No matter what sport you participate in that involves jumping, if you can jump higher than you are going to rise past the competition and even your teammates. It might be leaping over the linemen to score a touchdown in football, or posterizing someone in basketball. Whatever it is, the ability to jump high can help you become the star of your team. There are many more examples where jumping high can help you succeed besides basketball and football. Jumping higher also affects your balance, fitness, and agility. Just about any sport requires that you have these qualities.

One of the biggest misconceptions about jumping higher is the idea that you are just naturally gifted to do it. Everyone who has excelled at increasing the vertical has worked out it extensively. Like any skill we acquire, it requires that we work hard at it to achieve our desired results. In order to achieve these results you will need to follow two types of basic training, that is power training and strength training.

Many athletes go right to strength training and forget how important power training is. Power training will increase your explosivity, which in turns helps you to get off the ground faster and jump higher. There are a number of basic exercises you can do to increase your explosiveness. For example jumping over boxes or on and off of them is a good basic exercise. Also, jumping up while bringing your knees as far up to your chest will also increase your power. Try doing three sets of ten if you can, and if you can't try working your way up to that. Three sets of ten might not seem like very much, but even after doing just a couple of these exercises you will get winded.

Another good exercise to increase your power is to run up flights of stairs. We have seen this in many sports movies as the athlete is training they will run up and down stadium stairs and for good reason, it really boosts your strength. Stadium stairs are the best to run up because they are usually more spread out than a normal staircase and make you work more to run up. Doing this a few times a week and you will really begin to see a difference in the strength of your legs.

Strength training is very important because it increases your leg muscles strength. The stronger your leg muscles are, the better your chance of jumping higher. When you had power training to your strength training routine, you can expect to see some awesome results. Some exercises you can do to increase your leg strength are squats, lunges and leg presses.

You can judge your progress by how you excel in comparison to others on your time. You can really gain an advantage by learning how to jump higher, and following even just the basic exercises will help you jump to the top of your team in no time at all.