The forty-inch vertical jump is an athletic move that draws attention and applause. You may have witnessed it in the form of a basketball dunk or volleyball spike. The vertical jump test is the ultimate standard of measurement of the force a body can produce in a given amount of time i.e. power. The high vertical jump demands an athlete to counteract the forces of gravity by propelling into the air using their entire body.

While the best way to achieve athletic success and consistent long-term muscular development is through strength training, Olympic lifts and plyometric exercises, a lot of athletes still attempt to improve their verticals through buying items like strength shoes and other gimmicky products over the Internet.

Explosive lifts such as a clean pull or push press, Olympic lifts like the power clean and snatch, old-fashioned weight lifting exercises like back squats, front squats and step-ups, and plyometric exercises such as depth and box jumps are some of the most well-known exercises. Greater motor unit recruitment or faster firing of the motor nerves is required for the muscle contractions it takes to increase the force in vertical jump movements. Increasing muscular coordination and neuromuscular efficiency is one way to realize an increase in the power of a vertical jump, as is an increase in force application.

However, to improve muscle coordination between the agonists and antagonists and increase force application, exercises such as a front and back squat are important, Plyometrics are important to transfer the strength developed into speed-strength, where the athlete can apply the strength in athletic movements such as running and jumping, olympic lifts are very beneficial because of the triple extension (extension of the ankle, knee and hip), which characterizes the Olympic lifts and the jumping action.

After studying the role of various lifts on improving vertical jumps, many researchers have concluded that using all the abovementioned methods in a periodized fashion yielded the best training results; that there were no differences between power cleans and squats; that no lift was more influential than another in terms of improving anaerobic power production; and that, in fact, virtually all the above exercises would succeed in this arena.

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