As with all goals that you would like to achieve the first, most important point is to make your goal measurable. I would highly recommend preforming a standing jump test to firstly see how high you are jumping at the moment.

After that write down on a piece of paper how high you want to jump, with a date at when you want to do it.
 
Once this is done we are ready to move ahead!
 
When training to jump higher one of the common mistakes people make is to concentrate to much on calf muscles and not enough on your primary thrusters QUADS and HAMSTRINGS.

Calves, glutes and hips are all important, but they aren’t the main focus when you are working out how to jump higher. They will all get worked in the exercises below.
 
The first step is to build up your strength. If you are a beginner lifter, I would get a trainer to help you through the first month at least, just to get you going. For the intermediate and advanced lifters beware that if you haven’t done leg weights in a while start off slow for the first few weeks just to get into it.

Here is a guide to easing yourself into the first month.
 
Week 1: 15 reps, Light Weight, Tempo: 4 seconds eccentric phase, 0 seconds pause, 2 seconds concentric phase
Week 2: 12 reps, Light-Medium Weight, Tempo: 4.0.2
Week 3: 10 reps, Medium Weight, Tempo: 3.0.2
Week 4: 10 Reps, Medium Heavy Weight, Tempo: 3.0.1
 
( Stretch all key lower body limbs and lower back everyday)
 
 
Once you have this platform set you are ready roll!

Note: if you jump straight into this program just beware that you will be walking around like the tin man for a few days!

Follow This Program for anywhere up to 6-12 Weeks.
 
Dynamic Warmup
Squats- 4×4-8 Reps, 2.0.1 tempo, 2-3mins break after each set (concentrating on good depth and being explosive on way up towards roof)
 
Foward Lunge
3×6-8 Reps, 2.0.1 tempo,1.30-2.30 Break after each set ( Keep it powerful again, watch your form)
 
Jump Squat
3×8, 1.0.1 tempo, 2mins break at end of each set ( Can add some small weight, set a height goal in your gym, every jump to the moon!)
 
Romanian Deadlift
2×10, 2.0.2 tempo,1.30 Break at end of each set (your getting tired now watch your form a lot!)
 
Big stretch Warm Down ( all lower Limbs and lower back )
 
Follow this in the gym and you’re on the right track to be jumping higher than Julien Prosser or Natalie Cook.

Remember to stretch at the end of every session. Having big strong muscles that can’t move through a range of motion is useless! If you are continuing to play beach volleyball on the weekends, get this program done as early in the week as possible, to limit your fatigue in games.

If in doubt ask your local trainer or feel free to contact me at:
 
jimi_m_11@hotmail.com
 
Train hard!

Jimi

Thanks to Jimi and the personal trainers at New Level Brookvale for providing the information for this article.

Exercises to jump higher for beach volleyball

Most beach volleyballers are looking for exercises to jump higher but if you search on the internet, you will mostly find basketball dunking programs. Most of these programs will work, there is no doubt, but there is a big difference between basketball and volleyball when it comes to jumping.

Basically, volleyballers are better jumpers simply because we do it more often.

While basketballers will jump for rebounds, or perhaps loose balls, occassionally get a chance for a dunk or tip in, in a regular training session, jumping is not high on their priority list. Their training do not focus on learning to jump higher.

In volleyball however, as we all know, side out is key. And every side out should contain one max. jump. So as we train, we get plenty of jumping practice, which is basically what they call plyometrics. (Lengthening and then shortening a muscle as quickly as possible)

My point here is basically that beach volleyballers don’t need to spend so much time doing plyos to increase their jump. That aspect of training is well and truly taken care of as long as you concentrate on maxing out every time you jump.

How to jump higher

If you are really going to go for it, then the first thing to do is to build muscle. You can divide weight training into two categories. Exercises that make your muscles stronger, and exercises that make your muscles bigger (and stronger). I am recommending going for the latter, because as I stated previously, you get plenty of jumping practice at training, which will improve strength but not increase size.

Think of your muscle as an engine. There are plenty of V6 engines that can out perform V8 engines, but if two cars are tuned and set up equally well, the larger V8 engine will produce more power. Muscles are the same. You will find skinny guys who can jump because they are good at jumping, but those skinny guys could jump higher if they had bigger muscles.

