Good jumping training

Hi, i'm 14 and 182cm tall and i recently touched the rim for the first time (on the 3.05m basket). Can anybody show me a good jumping workout that will give me about 3-5 extra centimeters so i can dunk?

 

Wow, you are very tall for your age.

One of my mates who plays basketball bought a jump training/exercise eBook.

I'll see if I can attain a copy for you as it provides a variety of training exercises and methods.

 

In my basketball team i am pretty average. I would be glad if you could send me the ebook

 

Still looking for tips guys!

 

Squat, jump rope, jump stairs.

 

Any idea on how many a day? and how often? I have never actually worked out anything so this is all new for me.

 

I'd also be interested in this. I'm not really the best at jumping haha.

Pakadz, HMU please if you find anything useful

 

Jumping is an explosive action, and thus utilises fast-twitch muscles. Typically, legs contain slow-twitch muscles, though you'll know if your legs are predominately fast-twitch (they will be naturally strong, and quite large - your vertical will also be naturally high without training)

In order to stimulate fast-twitch muscles, you should do heavy exercises with a rep range of 4-6. I would HIGHLY recommend squats, and any other heavy leg exercises (calve raises, seated leg extentions, leg press, and so on). Dead lifts and back-hyper extensions are also great.

I wouldn't really recommend exercises such as skipping, since they will typically recruit slow-twitch fibres, and won't be very useful for jumping.

Muscle groups to target: Glutes, Hamstrings, the Erectus spinae and your abdominals. In my opinion, your Glutes are probably the most important.

Go heavy, and go hard with a low rep range.

 

I was training for football combines to play in college and this is exactly right. I went from a 28 inch vertical to a 37 inch vertical.

Things to do:

Using either a weighted vest or a bar with some weight (NOT TOO HEAVY!! YOU CAN DAMAGE YOUR KNEES), do squat jumps. I used a vest and would jump for distance squat 25 times jump for height then squat 25 times down and back on a football field (120 yards each way). After this I would run 10 10 yard sprints and follow up with a tempo job for 100 yards to loosen back up and head to the weight room. Do this every day Monday-Friday

Monday and Wednesday

My sets consisted of:
1. Calf raises with as heavy of weight as I could x25

2. Body weight (or you can add a weight vest) squat jumps x25

3. Jump on and off of a weight bench or jump box x25

4. Squats at 100% of my body weight x10

5. Stand next to a wall and jump as many times as you can for 60 seconds. Do not do this for height but for speed...shit burns after a while.

Do that routine four times and follow up with some ab work because it all starts in your core and hips.

Tuesday & Thursday

Cleans: 8,6,4,2 reps increasing weight

Deadlift: Light! Just put enough weight on the bar to weigh you down. Bend at your waist keeping youe back straight and lift the bar until you are standing straight up. Do not bend your legs this is mainly used to stretch out your back.

Running: Run a mile at a tempo you feel comfortable with. This is to loosen back up.

Stretch: STRETCH THE HELL out of your legs every chance you get. If you have ice baths available do it! It helps so much,

That is not the whole workout because I worked my chest/shoulders/ and did a lot more conditioning.
It took about 6 months to get to that point. Just keep working!

 

This is my view on increasing your vertical.

Firstly, the thing with jump programs such as air alert III and such exploit the use of plyometrics. Basically it is explosive training most of the time using only your body weight, its a "power" exercise and typically relies on your anaerobic system.

Though you may see increase in your vertical, these gains do not increase much after your so to speak "newbie gains".

Plyometrics, power all increase your power/explosiveness with the muscle mass that you currently have, thus, you can only exert a lower maximum amount of force in the fastest time possible. (hint LOWER maximum amount of force). Though these may increase your power, it can only do so much.

This is why, and I highly recommend it for someone your age, is to establish a baseline strength level. A personal anecdote to add is that I too tried Air Alert III once, and also learnt from my mistakes. I'd also like to add that I played competitive representative basketball for about 3-4 years as well, so I can relate alot to what you're going through.

A good baseline strength level is to be able to do a 1RM of 1.5x or 2x your body weight. (e.g if you weigh 80kg, if you can squat 120kg once, that's very good). This can be improved by squats, leg press, hack squats, exercises should range from 8-12 reps for iincrease in hypertrophy.

I only recommend power movements and plyometrics once you have a good amount of muscle/strength to work with, there is no use working on power if you're weak as piss.

A different way to go about it is you can try do those exercises suggested as switch the rep ranges in intervals (e.g. 10-12 reps 1 week, 4-8 another).

Good luck and don't get injured!

 

Thank you all guys for the help - as to Malaka - i think i already have these fast twitch muscles developed, as i said i have never ever worked out or tried increasing my vertical and i still jump fairly high, and i have always jumped better than average. The only actual training i have done to increase my body's performance was to run for stamina.

Fredecus - Those tips are great this is exactly what i was looking for (a good day by day guide) Thanks a bunch! By the way, do you think i can skip the parts with extra weight or do them less often (2-3 times a week), as i live in a shithole and my closest gym is about 12 miles away?

Inpherus - I sure will use that baseline strength tip, thank you too!


I will try to test my vertical every week and i will keep you updated!

My vertical as of now is around 20 inches

 

Erm you can but I highly recommend still doing it all even if its with no weight or with dumbbells. To me though the most important thing is the running, you have to stay loose because if you do it right, you should have a hard time walking for the rest of the day.

 

If your vertical is 20inches untrained, then I'd say that the preponderance of your muscle fibres are slow-twitch (your legs have a propensity to be composed of slow-twitch fibres, it makes sense considering we are a long-distance running species).

 

Yeah, if he is that tall and that young, it has to be slow twitch. Running for stamina aka long distance pretty much nails it. Not saying that your fast twitch aren't good, just that you don't really work them. If you do that routine I gave you it will change.

 

Thanks a lot for all the response! This is what I like sythe for - the helpful community.

 

a guy i knew in highschool did jump rope for about 45 mins a day when he got home from school, ( that was after weight training class)

he was about 5'5 and could still dunk, and he said thats what he did to help improve his jumps.

 

Don't go too heavy, you should know when to quit. If you don't you will become slow man Goodluck