Want to increase your vertical? Want to be more powerful? More dynamic? Becoming a strong volleyball player will help you increase your speed, agility, and overall volleyball tenacity. There are a few simple steps you can take to make sure you’re getting the most out of your body. Here’s how to jump higher in volleyball:
1. Get Some Gains In The Weight-Room
Let’s start with the most obvious things to help you increase your vertical. If you have access to a gym, the Olympic platform is going to be your best friend. The more power you can generate under stress i.e., pushing weight, the better you will be able to carry your body around, and as a result, jump higher. A solid strengthening program will help you achieve the gains you want to see on the court. Ask a personal trainer to design you a program with the appropriate exercises and load to build your muscles without overtraining them. Building strength and power are not the same things. We need to be able to move our mass quickly in order to jump higher.
Plyometrics are a great way to train your fast-twitch muscles. While volleyball does require endurance, we want muscles that have quick reaction times and agile movements to get us around the court. Therefore, the more powerful you are, the better you will jump. Try squat jumps, box drills, ladders and even jumping over small hurdles consecutively. Some of the best lower body exercises you can do include: deadlifts, any variation of a clean (power clean, clean and jerk), squatting, lunges, split squats, Bulgarian split squats, and Romanian dead-lifts of any variety.
2. Train Your Motor Muscle Patterns
Practice jumping. Start with your approach and try to jump and touch a basketball hoop as many times as you can. Firstly, this is a great way to warm up your muscles and have some competition with your teammates before practice. Secondly, you need to train your muscles to move in the patterns that they will use on the court. This is a great drill to improve your neurological pathways and help your body know what it means to max jump every time you go to hit! Taking lots and lots of jumps, especially when you dedicate some time to max jumping, will help you to jump higher over time.
3. Box Jumps
Depth jumps and box jumps are effective exercises for getting reps while also giving your knees a break. Depth jumps are the latter half of a normal jump. You will jump off of a box onto the ground, catching yourself in a safe landing position.
This prepares your knees for jumping at greater heights. Your muscles cannot differentiate between slowing your body down and speeding it up. Putting practiced & safe reps on your tendons and muscles, they are an effective way to build UP your vertical. In other words, training the muscles to slow you down are also the same ones that will help you get up. Box jumps entail the first half of a jump and remove the stress placed on the knees of just straight jumping.
They can be used at all different heights to help you test your limits and see how high you can get your body off of the ground. They are also a great tool to measure your progress! Try going a couple of inches higher each time until you max out.
4. Stretching
Dynamic strengthening and lengthening have long been overlooked by rigid Olympic lifting rules. There is a time and place to keep your knees behind your toes, but this is not a reality for the sport. We are constantly putting our knees well beyond our toes diving for balls, moving from side to side, and even when we take our approaches. So take time to stretch all the parts of your body. Deep tendonous stretching can benefit and relieve back pain, patellar tendonitis, and even shin splints.
Improving your range of motion helps lessen the likelihood of injury and will only contribute to how efficiently your muscles are able to move you. Gymnasts are some of the most muscular, powerful, and limber athletes that exist. Stretching doesn’t mean sacrificing power – in fact, it should enable your range of motion and strength through length to take your vertical to the next level.
FAQ
How Do You Increase Vertical Jump?
You can increase your vertical jump by putting in the proper gym work. Your legs need to get stronger and more explosive. One of the best exercises to increase jump are box jumps. But jumping more alone will not make you a better volleyball player. Be sure to play and train volleyball regularly and work in the weight room; Only then will significant progress be seen.
How Do You Increase Vertical Jump In Beach Volleyball?
Jumping in beach volleyball requires an entirely different jumping technique than indoor volleyball. There is no grip, so the jump has to be solely vertical. The best way to increase jumps in beach volleyball is to jump on the sand. A lot! Your legs and muscles must memorize the physics of the sand; with lots of repetitions, you will become better at jumping on the sand. You can do the same exercises for the jump for indoor volleyball, except you do them on the sand.
Can You Increase Your Vertical In 5 Months?
With the proper volleyball jumping training and working out, you can increase the jump even to 8cm in less than five months. It sounds not much; however, it can make an enormous difference on the volleyball court.
Now You Take Your Game On The Next Level!
Hopefully, we provided a valuable answer to a question on how to jump higher in volleyball, that will help you improve your game and take it to the next level. Volleyball shoes will also play an important role when jumping, so check our article to find the ones that suit you best. They have to provide good cushion to provide soft landings and good support to protect the ankles. Subscribe to the newsletter and get notified of all the latest articles, coming in the future, in order to not miss out on our great and professional content. If you have any questions regarding volleyball feel free to contact us!
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