This form of training is called hypertrophy training. You basically go to the gym and tear as many muscle fibers as possible, then eat yourself stupid, then sleep for two days while the muscles rebuild, then do it again. When I did it, I toned down the skill training to once or twice per week, to make sure I recovered properly.

This is roughly the program that I followed. It took me from about 94kg to 99.8kg in three months. (Sadly I never cracked the tonne.) There are other bits and pieces like rotator cuff exercises that should be maintained, but they are more individual, depending on your own injuries or weaknesses.

3 sessions per week. Each session is immediately (within 20 minutes) followed by a high carb high protein meal.

Day 1: Calf Raise, leg extensions, ham curl, half squats, bench press, lat pull, bicep curl, tricep press, abs

Day 2: Leg Extension, ham curl, leg press, Russian deadlift, dips, chin ups, abs

Day 3: Repeat day one.

Everything was 1 set to max. aiming for 8, except for Russian deadlifts. (I would never max out on these, they are too knarly and should always be done in control). Each session only took about an hour, but we really needed to recover, and to maximise the effect we stopped almost all of our other trainings. If we got to 8, we kept going, until we maxed out. Any time we got to 8, we increased the wieght for the next session, so you must use a note book, to document your reps and weights.

Keep in mind that you do not build muscle in the gym. You destroy it. The muscle builds afterwards while you rest. The more fibre you have damaged in the gym, the more fibre your body builds back on later. So if you do the work out, but don’t give yourself enough sleep, or don’t eat enough, then you risk missing out on the muscle growth, or worse, actually going backwards.

Let me elaborate on the reps. We had three guys training, and so every exercise had at least two spotters, and we made sure that every exercise had at least three assisted reps at the end, so once we maxed out, you had to keep pushing for three more reps. It was quite brutal, but it got results.

The improvement in my jump came a month after we stopped this program and I got back into regular volleyball training. I was so much stronger and faster than ever before. I felt amazing.

That was just a run down of my most successful experience with exercises to jump higher. As I mentioned, there are a lot of people out there with more experience than I, so don’t take this as gospel. If you really want to learn how to jump higher and find the right exercises to jump higher, you need to look around and find the right advice that works for you.

I can recommend one guy, Jacob hiller, who has created the Jump Manual, which has some good ideas, and although based around basketball, can certainly provide a comprehensive and effective program for increasing your jump. These guys definitely know how to jump higher.

If you want to see how to jump higher from a guy who really knows how to do it, check out this video of Leonel marshal from Cuba. Wow!

Usually I find that after a light week, there is an imediate improvement the following week. Giving your body a chance to recover is one of the best ways to maximise training.

Other recovery tips: Eat within 20 minutes of finishing a gym session, drink heaps of water, never let yourself get hungry, sleep enough so that you don’t struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

Here are a few links with more information on recovery.

Recovery article

Strength Training article

Training format.

Jump training – 30 minutes: Andy’s special recipe. (Andrew McCombe is a personal trainer and fitness freak. You can find details about his service here.)

Setting 45 minutes: This simple drill involves player A standing at the edge of the net. Player B starts in the service reception position. Player A rolls the ball to Player B, B passes to the “Passing Zone” and A sets the ball to the “Setting Zone”. We made some good progress, and this skill will obviously improve with repetitions.

Service: We spend about 30 minutes serving, and refining our service routines. The quality of service throughout the training session was excellent. However we did find that we struggled to take the consistency through to the games we played afterwards. Our next training will be very simillar, with the focus being on maintaining the service routine through to the game situation. I have refined my service routine to the following:

1. Check the blocking call.
2. Pick my target.
3. Slap ball once, spin it four times.
4. Hold the ball in front of my hitting should.
5. Visualise my arm following through the ball and the ball landing on my target. (That bit was an idea from one of the best womens players of all time, thanks Kez)
6. Speak the word “loose” to myself.
7. Serve the ball…

This keyword, “loose” physically relaxes me, and allows me to swing more freely on the ball. Generally speaking, a loose arm is a fast arm.