Imagine, that as soon as you step into the basketball court, ready for some warm up … you pick up a basketball … dribble towards the basket, make a jump, then BOOM!! You dunk the ball into the basket and hang onto the rim…

THIS has always been my dream since I was a teenager.  It soon became apparent to me that this was not going to be an easy goal.

Anyway, I want to clarify at the outset that I still am not able to do a dunk and I am not even able to touch the rim, which is quite ridiculous.  But what I DO want to tell you is, my vertical has improved by around 8 to 10 inches since my high school years and I have gone from barely touching the net to being able to touch the backboard of a basketball hoop.  My increase in vertical is a direct result of my vertical jump training.

Can you improve your vertical by just doing the sport that you are doing?

Back in school, I often ask myself this question.  All my friends used to say that as long as you keep doing the sport that you are doing, your vertical or your ability to jump will improve eventually.

To this, I think the answer is yes and no.  Yes if you are doing sports like high-jump.  No if you are doing sports like basketball.  The point is this – there is no other alternative and you can ONLY increase your vertical by, unsurprisingly, practising jumping!!  And it is not just repetitious jumping like jumping rope.  You must be practising EXPLOSIVE jumping.

A short story of mine – I used to believe that wearing ankle weights could help me improve my vertical.  I remember wearing like 5 Kg of ankle weights to lessons and refusing to removing them upon my teachers' request.  After 2 months of walking to school in them, playing basketball with them, sleeping with them…. NOTHING changed and the reason was I wasn't training my explosive jumping at all.

Does training your vertical take a lot of time and effort?

Absolutely NOT and I am dead serious.

My current routine is around 2 sessions a week and each session would take around 20 to 30 minutes.  The breakdown of my two sessions would be weight training for one session and plyometrics for another session.  As for the rest of the time, I simply REST.

You may think that this is crazy but really, I have gained 4-5 inches by having this routine for around 2 months and this is the interesting thing about jumping.  You do not overtrain yourself but you need a lot of rest to build up your muscles for explosive jumping.  Even if you are putting on some weight, it doesn't matter as long as your quads are getting stronger and you are training your explosiveness.

It is true that it takes a while to see results and improvement is not going to happen overnight, just like you are not going to transform from a skinny person to a muscular person overnight.  It takes time to build your muscles for jumping.  But I guarantee you that if you are training your explosiveness, you will see results in weeks.

I mentioned that I gained around 8 to 10 inches vertical since my high school years.  In fact, I gained my first 4 inches with a vertical jump program called ‘Jumping Advantage'.  After a few years' gap (primarily due to my injury), I refined some of my understanding on vertical training, in particular the concept of training jumping explosiveness.  This was with the help of Jacob Hiller's Jump Manual and I gained another 4 to 5 inches with that.

Does jumping higher help your sport tremendously?

It certainly has done so for me.  I am a very keen basketball player.  Although being able to jump higher (with my additional 8-1o inches) has helped me with my jump shots and rebounds, I'd say the biggest contribution of those inches is my increased flexibility and speed.  After all, once your muscles become stronger, you become faster and it is now a lot easier for me to dribble past people and to do lay ups.

So here you go! Increasing your vertical really isn't as difficult as some people think.  You need to have persistence.  But once you grasp the proper training technique (remember EXPLOSIVENESS!), it does not take a lot of time and effort to be able to jump higher.  I mentioned Jacob Hiller's Jump Manual above which really helped me to refine my vertical training, taught me what exercises I should do and provided me with a solid weekly schedule on jump practice.  If you are interested to know more about the Jump Manual, you could probably read my other posts on the Jump Manual review or click here to see the website.

I hope this is useful and all the best with your dunking dream!!