The three secrets to CRUSHING your vertical jump!

Okay, okay improving your vertical jump is not a secret.  There are no heavily armed, stern looking men standing alertly by the Black Book of Sports Performance keeping away everyone except the "experts."  And by experts I mean anyone with $20, a WIX account and the ability to take selfies of him or herself leaping, almost magically on to a plyo box.  And for only $29.95 they will share the secrets with you, risking harsh scowls from the Protectors of the Book.  There ARE, however, several logical steps you can take to improve your explosive power and thus, your vertical jump.

1. Start spending a little more quality time on you butt!  When a person jumps, every muscle in the lower body fires.  Yep, every one of them.  However, most people are so focused on the "Core Lifts," like squats, they end up over-developing their quadriceps, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis,intermedius and rectus femoris, which end up doing all the work.  Meanwhile our friends the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and hamstrings end up sitting back watching the show.  Start giving those guys some very specific attention and watch the vertical improve almost immediately.
2. Stop worrying so much about "Explosion!"  Don't get me wrong, explosive exercises are good, nigh, essential to improving athletic ability of all kinds.  But they are only one component. To understand why, you have to understand a little about muscle fibers.  There are essentially 3 types of muscle fiber: Type I, or slow twitch, Type IIa, fast twitch a, and Type IIb or fast twitch b.  Keeping it simple, Type I Fibers are responsible for slow movements like standing and walking.  Type IIa are responsible for jogging and a little sprinting, and Type IIb, mostly jumping.  So naturally people assume, work the Type IIb and they will be more explosive.  WRONG!  Well sort of.  They muscle fibers are a bit like the transmission in a car.  If you start a car in 3rd gear it will stall.  You start in 1st, then shift to 2nd, 3rd, Etc.  Well your muscles do the same thing.  First Type I fires, then type IIa then IIb.  Your body has to go through the entire sequence before you jump!  So yes, strengthen those fast twitch guys.  But to really CRUSH your vertical, give equal attention to the other two types of muscle fibers and work on reducing the time it takes to work through the firing sequence.
3. Change it up.  One of my favorite fitness rules: There is no magical exercise done a magical way that produces a magical result.  Your body needs variety.  If you do an exercise long enough, usually about four weeks, your body simply learns the firing pattern for that exercise. Once it does, your potential to improve using that exercise is essentially over.  When you do the exercise your brain says, "Oh yes!  We know how to do that under this load.  Here we go!"  and then you add weight at your brain says, "Um, no, we know how to do it at that other weight, not this weight.  I'm hungry.  I need a sandwich."  If you change the exercise regularly the brain never quite figures out what you want it to do so it has to keep working to get better and your body might even try to help your brain out and add addition muscle mass to get the job done.

So there you go!  These really are not secrets, just logical steps.  If you pay attention to these steps your vertical jump will improve!  For more information on improving sports performance please e mail tom@canyonptandf.com and check out my page canyonptandf.com. Happy jumping!