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You Can Learn To Leap Higher
ANYONE can improve their vertical jump and learn how to jump higher!
The key to increasing you vertical jump is learning the role your body type plays. Age, sex, race e.t.c., do not play as important a role. You need to assess your own individual response to certain exercise routines, as this varies from person to person. Just assigning you a list of exercises simply doesn't cut it if you want to really jump higher...you NEED a cycle based on exercises for your given body type, aimed at your weaknesses. These 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 methods of working out. The most effective way to experience gains is to construct a totally new strength foundation. Then start performing an explosion phase. This will result in even more inches.
2. Perform Lifts. Total body strength is important for such an athlete and there is no better exercise than the full back squat. This provides progressive increases on spinal loading, which , in turn, stabilizes you under tension, and in addition improves stretch-response of hip muscles and hamstrings.
3. The squat should be the main exercise of your lower body workouts. 6-8 quality lifts gets the best strength improvements and vertical carryover. On the days of your upper body workouts, the philosophy is the same, with the core exercises being bench press, overhead press variations, pull-ups and dips. Keep 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. Make sure to use a lifting technique in a secure and effective style. Undergo 3-5 week strength cycles for both lower and upper body. Done properly, you ought to see gains of 5% each week. Following this, you will be able to see how your jump is bound to increase.
5. Correctly use explosive and plyometric training as well as your strength training. These are your "field workouts" and are completed pre-weights. E.g., on Day 1 you begin by engaging in a series 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 slowly switched to shorter tempo runs, overspeed (downhill) sprints and high-intensity plyometrics.
6. Emphasis on the heavier weights will decrease as you move forward through the phases.
7. Visualization is important - imagine yourself exploding upwards. Visualize yourself with large leg muscles that are tightened like springs, ready to propel you higher. Say to yourself "I feel myself getting more strong and much lighter." After that jump again. You should notice a marked |increase in your vertical jump. (Sports psychologists have long documented the helpfulness of "mental practice" in improving athletic performance.)
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