that use heavy equipment to put more load on the given muscle being trained. This is a pretty broad category, which is why most of the exercises used to focus on the core muscle groups that have a significant impact on your jump (the glutes, hamstrings, and quads). For that reason, exercises like deadlifts, hang cleans, and kettlebell swings are used.

Why These Exercises?

To put it simply, they work pretty well towards building up the same muscles you use for jumping, while also providing their own set of benefits. Plyometric exercises help with improving your speed and explosiveness, and weight training exercises work on building strength. When combined, this maximizes your vertical jump and increase your rate of force when jumping.

Now, selecting the exercises is only one part of the training; the second part is how you approach each movement. The core goal is on developing your type 2B "fast-twitch" muscle fibers since they generate the most power behind each jump in the shortest time.

However, there's a catch; these muscles are only relied on as a last resort, which is why you want to perform each session at maximum intensity, with a short amount of repetitions. This method activates those fibers, putting them to use and furthering both their muscle recruitment and force.

Obviously, strength training needs to be done with care. Unlike plyometric exercises which only use your body weight, strength training involves heavy equipment that if used improperly can lead to serious injuries. For all exercises, you do, research the proper form and practice it, and for weights in specific, be sure to have someone else who you trust to spot you while lifting weights.

From here on now it's your job to plan out each training session and decide how long each one is, what exercises you'll be doing, what days they'll be on, and where you'll be doing them. Works best you make yourself a workout log so that you're not scrambling during a session trying to figure out what's next.

Nutrition & Proper Rest

Now comes nutrition, which I would say often gets overlooked, but the type of food you put into your body is going to dictate the amount of energy you get out of it, and that isn't going to change. This part is largely on you to pre-plan your meals for each week and stay on top of your diet to make sure you're eating healthy.

Finally, get proper rest; don't slack on your sleep, or you'll feel long periods of low energy and a lack of concentration, both of which can derail you from finish your session and could even prove dangerous. You'll also be just as easily sabotaging your efforts by not allowing your body to recuperate, thereby slashing your gains. Remember that you breakdown your muscles when exercising, and build muscle when recovering.

Final Notes

As I stated earlier, it's entirely possible to get a higher vertical jump, but the pathway towards being able to dunk a basketball is by no means a walk in the park. What might be pushing away the most is basically having to set everything up; planning out your training sessions, your meals, and your recovery periods can be a hassle, and can even seem overwhelming all together.

Again, it's hard work through and through, but for the payoff, you receive in the end, I'd say it's well worth the sacrifice of both time and energy. However, if you're desperate to improve your jump and just can't deal with the creating process, then a jump program just might be the solution.

Jump training programs have shown pretty good results over the years, proving to be both an efficient option that saves time. There are tons of different programs to choose from, so the choice is on you to research each one and decide which is a good fit. You can start with this article that goes some of the best jump programs available and carry on from there.