Vertical Jump Training

From a pure vertical jump improvement point of view you do not need to go overboard with the upper body training. The upper body only contributes a small percentage to your jump height and it already gets a lot of indirect stimulus from your regular vertical jump training.

Doing a whole lot of extra work on it provides very limited gains and really just eats into your training time, your ability to effectively recover, and ultimately your motivation to work hard. None the less a little bit of work can go a long way.

Vertical Jump Improvement

The bulk of your training for vertical jump improvement should focus on jumping activities and lower body focused strength exercises, however to ensure you maximize your gains there are a couple of other areas that you should also pay a certain amount of attention to. These areas are your core, certain areas of your upper body, and your feet.

CORE TRAINING – THE RULE OF 3
A strong core is essential for vertical jumping high as it helps improve movement efficiency, balance, body control, power output, and reduces the chances of injury.

Plyometric Training

There is no doubting that weight training and plyometric/jumping drills help develop strength and speed for improving your vertical jumping, and yes, jumping itself can only take you so far, but if you are not doing enough of it in the first place then you are missing out on the easiest gains you can get.

So why if plyometric training improves movement efficiency and jump related speed and strength better than anything else do you even bother with other drills and exercises? This is the obvious question to ask and it boils down to the fact that after a while your gains stagnate and you need to find other ways to increase your ability to generate jumping power. Also, max effort vertical jumping is very hard on the joints and CNS so you just can’t go and do it all the time as you will end up hurting yourself.