Improve Fitness Level Before Starting Vertical Jump Training Exercises
In order to enhance your vertical jump training and learn how to jump higher, you must know what you are doing and do the right exercises. Until you have achieved a certain fitness level, you should not engage into an intense jump training program.
You should have some cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscle endurance, good nutritious diet, along with flexibility. After that, you can now challenge your body with more advanced fitness exercises to improve your vertical. Fitness can only improve if we overload the body. Overloading means pushing your body to do more than it is already doing. However the overload must be appropriate to the person's fitness level. If you're reasonably fit, you can overload more than an obese, sedentary person. It all depends on your body. After attaining an adequate fitness level, you will be ready for an intense vertical jump training program.
Training Exercises That Increase Your Fitness Level
1) Aerobic (or Cardiovascular) Exercises
You can achieve cardiovascular endurance thorough regular aerobic exercise, which is a repetitive movement of large muscle groups over an extended period of time. Examples of aerobic exercises include jogging, rope jumping, basketball and swimming,
2) Increase Muscle Strength
You can increase muscle strength by applying resistance to a muscle group. Lifting weights is a good way of boosting muscle strength. Squats, calf exercises, lunges, are some examples in increasing strength for jumping higher.
3) Improve Muscle Endurance
Muscle endurance is the ability of the muscle to repeat that movement over a period of time. Muscle endurance improves in conjunction with muscle strength. With regular exercise, your muscles burn energy more efficiently and endure overloading for longer time. Rope jumping, running long distance or for a long time, are some examples for building endurance.
4) Improve Joint Flexibility
Joint flexibility refers to how much the joint can undergo as limited by the joint's structure and surrounding connective tissues. Warming up and then stretching your calves, hamstring and quad muscles are important activity in preventing injuries and increasing your fitness level. Joint flexibility can also give dramatic increases in vertical jump.
5) Proper Nutritious Diet
A healthy diet means faster recovery time. Your body needs a chance to repair itself after going through the workouts. Therefore, avoid junk food and eat nutritiously. Drink plenty of water and good carbohydrates such as fruit and vegetables. Protein found in meats or whey protein shakes are important in building and repairing your muscles.
6) Reduce Body Fat
If your body fat index is less than 10%, you can increase your potential in jumping higher. You need to concentrate on building muscle and limit your caloric intake. A nutritionalist will be able to design the proper diet that makes sense for you specific needs. Vigorous exercises like running will also help you to lose those extra pounds and condition your lungs.
Remember, this is the start of your jumping higher program. After you have reached a good fitness level, you can begin to do exercises to increase your vertical explosion. Those exercises are called plyometrics. Plyometric training will develop quick twitch muscle fibers needed to increase your vertical. Many athletes omit these exercises, resulting in them not drastically increasing their vertical jump.
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