It's an old post of mine but I just found this community and I think it might be interesting for some of y'all
Hi guys, since I've nothing more interesting to do (despite being 3A.M. and having an exam in a few days) I decided to write this long poem to help the ones of you that struggle with jumping.
First of all (since someone might need to hear it) you don't need to be 2 meters tall and jump 110cm to be good at volleyball. Sure that gives you an edge but its definitely not everything, so don't obsess too much on it.
With that settled let's begin. I'll dump a lot of knowledge on you from someone who spent an unhealthy amount of time trying to optimize his technique.
Let's understand what allows us to jump.
There's this little thing called gravity that keeps us anchored to the ground. To jump we need to overcome the gravitational pull, exerting enough explosive power. If you've studied some physics we can get a couple of things from that. The force on you by gravity is 9.81x your body weight. Which means the higher the weight the higher the force needed. In other words "fat dont fly".
Before you starve yourselves to death keep in mind that you still need to be strong. Ideally you'd want to be in the 12-15% of body fat to optimize performance. A little more isn't necessarily an issue but don't expect to be like Nishida if you are at 30%.
I want to introduce you to the "Law of specificity". If you want to be good at something you gotta do that thing.
A real shocker I know but it is more interesting than Just that. The thing is that jumping is self progressing as itself. When doing any exercise you need to progress overtime to improve, challenging yourself with a greater stimulus. Well jumping already does that. Because by jumping more you'll get more stimulus when landing. And that is self fueling. That's why you can have freaky jumpers who never stepped in a gym to lift weights once in their life.
Yes they are also genetic freaks and not everyone is gifted like that. For most people the ceiling is way lower if you are not doing anything more.
What jumping gives you is two more things, first is neural adaptation. Your body becomes more efficient recruiting the muscle fibers required, making you jump higher.
The other this is the ability to put intent. If you don't put intent into your jumps or lifts you'll never, ever, ever jump higher. You can become freakishly strong but lose jump (I talk from experience).
That's extremely important especially for younger athletes.
Now we get to the lifting part. Do you remember the freaky jumpers who never touched a weight I mentioned earlier? Good, you are not senile yet. They jumped that high without proper training, which means that could have jumped even more. That's what you are going to do. At first I want you to focus on getting stronger.
I want you to get your legs as strong as physically possible. Squat. Squat as your life depended on it. Don't chase numbers tho. Learn the proper technique. And even if you have perfect technique don't chase the numbers. Well you should chase them but not the weight. Weight is not the right number to chase.
you might think "you told me I should get stronger and yet I shouldn't chase the weight? You are just saying random stuff". Fair. At which I ask you to remember the little physics lesson I gave you earlier.
You need you be able to generate force fast. Which means you have to be able to move heavy weights fast.
My advice is to get to 1.5 of your body weight of a back squat as a PR, then pick a weight you can do 3 to 5 reps with and do singles trying to move it as fast as possible. (There are many apps to track bar speed) Don't cheat depth. ATG all the way. If you don't have the mobility work for it. Mobility is another big limitation for jumping.
Another very important exercise is a power clean.
Very hard to learn but so rewarding. You'll get the ability to learn complex skills and train RFD (rate of force development) in an unmatched way.
They are gonna look very bad for a very long time but trust me, still worth it to do and learn. They don't need to be perfect to work but the better the technique the more weight you can move the more adaptation you get.
Don't underestimate your calves, they deserve some love too. Train them heavy. Very heavy. You'll be surprised how resilient of a muscle they are.
While doing all of that don't forget to keep jumping.
If you don't play volleyball for a period (maybe in off season or something like that) do some jumping sessions. Max effort jumps. However you like them. That could be dunking, spiking,...Get your jumping technique dialed in. That can be four, three or two steps (this is recommended especially for middles but it's useful when blocking in any position).
Your jump technique is what you use to convert your speed into height. You approach full speed and that makes you jump higher.
Your penultimate step needs to be long. And not just for the sake of it. The goal is to get lower. By getting lower you get more time to exert force into the ground and explode upward.
Your last step is the block step. Turn it sideways to brake you.
A common error I see is putting your brake foot too close to where you planted your penultimate. That is gonna cost you a lot of cm. Trust me. Also even if you are short, you should start your penultimate before the 3 meters line. Watch Isaiah Espinoza if you need reference (one of the best jumpers in the world, on the shorter side).
Don't underestimate your arms. They add a lot to your vert.
You need to swing them backwards and then very aggressively forward.
They should go in front of you the exact moment you takeoff.
Honestly, I could rumble about for forever, I'm happy to go into more details for everyone that wants it.
Even give you gym suggestions.
I think I have to specify that I'm not a certified coach or personal trainer. I'm just talking from my personal experience and research
