Avoiding injury is an important factor that you should look for in your jump training program. After all you want to use your hops on the court right? Not much use if you’re sitting on the bench nursing your legs. Thankfully there are a few things you can do to help prevent your injuries.

ICE: ice any part of your body that starts to get sore… when it gets sore. Don’t wait as playing on sore damaged joints will only make the situation worse. I know since I started icing my knees regularly my workouts and practices feel a whole lot better. At first I shied away from icing since it took so much time out of my day. I mean

45 minutes every day is a lot of time to sit doing nothing. But one thing that really helped me was finding these ice packs that I got a Wal-Mart. They allow me to come home from a practice and just pull it out of the freezer and

strap it to my leg. Since it holds its self there I’m free to do other things. And it doesn’t melt and make a mess either. I would highly suggest getting some if you have troubles with any part of your body after a workout. It can keep you going strong all through the week, which is important if you are going to keep on increasing your vertical

Stay Hydrated: our bodies are more water than anything else. I believe it’s a staggering 95% or so. So that makes sense that you should drink enough water to keep your body happy. A good rule of thumb is if your urine is clear you’re hydrated. So try and keep it that way as much as possible.

Take Your Vitamins: most of us don’t live the healthiest lifestyles. And even though you may be on a nutritional diet for your workouts… which I would strongly recommend. You still might not be getting all your fruits and veggies every single day. For that reason it is a good idea to take a multivitamin every day. That will make sure you get all the crucial ingredients to keep your body nice a strong and make sure it has what it needs to take care of its self. If you’re going to work your body hard you need to give it what it needs so it can keep doing that over and over again.

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Tip 10: always warm up before you exercise, never overwork your muscles before they are properly warmed up or you can easily cause your self serious injury. Jump rope or jog before lifting any heavy weights

Tip 9: a good exercise to build large amounts of quad muscle is the squat. Start with very little weight and slowly increase your repetitions and weight as you become more advanced. Move slowly as this will build more of the explosive power you want for jumping.

Tip 8: make sure to have separate days on your workout schedule for weight training days and speed/plyo days. Most studies agree that mixing these types of workouts can really hamper your results

Tip7: Jump Rope, even though many people may look down on jumping rope it is a fantastic cardio workout as well as a very basic plyo workout. It will strengthen your legs and get your lungs in great shape too. That’s good for whatever sport you’re playing.

Tip 6: work 100% of the time, while you can’t be in the gym 24/7 you can always be working out a little bit. Walk around on your toes or heels and stand with your legs slightly or half bent when your doing things around the house or at work. All of these little things will strengthen your legs over a long period of time

Tip 5: exercise your calfs, while they are a smaller muscle than your quads they are very important in jumping. Calf raises are the best way to build muscle and you can do that anywhere. If you can put your toes on a ledge this will allow you to bring your heels down below your toes for an even better workout. You can add weight to make this more challenging.

Tip 4: don’t work to hard. Your muscles need some time to rest and if you are constantly working them they don’t have time to heal themselves. You actually tear your muscles just a little bit when you work them really hard. Especially when you are weight training. That light workout or a day of rest gives them time to repair those minute tears so that they are ready to go again and grow even bigger.

Tip 3: focus on your jump and use your entire body. Also make sure you are trying for your maximum height. Just jumping for the sake of jumping won’t get you nearly as good of results as actually focusing on each jump

Tip 2: be patient when you are training. You cont build muscle over night and you wont see 3 inches tacked on to your vertical either. It takes time and effort and the proper workout to put inches on your jump. Don’t give up and don’t let your determination and motivation float away. Keep at it and you can see results faster than you ever thought

Tip 1: Plyometric Exercises are one of the best ways to train your jumping muscles and whip them into shape. They are tough and demanding but that is because they work the largest muscles in your legs and they do it efficiently. Jumping as high as you can and bringing yourself down into a crouching position when you land and then immediately jumping back up is the best way to strain your leg muscles.

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