Upper body motion is often overlooked as being an essential component of the vertical jump.
Surprisingly, its importance is very easy to test.
Try jumping as high as you can normally.
Now try jumping as high as you can with your arms held at your sides.
See the difference? Luckily, you can exploit this upper body motion to see some relatively quick gains to your vertical leap.
The idea is to generate as much momentum as possible swinging your arms just before you leave the ground.
Much of this motion is generated from the shoulders and other nearby muscle groups.
Having stronger muscles won't necessarily translate into more momentum as you have to be able to release this strength quickly to thrust your arms upwards as fast as possible.
This means you're going to need more explosive shoulders.
More powerful shoulders can be developed by strength training that focuses on the explosiveness of the lifting motion.
Really emphasize moving the weight as quickly as possible during the concentric phase of the exercise.
This small adjustment can be made to all of your standard shoulder lifts including the shoulder press and its variations, the front and lateral raise and its variations, and any other similar lift.
There are a number of other ways to boost your upper body power.
Incorporating a basic kettlebell swing into your workout can be beneficial in increasing upper body explosiveness.
Similarly, swinging and throwing a medicine ball as high as possible into the air simulates the same motion.
Anything that trains your muscles to be more explosive in this manner can be helpful.
You can even be a little creative and develop variations of any of these movements to add some nice variety to your workout.
All of this added power won't do you much good unless you can apply it to a jump.
Make sure when you jump to focus on thrusting your arms upwards to exploit all of that hard earned explosiveness.
Ignoring this aspect of jumping form is ignoring valuable momentum that can and should be harnessed in order to maximize your jumping potential.
This is a little more difficult when jumping with a basketball in your hands, but the concept still applies.
If you can generate more momentum using your arms while holding the ball, you will see gains in your vertical leap.
Surprisingly, its importance is very easy to test.
Try jumping as high as you can normally.
Now try jumping as high as you can with your arms held at your sides.
See the difference? Luckily, you can exploit this upper body motion to see some relatively quick gains to your vertical leap.
The idea is to generate as much momentum as possible swinging your arms just before you leave the ground.
Much of this motion is generated from the shoulders and other nearby muscle groups.
Having stronger muscles won't necessarily translate into more momentum as you have to be able to release this strength quickly to thrust your arms upwards as fast as possible.
This means you're going to need more explosive shoulders.
More powerful shoulders can be developed by strength training that focuses on the explosiveness of the lifting motion.
Really emphasize moving the weight as quickly as possible during the concentric phase of the exercise.
This small adjustment can be made to all of your standard shoulder lifts including the shoulder press and its variations, the front and lateral raise and its variations, and any other similar lift.
There are a number of other ways to boost your upper body power.
Incorporating a basic kettlebell swing into your workout can be beneficial in increasing upper body explosiveness.
Similarly, swinging and throwing a medicine ball as high as possible into the air simulates the same motion.
Anything that trains your muscles to be more explosive in this manner can be helpful.
You can even be a little creative and develop variations of any of these movements to add some nice variety to your workout.
All of this added power won't do you much good unless you can apply it to a jump.
Make sure when you jump to focus on thrusting your arms upwards to exploit all of that hard earned explosiveness.
Ignoring this aspect of jumping form is ignoring valuable momentum that can and should be harnessed in order to maximize your jumping potential.
This is a little more difficult when jumping with a basketball in your hands, but the concept still applies.
If you can generate more momentum using your arms while holding the ball, you will see gains in your vertical leap.
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