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.
For more information about The Jump Manual:
A comprehensive approach to vertical jump training;
Click Here
Jacob Hiller's best selling book "The Jump Manual" has been used and taught in over 30 countries and in 4 different languages and featured on ESPN and Fadeaway. Coach Hiller has worked with professional and Olympic level athletes and is currently touring the globe.
Hey I have pretty strong abs, but my lower back is very weak and I feel myself hurting it alot. To increase my vertical and prevent injury, what exercises would you recommend for me to do. Is dead lifts enough?
For the most part my core is strong, but my lower back is my big weak point.
Do you have any exercises that strengthen the lower back specifically? Exercises I can do at home would be great, since I don’t go to the gym often.
Shawn
Terrill
On the subject of vertical jump conditioning, your explanation explains why athletes like sprinters, long jumpers (Mike Powell), Olympic powerlifters (Shane Hamman), and volleyball players, not to mention basketball players often have good to excellent vertical jumps. In contrast to athletes like tennis players, long distance runners, etc do not have good vertical jumps as a rule.
http://liljah9.maxgx.com Jahlil Fielder
This makes a lot of sense. The idea is balance. A powerful body is one that is balanced body. you’ve have got to work on all the muscles not just the ones you see in the mirror.
http://www.korvpallurid.com Eesti korvpall
Very interesting point. I have never thought that this is so important.
http://thebestproteinsupplement.com/ Damian
Been following your stuff for a while now Jacob. Crazy knowledge you’ve got. I really enjoy how you break down complex training issues into easily understandable training principles. Thanks for all the free info.
http://www.howtojumphigherexercises.com how to jump higherhow to jump higher
Hey, this is amazing information! I enjoyed reading it and specially your style, it rocks! I’ll be coming back for more. Keep it up!
http://www.jumpmanual.com/cb?cb=jacobwh Jacob
@Damian:Thanks alot man I appreciate that. Sorry for the delayed comment.
http://www.thejumpmanual.com jump program
I join a program like this and they really gave me the best result that I could have. All I have to do is to bare with their training and put some effort to the exercise. I also tried doing plyometrics since I read that it will strengthen your leg muscles and help you jump higher. This time I am seeing a good result with my jump.
Terrill Wyche
Thanks for the great advice. Man, I found some abdominal exercises that I can do using a medicine ball. It’s part of a series of exercises that I found on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwtaEAr8qI0. These exercises really work in general, and the abdominal exercises specifically work well. I’ve been enjoying some visible vertical jump gains over the last month using the abdominal exercises from that link.
Duncan Deng
Hey Jacob,
Very interesting article! just one quick correction i think, in the paragraph highlighted in red. u said ” Nominal increases can be made by increasing counter movement time….” I think u meant to say ‘increasing counter movement speed’ or ‘decreasing counter movement time’ there. i assume if you increase the counter movement time then it will reduce the stretch reflex which is counter-productive to later power production. It’s just a little typo, no worries man.
i got this question about core training though. you talked about training the abdominal in correlation with the core. are u implying that it is better to implement excerise that incorporate multiple muscles of the core at the same time. meaning full body movement like deadlift that trains the posterior chain as well as the core to some extent. or just train parts of the core with various isolation excerises, like weighted ab training, good morning and etc. together into a workout. So basically, in what manner should the workout look like? i understand that the core traininig must focus on the sport specific movement, but does that mean you have to train them in compound movements, because I think isolation movements can be sport specific as well.
sorry for writting so much, i just wanted to make sure i got my msg acrossed to you. as u see i’m really passionate about vertical training as well. keep up the good work man.
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.
Core training vs Ab training
Try this experiment:
For more information about The Jump Manual:
A comprehensive approach to vertical jump training;
Click Here
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