How to Increase your Vertical Jump with 4 Exercises!

4 Exercises to Help you Jump Higher

Thank you to Kiro M. for suggesting we cover this topic on how to increase your vertical jump. If you have any topics you’d like us to talk about, please comment your idea down below! Today’s topic is on how to increase your vertical jump. These 4 exercises can help improve your performance with sports like basketball and volleyball. Remember, these exercises are fairly advanced so if you’re feeling pain while doing the exercises make sure to check with your healthcare professional first. 

Eccentric Single Leg Calf Raise

10 reps each leg

• I chose to do this on a curb with something to hold onto, you just need some sort of elevated surface like a staircase
• Start with one leg on the curb, the ball of your foot on the step
• Make sure your heel is well clear of the stairs so you can have space for your heel to drop 
• Slowly lower yourself down for 3-5 seconds, dropping your heel and then power back up really fast
• Bending your knee will make a bit of difference in terms of which calf muscle you use, your calf is made of 2 separate muscles
• We’re trying to work that larger gastroc muscle or the medial calf muscle
• If this is too challenging, you can make this easier by doing this with two feet, or you lower yourself down at a normal speed

Single Leg Drop Hops

10 reps each leg

• You’ll want to find a bench for this one, the higher the bench, the more difficult
• Starting with your left leg, you want to basically just let yourself drop off the height and then spring off right away
• You should stay on the balls of your feet, you don’t want to land flat on your feet or your heel
• Pretend the ground is lava and you want to spend as little time on it as possible
• If you’re a beginner and have never done anything like this, you could start off doing this with two feet
• If you want more of a challenge, you can find a higher bench to hop off of
• Make sure you switch legs once you do the first 10 reps

Eccentric Squat Jumps

10 reps

• Eccentric meals you slowly go down as you’re bending and then you power back up
• Lower yourself down into a squat for 3-5 seconds and then explode back up into a jump
• The slower you go down, the more you’re going to get that burn as you get tired
• As you squat down, try to keep your chest nice and tall, you don’t want to slouch over

Box Jumps

10 reps

• You’ll want to find a bench for this one, the higher the bench, the more difficult
• Similarly to the Single Leg Drop Hop, you want to pretend that the ground is lava so you want to spend as little time on it as possible
• With both feet, hop onto the bench and then hop and turn yourself facing back to where you jumped from
• Hop back down to the ground, and then hop back on to the bench, repeat
• You should try to do the turns in different directions each rep so you’re not always turning in the same direction

Check out the video below to follow along with the exercises in real time.

Exercises