A good vertical jump is very important for basketball players because it gives you more rebounding opportunity. Also, you have less chances of getting blocked by players who has the same height as you. If you want a good vertical jump, you should have more power on your legs. There are different jump techniques to measure leg power for vertical jump including methods for measurement and equipment variation. Vertical jump is a measurement of how a high a person can jump from the ground on a standstill position.
Let us move on to some tests for vertical jump.
- This test is measured by standing barefooted against a wall while reaching up to mart the highest point you can reach on the wall. You will have to make sure the marker doesn’t skew and only the point of your highest reach is marked. Do one jump from the standing position and mark the wall of the highest point you’ve reached in your jump. You will have to measure the difference between your standing reach and your jump reach and the result will be the elevation of your vertical jump.
- The only difference this test has from the previous one is that you take several jumps until you are satisfied that you have reached the highest point of your jump. This has to be measured from your highest standing reach and you will have the maximum measurement of your vertical jump.
- The squat or static jump is the next test. It is performed with subject in a stationary squatting position. In most situations, the subject stops at the low point of the squat to gain energy before jumping upwards. It helps to eliminate the stretch-shortening cycle factor and yields a jump with very small difference. It will be between 3-6 centimetres of vertical leap difference. The only thing is that the jump is executed without any counter movement from the subject.
- The counter movement is the next test. This test is performed with the subject bending the `knees before commencing the jump. It enables the stretch-shortening of the muscles which in turn gives you a stronger power output from the legs muscles. This technique will be fairly difficult without any arm use because the more traditional technique makes use of the arms to reach up and touch the wall. The test is executed with one hand placed on the hip and the other hand elevated above the head in order to reach and touch the wall. There is yet another counter movement test uses a more hi-tech approach. It uses a sensitive mat so that both arms can be placed on the hips when executing the vertical jump test.
- Using the arm is not always accepted during the vertical jumps. It is because this adds variety to the result due to jumping technique and coordination. Also, it is not a total assessment of leg power. Above all this, you will see a lot of vertical jump tests that allows the use of arms to aid in propelling the subject upwards resulting in better jump heights. So it is difficult to measure vertical jump techniques without the aid of arm swinging as most test requires the arms to be extended upwards. Thus the subject can make a mark of his/her jump on the wall.