What can you expect by increasing your vertical jumping? The answer lies in the sport you play and if it's required to outperform other players. In basketball, your capabilities of strong vertical jumping is everything in relation to your jump shots, blocks, and rebounds. You can be an underdog if you cannot reach up and above competitors for rebounds because rebounds determine the success of a game. Defensive players must block out opponents when creating a solid position; point guards must have a straight vertical in order to get shots over taller players. The world of basketball depends on your vertical jumping; in this article, you're going to learn three tips to help increase vertical jumps today.

1. Plyometrics and Weight Lifting

You can increase vertical power with plyometrics. Plyometrics is a form of weight lifting that requires quick-fiber punches within your body. Our bodies are built on fiber tissues that determine our reflexes by the snap of the fibers. In jumping, the tissues in your body must work in unison to provide a strong spring. Plyometrics training improves the stability and power of your vertical jumping by building those twitch fibers within your legs.

The plyometric exercises typically are quick reactions to resistance like gravity or weights.  It could be simply jumping as high as you can until you can not reach your maximum jump any more.  Some exercises may include jumping over or on top of boxes, then jumping down off them.  With plyometric exercises, it is important that each rep attempt is quick and attempt to achieve the maximum every time.  Along with strength training, plyometrics provides a perfect complement to increase your vertical jump quickly.

2.  Agility Drills, Intervals, and Sprints

Strong jumps require stability, flexibility, and frequency in monitoring the twitch fibers of your legs and core. The core muscles (upper abdominal, lower back, and lower abs) experience a crunch when you have to move into the air. If you've ever paid attention to great jumpers, their core muscles are quite tight. They are able to move in a flexible motion by increasing vertical reaction times to jumps.

Sprints and interval are also good exercises in your vertical jump training .  These exercises will improve the reaction time of muscles and help build quick fiber muscles.  Sprints forces your muscle to explode quickly, thus developing the hamstrings, quadriceps and calves used in jumping higher.  Have you ever noticed that many strong jumpers are also fast runners.

3. Decrease Your Body Weight

Common sense tells us that excess weight can make it more challenging to jump higher.  Besides putting extra stress on your ankles and knees, excess fat on your body will weigh you down.  Simply by changing your diet, reducing sugars, and junk food will assist your body in losing the excess fat thus making you seem to "fly" ever higher.  Good nutrition is vital for those desiring to improve vertical and jump higher.

Plyometric training is growing in popularity because of the many benefits. Plyometric training can greatly increase your speed and explosiveness in movement. This will give the competitive athlete an enormous edge over his competitors. There are very few exercise program as effective as plyometric training, even for the non competitive athlete, they benefit with enhanced physical conditioning.

Plyometric training entails jumping in order to develop not only muscle strength, but speed and explosiveness. Weight training will strengthen your legs, but does little to develop the quick twitch muscles needed for explosiveness and quickness. Plyometric exercises also develops other muscles besides the legs needed to jump higher.

The key word here is intense. Plyometric exercises center on the development of explosive movements in order to enhance muscular power. That is why most plyometric training programs are high intensity workouts. They are not really intended for novices or people out of shape. As such, the do not have the wide appeal that something along the line of low impact workouts. However, those that do take part in plyometric training will discover an enhancement of their attributes they never though possible.

There are a variety of plyometric exercises you can do. Jumping on and off a chair can be a very simple exercise. Plyometric boxes can be purchased as a tool to be used in different exercises of jumping onto, off, or over those objects. As the athlete works on with every rep going at maximum, the highest you can jump or the quickest you can go, this will develop other muscles used to jump higher. Strength along with quickness will enhance explosiveness, helping the athlete jump higher.

Depending on your goal or your physical abilities, you can adjust you plyometric exercise workout. For the novice athlete, perhaps the number of reps are less and with less intensity. But to fully benefit from plyometric training, each rep should be done with intensity and at the maximum effort.

During your plyometric exercise, it is important to listen to your body. If you start experiencing pain or your knees get achy, rest. Allowing time for your body to recuperate and listening to your body will ensure your plyometric training is safe and effective.

Plyometrics is one of the keys in learning how to jump higher. Practice these tips, and you will increase your vertical jump drastically.