How to Increase Your Vertical

The vertical is an awesome test to see your athlete's lower body strength. This will allow you to see where they are, without having to put a barbell on their back. We have our guys re-test theirs every 12 weeks to see if the program is working for them.
Here are a few tips that we use with great success to help increase your vertical.

1. You have to get stronger. This is very important in the development of a high vert. The stronger you are the more force you will be able to generate when you going to attempt a jump.

2. Stretch out your hip flexor. Tight hip flexors will halt your vertical in its tracks. If your hip flexors are tight then they will try and pull you down as you accelerate and stretch in your jump. You want these loose so you can get full extension in your jump.

3. You must incorporate various plyometrics into your training. This will help you develop explosive lower body strength. You will use these in three to four week waves and be sure to add a lot of variety into them to keep your central nervous system stimulated. We have our athletes do box jumps, lunge jumps, death jumps, and broad jumps just to name a few. The sets should be high and the reps low and the rest high. You want to treat these as a Max Effort lift and give your body time to recover from your previous jumps.

4. Make sure you practice your vertical. There are numerous things that you must tweak to insure a great vert. It is not something you will just be able to do and get the best result possible.

5. Increase relative body strength and reduce body fat. This is pretty simple and self explanatory. Fat does not move as easily as muscle and you can't generate the same amount of force with fat as you can with muscles. Relative body strength means the ability to manipulate your own body weight in the way that you desire. A good indicator of this is a person's pull ups, if person can do a lot of pull ups than their 40 and vertical are going to be better then someone who can not.

Here is one of fullbacks training his Vertical for his Pro Day coming up in March.