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ANYONE can improve their vertical jump and learn how to jump higher!

The key to increasing you vertical jump is understanding the role your body type plays. Age, gender, race e.t.c., are not as important as most people think. You need to do an assessment of your own individual response to training, as this varies from one person to another. Just assigning you a list of exercises simply doesn't cut it if you want real hops...you NEED a cycle based on exercises for your given body type, aiming at your weaknesses. This group of exercises should cycle from Strength to Explosiveness to Plyometrics.

Some Basic Steps To Get You Started

1. Assess your current strength and your expertise with previous types of exercise. The most effective way to produce gains is to construct a totally new strength foundation. Then start utilizing an explosion phase. This will result in further inches.

2. Practice Lifts. Total body conditioning is a key factor for such an athlete and there is no superior exercise than the full back squat. This gives you progressive increases on spinal loading, which provides stabilization under tension, and additionally improves stretch-response of hip muscles and hamstrings.

3. Root the squat centrally within most of your lower body workouts. 6-8 quality lifts gets the best strength improvements and vertical carryover. For the upper body days, use the same philosophy, with the central exercises being bench press, overhead press variations, pull-ups and dips. Bear in mind to work often overlooked muscles at the end of your workout - muscles such as hip flexors, the shins , transverse abdominals e.t.c.

4. Ensure that you use a lifting technique in a safe and efficient manner. Undergo 3-5 week strength cycles for upper and lower body. Done in the proper manner, observable gains of 5+% on each lift should be seen weekly. Following this, you will be able to see how your jump is guaranteed to increase.

5. Correctly utilize explosive and plyometric training as well as your strength training. These are your "field workouts" and are completed pre-weights. That is, on Day 1 you begin by engaging in a sequence of tempo runs, sprints and low-intensity plyometrics (after the proper warm-up of course). By the time Phase 3 comes around, this will have gradually switched to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyometrics.

6. Concentration on the heavier weights will decrease as you move forward through the phases.

7. Visualization is important - imagine yourself exploding upwards. Picture yourself with big leg muscles that are coiled like springs, set to blast you up into the air. Say to yourself "I feel myself getting more powerful and much lighter." After that jump again. You should observe a noticeable |increase in your vertical jump. (Sports psychologists have long recognized the effectiveness of "mental practice" in improving athletic performance.)

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