Improving Your Vertical Jump
Foundational health principle:
Movement/exercise
Having a strong vertical jump is important in many sports such as basketball, volleyball and some football codes. Although most people focus on developing strength and power in the legs, one of the most important things that people don’t think about is stability.
Paul Chek, founder of the CHEK Institute says you must cap your power leaks. He describes a power leak as “an expression of power that doesn’t contribute to getting the body off the ground.”
The most common sources of power leaks are related to poor stability of the core, pelvis and legs.
- Pelvis
To achieve maximal vertical jump, you must be able to stabilise your core. A strong core controls movement of the pelvis and legs. It also stabilises the main action centre of the vertical jump being the pelvis. A fully functional deep abdominal wall is essential to stabilise the pelvis against the powerful forces developed by the strong leg muscles. To activate the inner unit core muscles, draw your belly button in towards your spine. If you are unable to draw in your belly button, or when you do you still have poor lower abdominal muscle tone, then you probably have inner unit muscle recruitment issues. This is reducing your vertical jump potential. The main reasons for this are;
- Pain in the lumbar spine, sacro-iliac joints or pelvis
- Pain or inflammation (bloating) in the digestive system or elimination organs
- Overuse or incorrect use of a weight belt
- Food allergy or intolerance
- Hips and knees
To stabilise the hips and knees, you need extremely good control of the hip abductors, adductors and external rotators. These muscles work together to stabilise the hips, knees and legs so that power doesn’t escape laterally. To check if you have a lateral power leak, draw a vertical line down the centre of your kneecap. Then stand in front of a mirror and jump up and down. Watch the line on your kneecap, if it goes inside your second toe as you bend your knee to spring or drive upward then you have a lateral power leak. To correct it perform belt and ball squats (see your trainer or speak to me for more information).
- Back jumping
Back jumping means that you are using your low back muscles to initiate the jump instead of the jumping muscles which are the gluteals, hamstrings and quadriceps. To work out if you are a back jumper, watch yourself in a mirror (from the side), as you initiate your jump. If your shoulders move forward of your toes at any time, then you are a back jumper. This reduces your vertical jump potential because low back muscles are predominantly slow twitch whereas the jumping muscles, the gluteals, hamstrings and quadriceps are predominantly fast twitch, power muscles. To correct this try adding in a medicine ball back toss exercise and medicine ball squat push press exercise.
Final note – Squat Vs leg press machine
The squat exercise is a great exercise to improve your vertical jump. This is because the movements are almost identical, the jump is basically a fast squat pattern. The squat has the same relative timing as the jump pattern which means the movement at the different joints, ankles, knees and hips, occur in the same sequence in relation to each other in both movements. You are also more likely to use the stabilises muscles mentioned above.
However, a leg press machine exercise is not a good exercise to improve vertical jump pattern due to the following;
- It does not correlate as well with the jumping pattern
- The body is in a different position
- You are sitting/lying so you don’t use the important stabiliser muscles mentioned earlier in this article.
So make sure you are training inner unit core stabiliser muscles as well as appropriate functional leg exercises and you will be well on your way to a better vertical jump
Yours in good health
Brad Corbett
Osteopath
Personal trainer
Holistic exercise & lifestyle coach
Ref:
Paul Chek courses
- Scientific core conditioning
- Medicine ball workout video