How to Jump Higher
Learning how to train your body to jump higher is a complicated process. A quick internet search will bring up alot of popular fitness and how-to websites with very basic information on improving your jumping ability. Unfortunately most of this information is either oversimplified, outdated, or just plain incorrect. If you follow this advice you are unlikely to see much more than modest improvements. And in some cases you are risking overtraining or injury.
Most people seeking to improve their vertical leaping ability ending up trying, failing and eventually giving up. In fact you will also find a great deal of misinformation stating that jumping ability is genetic. This is definitely not the case. Countless studies in very reputable medical, health, and fitness journals have attempted to find the most effective way to learn how to jump higher. While there isn't one study that has uncovered this information, there are clues to the puzzle in many of them. Someone just needs to put all those pieces together, test, and document the process for proof that it works.
Many years ago I made it my business to become that person. As a child, like millions of kids, I dreamed of one day having an insane vertical leap. I was a huge basketball fan and I always wanted to dunk. And I don't mean barely get one hand above the rim and guide the ball through the hoop. I wanted to throw down nasty dunks from all over the court in any game situation. I played basketball year round, rain or shine, ever since I can remember. Now I was never particularly tall and neither was anyone in my family, so I knew I would need to be able to jump quite high if I was ever going to dunk, let alone in a game. I read magazines, watched countless games, and read basketball books for fun. I purchased every gadget, jump shoe, and program I could find. I even bought special shoe inserts from an ad in the back pages of a popular magazine that claimed to be made from some space age rubber that would immediately increase my jumping ability. Despite my efforts, the closest I ever came to dunking was being able to grab the slightly bent rim of an old hoop at my high school gym in 10th grade. At six feet tall this wasn't a terribly below average vertical, but it certainly wasn't anything to brag about. I eventually quit basketball altogether after my junior year of high school. I had accepted that I would never dunk and moved on with my life.
Fast forward 20 years, marriage and two kids, and about 50 pounds later I took a year off of work to stay home with my children while my wife went back to work. I wanted her to be a stay at home mom while the kids were young, so we agreed I would have a year at home with them before I headed off to a menial job for the next 35 or 40 years until I could retire or until my inevitable demise, whichever came first. A bit morbid I know, but the point is I had some extra time on my hands and was facing middle age and wanted to make the best possible use of that year.
So I decided to make a list of the things I had always dreamed of doing but most likely would not get the chance as I approached my 40's. At the top of that list was dunking a basketball. It still bothered me after all these years that I had never done it, considering how much time I dreamed about it. So I got to work. I changed my diet, slowly started exercising more in order to lose that extra weight I had gained and to get stronger. Also on my to-do list was to finish my degree so I enrolled in some online classes at Penn State University. I didn't realize the two would be related at the time, but my enrollment gave me access to a huge database of research studies in just about every field imaginable. So in between exercising, parenting, and school work I began reading every research paper I could find on vertical jump training, plyometrics, fitness, and strength training. You would not believe the wealth of information that is out there if you have the wherewithal to find and sift through it.