Today I want to talk about all things jumping.

 

I’m sure you have all jumped before, whether it was playing a sport, playing outside with your kids, or jumping to reach that old sweater on the top shelf of your closet.

 

We all have done it, but have we all done it right?

 

Before we get into the proper jumping mechanics let’s talk about why having some jumps in your program are important.

 

Jumps are great for working on lower body power. As we age power is generally the first thing to go. Being able to generate power is important for sports such as golf, tennis, and paddle, being able to catch yourself if you were to trip, and to jump out of the way if your kid comes speeding at you on their bike.

 

All of your power work should be done at the beginning of your workout just after your warm up when you are fresh and not tired. If you’re looking for a post on how to build a program you can check out (Insert blog) that I wrote a little while back.

 

Now that we have talked about why jumping is important lets talk about how to jump properly.

 

I am going to break this down into 3 phases. Lets call the first phase the countermovement, the second phase the acceleration, and the third phase the landing.

 

The first phase is extremely important to help generate as much power as possible. We want to start tall and tight for each jump, the countermovement involves stretching your muscles by moving through your hips before you jump. A good analogy I like to use is to think about your muscles like rubber bands. Our muscles have stored energy in them and we can access that energy by stretching our muscles quickly which causes them to contract quickly aka generate more power.

 

Counter movement: The next phase is the acceleration phase. The beginning of the acceleration phase starts at the end of the countermovement. At the beginning of this phase you should be in a good hip hinge position. From here we want to push through the ground and forcefully extend our hips as we go into a tall and tight position in the air.

 

Acceleration Phase: The last phase is the landing phase. Here is where some of the biggest problems occur and the chances of injury increase. When we jump and land we are coming down with a lot of force. We want to absorb all of that force in our muscles and not in our joints. The key here is to think about landing in the same position you take off from. We want to land in that same hip hinge position. If you notice yourself landing extremely hard with no bend in your knees or hips, your joints are going to start screaming at you. Focus on landing softly and quietly.

 

Landing phase: Now in the videos above one of our awesome clients is performing a box jump. However just like every other exercise there are progressions to get there, this didn’t happen on day one.

 

If you are looking to nail your jumps, here are a few great progressions to start with.

 

Ski Jumper:

Hinge Jump:

Tuck Jump:

 

Remember at the end of the day this is all just practice. We are all trying to get a little better each day.

 

If you have any questions about this or anything else please send an email to info@coreprinciples-sc.com or give us a call @ 203-914-6396.

– Coach Pat