There are many sports that require an athlete to jump high. Sports such as high jump and long jump are the most obvious. These aren't really sports and are more like track events. Sports such as basketball and volleyball require people to jump up high.

A person that can jump higher than the rest has a huge advantage when it comes to sports such as basketball. Blocking and shooting requires fast reflexes and also a great vertical leap. If you can take a jump shot higher up than the person that is blocking, then that shot is virtually unblockable.

There are all kinds of training exercises that can be done to improve a person's vertical leap. Jumping higher requires specific muscles in the body to be trained. The most obvious muscles to train will be the leg muscles. A large majority of the force that needs to be produced in jumping comes from the large thigh muscles.

You may not know it, but the upper body plays roughly a thirty percent role when jumping. If you jump with your arms by your sides, you won't be able to jump as high as you would if you thrust your arms upwards during the jump. Your back muscles also give you some lift during the a jump.

The calf muscles aren't as powerful as your thigh muscles, but they too need to be trained in order to get a much higher vertical leap. The key to jumping higher is having more fast-twitch muscles as opposed to slow-twitch ones.

Fast-twitch give more bang for the buck, and they are very explosive. Slow-twitch muscles, as the name suggests, are slow to release energy and are better suited to long distance running. Short distance runners like those doing fast sprints, have more of the fast-twitch muscle type. Long distance runners that run over very long distances have more slow-twitch muscles.

You can tune your body to have more fast-twitch muscles by training them in the proper way. Stretching is vital and the most important step is to just keep on jumping.

Muscle memory will help you to jump high and learning the correct jumping motion is of great importance. Obviously being lean and lighter will get you that little bit higher in the air. A fat person isn't going to be able to jump higher than a person that is lean and fit.

In conclusion, increasing your vertical leap isn't as hard as it seems. You can jump higher than ever before if you train the right muscles. Stretching is very important too. Getting lean and fit will affect the height of your jump as well.