3 Exercises to Increase Your Vertical

When you picture an elite athlete, you probably see Michael Jordan taking off from the free throw line, OBJ rising up and making a one-handed catch, or Cristiano Ronaldo elevating to score a header off of a corner kick. All these plays are impressive in their individual sports, and they have a common denominator. The Vertical Jump. Being able to increase your vertical jump can pay dividends in your sport of choice, and below I will list three exercises I implement in my training to increase my vertical leap.

Box Squat/Speed Box Squat:

The box squat is a double-edged sword that I use to increase my vertical. The standard box squat allows me to load a lot of weight onto the bar and come to a complete pause at squat depth before exploding back up. This exercise is great for increasing overall strength and also for increasing the speed of muscle contraction from a stop. The speed box squat is simply the same exercise but loaded at around 50% of your 1RM. It is still the same motion, but the weight moves faster which increases your speed while also not fatiguing you as much as when using a heavier weight. I will oftentimes cycle between the two depending on whether I feel that I need to focus more speed or strength. With either variation, your lower body explosiveness is sure to increase.

Depth Jumps to Platform:

Depth jumps are a very cool exercise that use just your bodyweight white focusing on minimizing contact time with the floor. The movement involves standing on a box (roughly 12-24 inches off the ground) and falling off onto two feet on the ground. As soon as both feet hit the ground, you then jump onto another box (I usually use one slightly taller) as if you were performing a standard box jump. The point of the exercise is to minimize the time that your feet are on the ground after falling off the first box. I like to imagine that I am starting my jump before I even hit the ground. Ideally you should land on the balls of feet and spring upward in a fluid motion. Over time you should be able to get off the ground in a shorter amount of time, and this really helps the fast twitch response needed for an explosive movement like the vertical jump.

Single Leg Weighted Jumps to Platform:

Whenever you work out your lower body, it is always important to include some single-leg exercises. That’s where single leg weighted jumps to a platform come into play. For this exercise you will need some sort of dumbbell (I’d start very light like 5-10lbs in each hand) and a low box around 12-18 inches tall. With dumbbells in hand, you will stand on one leg while bringing the other slightly back and then jump onto the box. Now this may be very awkward at first, so trying a practice run without the dumbbells, weight, or both is totally fine. The goal of this exercise is to improve explosiveness off one leg, and fix any imbalances between each leg. I used to be a one-leg jumper off of my left foot, and my right foot was essentially useless which hurt me on left-handed approaches in basketball. Being able to explode off of either leg will make you much more versatile, and strengthening each leg will help your two-foot jump height as well.

These three exercises have helped me add on around 8 inches to my vertical leap, I assume they can help you too. Give em a try and feel free to post any progress videos and tag us on social media.