How to Increase Your Hops at Home

“Coach, I want to dunk!” is a common phrase probably every basketball player has said at some point in their careers. We have heard many of our own M14 athletes say this themselves. In this short blog, we hope to show some ways to help increase your vertical while at home!

To start, you will need to find your current vertical. Do so by standing with your right or left side next to a wall, and reach as high as you can up the wall with your right or left arm, keep your feet flat on the floor! (Brady, 2014) Mark how high you reach with either a piece of chalk, or have someone mark it with tape. Then measure from the floor to the mark. After that, take 2 jumps, one reaching with your right arm then with your left. Take the highest mark from those jumps and subtract it from your standing reach. (Brady) This will be a pretty accurate measurement of your vertical.

The best way to increase your vertical is to train. However, like most things, if you want something to get better you have to work harder at it! Areas we want to focus on are Flexibility, Core Strength, and Force Production/Strength. (Clark, 2010) Below are some ways we can hit these areas while being stuck at home!

Flexibility: stretching is a great way to keep us loose and improve flexibility. Great stretches we can do are pigeons, knee hugs, spiderman stretch and figure 4. Take about 5-10 minutes out of the training session to get a good stretch in!

The next place we need to address is our Core Strength. One of the best ways we can work on core is our plank series: 30 sec front plank, 15 sec side plank on each side and back to 30 sec front plank; 3 to 4 sets.

Engage your core! Finally, we look at improving Force Production/Strength. Great ways we can address these areas are Box Jumps 3×5 (if you don’t have a box, use a set of stairs), make this a little harder by doing our Rotational Box Jumps too! Squats are a great way to improve our strength as well. Body Weight Squats are very effective especially with our 3-2-1 tempo. 3 sec down, 2 sec hold at the body, fast and explosive on the way up! Go for 3 to 4 sets and 8 to 10 reps! We also want to focus on our Posterior Chain. Ways to hit this area are our RDL’s and our Glute Bridges/SL Glute Bridges. RDL’s can also be 3-4 sets and 8-10 reps. Bridges can be 3-4 sets as well but 10-12 reps each leg.

With hard and consistent work, you will see improvements in your vertical jump. Like any training, it takes time to see the results you want. If you don’t stick with it, you won’t get to where you want to be with your goals. Remember why you started and where you want to be! Don’t forget to WORK PARANOID!

Sources

Ashe-Edmunds, S. (n.d.). How to Increase Vertical Leap at Home.
Retrieved March 31, 2020, from https://www.livestrong.com/article/178634-how-to-increase-vertical-leap-at-home/

Brady, D. (2014, August 19). How Does Your Vertical Jump Measure Up?
Retrieved March 31, 2020, from https://www.stack.com/a/vertical-jump-test

Clark, Z. (2010, November 15). How to Improve Your Vertical Jump.
Retrieved March 30, 2020, from https://www.stack.com/a/how-to-improve-your-vertical-jump