If you watch a high-level basketball game or any of the games in the March madness NCAA tournament, you’ll see many great players exhibiting phenomenal jumping ability. They seem to go 1-2 feet above their opponents and give the appearance of hanging in the air while they shoot.
They are the envy of fans and players alike. Most importantly, they help win ball games. The question then arises: are these players made or are they born? If they can be made how can it be done?
Genetics accounts for about 30% of the ability to jump higher. This means that the more genetically gifted athlete possesses a higher percentage of fast twitch muscle fibers. These fibers play the key role in the athlete’s explosive ability to jump higher. The remaining 70% however, can be trained.
Most athletes have approximately a 50-50 ratio between fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers. When these athletes undergo correct and proper training of the ability to jump higher, some of these athlete can out-jump the player who has greater genetic potential but does not train most effectively to fully develop this ability.
One factor that is often overlooked in the ability to jump higher is the role of technique. Yes, there is a most effective way of jumping for height! Understand that jumping is a neuromuscular skill. It involves the nervous system and the muscles in a coordinated manner.
There must be effective inter- and intra-muscular coordination between the joints, especially shoulder, hip, knee and ankle extension. In addition, you must strengthen the muscles that are involved in these actions in exactly the way they are used in the jump.
Also overlooked is that the most important factor in jumping is power, not strength. This means that you must first develop a strength base and then literally convert the strength to power. Power is the key to jumping higher.
Power can be considered the ability to exhibit strength in the shortest amount of time. Too often coaches concentrate on development of more strength without taking into consideration the speed of muscle shortening. This is where the nervous system plays an especially important role.
With proper training the nervous system becomes the key to your ability to contract the muscles very quickly or explosively, as exhibited in jumping higher. The key here is velocity of muscle shortening, not maximum overload as needed in strength development.
It is here that different kinds of plyometric training come into play. Plyometrics, or more specifically, the shock method, develops the ability of the muscles to contract quicker and more explosively.
For more information on how you can develop the ability to jump higher see Explosive Basketball Training and Explosive Plyometrics.