I will give you some workouts that will help strengthen your muscles and increase your vertical leap so that you can be ready to get a true jump program like the J.M.

First off, you have to be strong enough to even begin a plyo workout routine because it will put a lot of stress on your body. I recommend losing some weight if you are overweight right now because your knees will not enjoy it if you don’t.

To start a vertical jump training program you need to be able to squat you weight 8 times in 8 seconds. If you are a female, then you should be able to squat your weight 5 times in 5 seconds. If you have a very hard time squatting your weight then you need to do some leg workouts in the gym to build up enough strength to start a jumping program. When I say your weight, I don’t mean to squat your own body weight, I mean if you weight 150 pounds, you put 150 pounds on the squat bar and squat with that. Some trainers think you should be able to squat twice your weight before starting jump training but that is not necessary.

You will continue to build strength as you build speed and this will result in great results for your vertical jump.

The first thing you need to do is mark how strong you are on each leg lift. You will notice a direct correlation between your strength increases and increases in your jump height.

Never train with jumping exercises and weights at the same time or even on the same day. You will have a day for working out with weights and a day to do vertical jumping exercises.

You want fresh, strong legs when doing any kind of jumping training because you want to get as high as you can on each and every jump. Never jump so much that you can barely jump off of the ground. This will do you no good! Stop jumping when you feel that you aren’t getting within an inch or 2 of your highest jumping ability with fresh legs.

Plyometric boxes are a great way to build some fast twitch muscle. You will use them often, but be careful of the impact that landing will have on your knees.

Click Here for more tips on how to jump higher.

Focusing on the best exercises to increase vertical leap will give you results faster than spending countless hours in the gym training ineffectively. Jumping requires a perfect combination of plyometrics (jumping exercises) and strength training the traditional way with weights.

I can’t emphasize how important it is to know where you are strong and where you are weak. If you have strong quads and weak hamstrings, it WILL affect how high you can jump. You have to be well balanced. At the same time if you have strong legs but your speed is lacking, spending time building more strength will not benefit you to help you increase your vertical leap. You need to focus on the areas where you lack strength or speed. Most people just need it all, both speed and strength. But if you know you have very strong legs and you workout your legs often, you need to focus more on plyos than strength training. Leg workouts are very important to jumping and you need to have a plan before heading to the gym.

I would rather pay for a jump program that an experienced jump trainer has developed and tested than try to make up my own not knowing how well it work. You can buy a jump program online and they come in the form of an immediate downloadable eBook. This means that the second you buy it, you have access to the password and you can get the workout program, videos and anything else that comes with it. There are about 10 different jumping programs on the Internet right now. I will save you some time and tell you that the best one by far in my opinion is the Jump Manual, Click Here to see it.

A plyometric workout for volleyball or basketball will be very similar but most companies are going to advertise jump programs for basketball because there are more people interested in basketball than volleyball. But don’t worry, if you play volleyball these jump programs are perfect you as well.

1. Cleans
This exercise is great for building explosive strength in your legs and as a bonus you develop some upper body strength as well. Cleans are performed by lifting a barbell from the ground up to resting on your upper chest. When starting you want to make sure your back stays straight and that you are bending at the knees and not from the back. When you jump you have to have a strong a core because all movement must pass through the core. Cleans will strengthen your back which will help you jump higher.

2. Hamstring Curls
Some knee pain is caused by weak hamstrings and can be fixed by simply strengthening the muscle. Knee pain should not be felt while doing hamstring curls like you might feel during squats. I would recommend you go heavy but not too heavy. You need to be able to bring the weight all the way so that your heels touch your butt. Stay in the low rep range and be prepared to be sore after the first time.

3. Calf Raises
Your calves act as the last little boost that you can give yourself before take off. Most of the time when you are jumping your body weight is already on it’s way up as your calves flex, so this means that you want the calves to be able to explode as quickly as possible with a little less weight than your body. So doing calf raises without any extra weight is fine. I recommend doing some calf raises with heavy weight and doing some jumping exercises where you only use your calves to do the jumping.

4. Box Jumps
If you want to increase your vertical jump you have to train with plyometrics as well as with strength gaining exercises that we have discussed. Plyos are jumping exercises that will train the golgi tendon reflexes to react with more precision. Do not do plyos on the same day that you train the big leg muscles. Plyometrics and weight training should be done on different days. The goal with plyometric exercises is not to tire the muscle from high rep activity but to make it more explosive for maximum jump height. Take a plyo box that is high enough to wear it scares you to jump on and then do low reps. If you can do 15 reps on a box, it is not high enough. You can do box jumps on lower boxes but you should not reset before jumping each time. This means as soon as your feet touch the ground you will explode back up on the box. This will train your fibers to fire with more precision.

Click Here to see a video on jump training does and dont’s.