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Darkhorse · 07-25-2005, 04:41 AM

#9 “Pogo Jump” Warm-up – This is a warm-up we use before many of our lower body strength workouts, plyo workouts and speed workouts. It is not only a great warm- up, but we believe this “warm-up” may actually increase your vertical jump in and of itself! But first, let us describe exactly what a pogo jump is, anyway. A pogo jump is performed by jumping off of the ground by just springing off your ankles. While you’re in the air you want to dorsiflex your ankles, a.k.a. “pull your toes up”. You also must prevent your heels from ever touching the ground. The key to this exercise lies in your ability to keep your knees locked while jumping and landing on and off the ground, as well as spending the least amount of time on the ground as possible. Be sure not to flex at the hips, either. Many times when athletes perform this exercise their feet kick uncontrollably out in front of themselves. Don’t let this happen! Your whole body should remain in a perfectly straight line, with the exception of your ankles dorsiflexing while you’re in the air. We do both low and high pogo jumps in our warm-up. The technique remains exactly the same except for the height differences, of course. Low pogo jumps should be performed for speed. You only want to jump about 1” – 2” off the ground, but try to perform as many reps as possible in the required time. The goal of the high pogo jumps is to get as much height as possible by just springing off of your ankles during each jump. Pogo jumps are an incredible exercise that trains the Achilles tendon for elasticity. This will help to prevent ankle injuries as well as increase explosiveness. Here’s the warm-up we use…
A. Low Pogo Jumps – 3 sets of 20 seconds, rest 30 seconds between each set
B. High Pogo Jumps – 3 sets of 20 seconds, rest 30 seconds between each set

10) Trap Bar Deadlifts, off a 4” box – Trap bars are diamond-shaped bars that allow you to perform deadlifts and shrugs by standing inside the bar, as opposed to having the bar in front of you. This puts less stress on the low back/spine. Many athletes feel much more comfortable using these bars as opposed to straight bars while deadlifting. Because of this, we feel that they are a great tool for all athletes - young and old. We have gotten many athletes who swore they would never deadlift again, to start deadlifting because of the trap bar. One thing we like to due is have our athletes trap bar deadlift while standing on a 4” box. Once again, by increasing the range of motion, the hamstrings are further activated. This will greatly help your running and jumping ability. You can use various box heights, yet we’ve found 4 inches to be great for increasing the range of motion while not causing a breakdown in the athlete’s form.

11) Standing Backward Medicine Ball Throw – This exercise is similar in nature to the dumbell swing, but by using a medicine ball you can actually release the object you’re holding, thus producing more explosive power. (This is because you don’t have to worry about decelerating the weight.) To perform this exercise, hold a med ball in front of you, bend forward, and then toss it up and over your head, behind you, to a partner. This is another exercise that links the lower and upper body in a synchronized, explosive manner. This is vertical jump specific.
Don’t use a med ball that’s so heavy you can barely get it over your head. But don’t use something that’s so light you toss it into another zip code, either. Use common sense, huh. Our athletes usually use med balls they can toss anywhere from 10 – 20 yards. Once all of your throws start going beyond 20 yards, you’re ready to graduate to a heavier ball.

12) Power Clean/Power Snatch – We like the Olympic lifts in that we feel they teach the athlete to maximally “turn on” the higher threshold (type IIB) motor units. This is due to the fact that you cannot perform a max power clean or power snatch slowly. If you move too slow you will miss the lift. We do feel there is somewhat of a learning curve involved in being explosive and if an athlete never learned to “turn on” maximally, they would be much less likely to do so during their vertical jump – or any other athletic movement. Besides being explosive by nature, both of these exercises require a strong posterior chain (which you should now be sick of hearing about), with the power snatch involving the entire extensor chain. You should now know this is one of the major requirements for an exercise to make our Fab15 list.

13) Weighted Ab Work – Your “core” (abs & low back) is the link from your lower to upper body. It is also responsible for the transference of force from your lower to upper body. Basically, your arms and legs can be strong as hell but if you have a marshmallow in the middle you will never completely benefit from your limb strength. The vertical jump is one of the ultimate examples of this. So don’t sell yourself short by only training your arms and legs. Hit the abs hard, too. This doesn’t mean 3 sets of 10 cruches at the end of you’re workout, either. We like weighted crunches on a Swiss ball, standing rotational work using high and low cables and medicine ball training. Remember that your abs just may be the missing “link” to that big jump!

14) Push Jerk – This is another great exercise that has been highly correlated with the vertical jump. When doing push jerks, we have our athletes place their feet about hip-width apart. We have them start with the bar resting on the front of their shoulders, with their hands OPEN. By starting with the hands open, they will be more likely to initiate the movement with their legs. Start the movement by dipping down and then explode up onto your toes, while pushing the bar overhead. Finally, bend the knees, bring your heels down and hold the bar overhead for a second. Lower the bar and then repeat the movement. This is another great example of an exercise in which the power is initiated by the lower body and then finished off with the upper body. Once again, this is vertical jump specific.

15) Vertical Jumps – No, this is not a misprint. One of the best ways to improve your vertical jump is to practice vertical jumping! We have had many athletes come to us with great strength, speed and flexibility, yet they had horrible verticals. This is because their jumping technique stunk! We have made as much as a 3” improvement in just minutes of working with some athletes, not by showing them how to cheat, but by correcting their form. Hopefully, after reading through this manual, you will know what proper form is. Then, once you have the form down and start working on the recommended exercises, you will possess eye-popping jumping ability!