This is an article about increasing your explosiveness.
There are two variables that determine how explosive an athlete is: strength and rate of force development. Your vertical jump as of right now is a byproduct of these two factors. If you want to jump higher,
then enhancing both will help you accomplish your goals.
The importance of strength training for athletics is pretty obvious to most of us. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that getting stronger, particularly in the lower body, will result in a greater vertical jump. Therefore, anyone who has yet to partake in a weight training program of any kind has huge room for growth.
Increasing your strength alone will result in adding some inches to you vertical. If all you did was participate in a strength training program, you would see some pretty good results. However, at some point you would hit a plateau. Put another way, your vertical can only be improved so much through strength gains. Rate of force development is the other element that must be enhanced in order to keep progressing.
Explosion doesn't just involve how strong you are. Otherwise, the strongest men in the world would have 50 inch vertical leaps. Rate of force development refers to how quickly you are able to use your strength.
Those with the highest vertical leaps are often the quickest off the floor as well. If this is one area that you feel needs improvement, then that's where your primary focus should go.
Plyometrics are very commonly used in vertical jump training programs, and for a good reason. They help develop the rate of force development because it trains fast twitch muscles, which is what we use when jumping.
Because endurance is the name of the game for marathon runners, they are very likely to have a low vertical leap. Endurance is the enemy of vertical jump training, as it represents the opposite end of the spectrum compared to explosion.
The only way to be explosive is to train explosive. Doing squats in a slow, methodical manner is encouraged for beginners who are lacking strength. However, they must be done at a much higher rate once that foundation has been developed. This is how one becomes more explosive.
When this happens, you will be an explosive jumper. So instead of doing a squat and a moderate tempo, go faster. Drop down quicker into the squat, and extend up quicker.
This is why plyometrics are so effective. They consist of quick, explosive movements that work fast twitch muscles.
Repetitions should be kept under 8 for each weight training exercise, otherwise you will not be able to keep up a rapid pace.
