How Important Are Abdominals For Increasing Your Vertical Leap

Abdominals are often touted as one of the “secrets” to increasing your vertical leap, but can a six pack really increase your vertical? In order to answer this question we should first understand what role the abdominals play during a vertical jump.

Abdominals work in conjunction with the hip flexors to perform 2 main roles.

Abdominals are involved in the “counter movement” of the vertical jump – Folding the body at the stomach, like a crunch (spinal flexion).

Abdominals cause flexion at the spine and set the body up to explode upwards, and hip flexors cause flexion at the hip, for the same reason. The faster you are able to set up the jump the greater stretch reflex takes place for the initial movement in the spinal erectors, which can add additional power to your upward ascent.

Abdominals are the “brakes” of the vertical jump movement. – Slowing backward movement or hip extension.

Hip and spinal extension (which is performed by glutes, hams, and spinal erectors) provide upward propulsion to the torso during a vertical jump. Your upper body (torso) will be sent backwards at high velocity. Your hip flexors and abdominals activate to slow the backward movement of your torso (so you don’t fall flat on your back). Your body is smart enough to know that it cannot propel your torso backwards with greater force than the abdominals are able to handle. If your abdominals and hip flexors are not powerful enough to slow your torso, you could easily injury both.

Key Terms

Flexion at the spin – Like a crunch, folding your body at the stomach. This is also a portion of the vertical jump countermovement. Prime movers – abdominals. Flexion at the hip – Folding your body at the waist line, like a toe touch. Brings the shoulders and knees closer. This is also a portion of the countermovement. Prime movers – hip flexors. Countermovement – This is what your body does before you jump; coiling your body like a spring to explode upwards.

What the abdominals are NOT.

Abdominals are NOT one of the prime movers of the vertical jump. Nominal increases can be made by increasing counter movement time, and some muscular inhibitions can be lifted by having the strength necessary to slow the torso, however because the abdominals do not create upward propulsion they are extremely limited.

Bottom line

Abdominals merit a place in your vertical jump training regime, however they should never eclipse the effort you are giving to the mains prime movers: glutes, hams, quads, spinal erectors, calves, and shoulders.

Core training vs Ab training

Abs should be seen as part of a greater goal for your training: Increasing your core strength. The core involves your abdominals, obliques, glutes, and lower back. These muscles which are situated around your center of gravity (waist line) are extremely important at increasing your overall athleticism and your ability to transfer power.

Try this experiment:

Take a pencil and drop it from the distance of one foot, let the eraser side bounce. Notice how high the pencil bounces.
Next, take that same pencil, break it in half, and tape it back together well.
Now drop the pencil again and notice how much lower the pencil bounces.

This is very similar to core power. A strong core will properly transfer the energy from the ground through your body and propel you upward. A weak core will weakly transfer the energy and the height of your jump will be negatively affected.

Conclusion

Abdominals trained in isolations can increase the speed of your counter movement, as well as help to safely and properly “slow” or “break” the vertical jump movement. Nominal gains can be realized from training the abdominals in isolation, however they are not prime movers in the vertical jump and thus they are extremely limited. Abdominals are best trained in correlation with the entire core to increase strength and mobility about the center of gravity and increase overall athleticism, as well as your ability to correctly transfer power from the ground through your entire body.

Exercise selection and application.

Choose exercises that emulate most specifically the way your abs and core are activated during a vertical jump movement. Medicine ball slams, overhead pull downs, and static holds are extremely effective… to name a few. Higher weight, with lower reps and explosive movement will yield best results. Of course, don’t let your abdominal and core training eclipse proper strengthening and training of the prime movers. Allow at least 48 hours of recovery before repeating an intense session focusing on core and abdominals.