ANYBODY can improve their vertical jump and learn how to jump higher!

The key is learning how your body type affects this. Age, gender, race e.t.c., are not as important as most people think. You need to do an assessment of your body's individual reaction to training, as this changes from one person to another. just assigning you exercises simply doesn’t cut it if you want real hops…you NEED a cycle based on exercises for your given body type, concentrating on your weaknesses. These exercises should cycle from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.

Some Basic Steps To Get You Started

1. Assess your current level of fitness and your expertise with previous methods of training. The most effective way to get gains is to build a totally new strength platform. Then start utilizing an explosion phase. This will result in further inches.

2. Practice Lifts. Entire body strength is a key factor for such an athlete and there is no better exercise than the full back squat. This gives you progressive increases on spinal loading, which, in turn, stabilizes you under tension, and also improves stretch-response of both hamstrings and hip muscles.

3. Root the squat centrally within most of your lower body workouts. 6-8 decent lifts gets the best strength developments and vertical carryover. On the days of your upper body workouts, use the same philosophy, with the central exercises being bench press, overhead press variations, pull-ups and dips. Remember the overlooked muscles towards the end of your workout - muscles such as hip flexors, the shins , transverse abdominals e.t.c.

4. Ensure that you use a lifting technique in a safe and effective manner. Undergo 3-5 week strength phases for both lower and upper body. Done correctly, visible gains of 5+% on each lift should be apparent weekly. Following this, you will start to envision how your jump is guaranteed to increase.

5. Correctly utilize explosive and plyometric training as well as your strength training. These are your "field workouts" and are completed pre-weights. E.g., on Day 1 you begin by using a series of tempo runs, sprints and low-intensity plyos (after the proper warm-up of course). By the time Phase 3 comes around, this will have gradually switched to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyos.

6. Concentration on the heavier weights should fade as you progress through the phases.

7. Visualization is important - imagine yourself exploding upwards. Picture yourself with large leg muscles that are tightened like springs, ready to blast you up into the air. Say to yourself "I feel myself getting more powerful and much lighter." Then jump again. You should observe a noticeable increase in your vertical leap. (Sports psychologists have long recognized the effectiveness of "mental practice" in increasing athletic performance.)