If You Could Be Like Mike
If you hold yourself up against the all-time greats like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and LeBron James, it may be a little frustrating to think that you might not be so blessed. But those guys weren’t just born with amazing abilities, it is weil-documented that they put in a ton of training to perfect their skills.
We’ve gone through some of the top-selling, most talked about jump programs out there to see which ones are the real deal, and which ones are just fluff. You definitely don’t want to be wasting your time with something that doesn’t work, when the competition is out there using something that does.
Jump Manual Recap
If your jump goal includes gaining several inches of leaping ability, this is the program you’re going to want to check out first. They claim that you’ll be able to tack on several inches to your vertical leap. Can you imagine adding 10 inches to how high you can jump in a matter of 12 weeks. We can’t, but that’s what their money back guarantee is on.
When you size this up to other products, it makes sense to start your journey with this and see if you get it right the first time. It can save you a lot of time, money, and hassle by helping you reach your goal quickly.
See our full review on Jump Manual
Jumpsoles Recap
These are a pair of vertical jumping shoes designed to train your leg muscles using plyometrics. These exercises are geared towards making you more explosive in any sport, but by using the shoes you’re specifically increasing your ability to jump higher, or so the theory goes. Those that use these for an extended period of time and follow the instructions have said they get results.
With something like this, you won’t really know until you try them out and see for yourself. See if we recommended trying them in our full write-up.
See our full review on Jumpsoles
Natural Leap Recap
There are a lot of good qualities about Natural Leap, and it definitely deserves a try if you haven’t had success with anything else. You can start using it the day you buy it, so if you’re anxious to get started you don’t have to wait for anything to ship. It also doesn’t require any extra equipment, so it’s a self-contained program.
The fun part about trying these programs is that it’s easy to see if they’re working. Mark your jumping ability before you try this, test it out for a month and then mark your ability again. If it has increased, stay on with it, if it hasn’t, return it and go on to the next one.
See our full review on Natural Leap
Vertical Mastery Recap
The Vertical Mastery vertical jump training program is one that is giving you the kitchen sink in an attempt to differentiate itself from the competition, and earn your business. They allow you to ask as many questions as you may have along the way, and they will respond with a personalized answer. They also include a lot of things in their package, such as charts and outlines so you always know what to do.
They also tell you what foods to eat, and which ones will inhibit your jumping ability.
See our full review on Vertical Mastery
Air Alert Recap
After evaluating Air Alert we came to the conclusion that it has sound principles and will increase your jumping ability, but we weren’t sure if it would give you the massive 8-14 inches they claim in their pitch. It’s a solid choice to go with, but there are others that seem to have things more organized, and allow you to follow a step by step program for real results.
The beauty is that you really can’t make a wrong purchase with any of these products, as they all come with money back guarantees, you can try them with no pressure or money stresses.
See our full review of Air Alert
The First Step
First, you need to decide just how high you want to be able to jump. Just saying that you want to be able to “jump higher” is not specific enough. If you want to dunk, calculate how much more jumpig ability you need to get you there. If you can already dunk, but want to be able to do a 360 or bounce it off the backboard first, you should figure out how much more air you’d need to pull it off. By being specific, you’ll be able to measure your progress, and you’ll know when you’ve reached the goal, rather than just arbitrarily stopping at some point.
Give Yourself Time
Don’t hold yourself under the microscope while you’re doing this, and start looking for results the first few days. It would be best not to test for progress until you’ve been going hard out for about a week. If you can make it two weeks that’s even better. The reason for this is, if you aren’t getting fast results, you may lose your motivation to stay with it. But these gains happen over time, so you have to give your body the time it needs to get where you want it to be.
If At First You Don’t Succeed
If you try out one program and it doesn’t work that’s no reason not to try the next one. Don’t stop until you reach your goal. If you’re heading to your house and you blow a tire you don’t just call it quits and spend the rest of your life stranded on the highway. You change the tire and finish your trip home. You reach your destination. That’s the sort of mentality you need to get. You’re going to reach your vertical jump training goal no matter what setbacks might come up.
If you still can’t jump after months of training maybe you just don’t have the genetics for it. At least you can say that you gave it your all and it just wasn’t your thing. And who knows, maybe some day in the future you could try it again and have success with it. Timing is everything, and you might be trying to do something before your body is ready.
When is the Right Time?
With some NBA pros coming right from high school so much pressure is on today’s high school athletes to show signs of being a prodigy even before their freshmen year. But you can definitely jump the gun on your training, you don’t want to stunt your growth by working your body out too hard. You wouldn’t want to sacrifice height for jumping ability, because if you just wait for a bit you can have both. Generally speaking, if you’re not done growing you want to take it easy on your body, and give it nourishing foods so it can grow to its full potential.
What the Pros Do
The pros have phsycial trainers to put them through workouts and drills that will keep them in peak physical condition. You likely don’t have this luxury so you are forced to use something that is less individualized. It doesn’t mean it can’t work, it just means you’re going to have to put more time into it. And really that’s what will make the difference between having success with the programs above, or not. You’d be surprised how many people buy them, skim over them, don’t do a single exercise or drill, and then say it doesn’t work.
Are Jumping Shoes Effective?
A lot of people scoff at jump training shoes and say that they are a bit ridiculous and don’t give results. However, just as many other people say that they experienced big gains by using special shoes. They can’t both be right, so the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. If you use the shoes regularly, and follow all of the directions and training regimen included with the program, you’ll probably see results, but the question will still remain whether it is the shoes, or the drills that are giving you the results.
Free Videos and Forums
The risk you run from looking on YouTube for free videos that will train you on how to jump higher, or looking up info on free forums is that you don’t know
When you purchase and use a program, you’ve already paid the money. You don’t have to worry about what their motive is, they’ve already made their sale. Now they want to give you enough good information so that you get results and don’t ask for your money back. You also get everything laid out for you in an organized format so that you build momentum, and you know exactly what you should be doing next. It’s not sporadic training here and there that will give you results, it’s methodical, strategic steps taken one after another.
Training the Muscles
A lot of people think that if you just train your leg muscles more you’ll be able to jump higher. This is true to a point, but it reaches a point where you start to get diminishing returns. Muscle is heavy, and leg muscles can get pretty big if you work them out a lot. If you study the physiques of some of the top basketball players, they have well defined legs but they’re not big and bulky. This means that they’ve done many repetitions, but don’t use heavy weights to build up the muscles.
At the end of the day, there’s the stuff you’re born with, and the stuff you do with what you were born with. Each of us is not carved in stone, and if you believe you can do something there’s nothing stopping you from doing it, except yourself. It’s easy to buy a program, fail with it, then blame the program or use it as an excuse to give up on your quest. But if you keep trying you might find that it takes a mix of techniques borrowed from several different programs to get you what you want. Try vertical jump training program until you make it!