A vertical jump or vertical leap is the act of raising one’s center of gravity higher in the vertical plane exclusively with the utilization of one’s own muscles; it is a measure of how high an individual or athlete can elevate off the ground from a standstill.
Photo credit from:anabolicsteroids.biz/:A Simple Vertical Jump Training Program
Vertical Jump helps young athletes elevate for jump shots over opponents. Good jumping ability will also help them to get their hands above the volleyball net for blocking shots. Heading a soccer ball is less dangerous when one child can jump higher than the other. Also, a jump serve helps create more racquet acceleration for a more powerful tennis serve.
Here’s the kicker:
Vertical jump test can be used to assess your state of recovery prior to a weight-training, speed or even practice session. If you over train your nervous system by performing an excessive volume of heavy weight or high- speed training, the fatigue will manifest itself first in your performance in movements requiring high-speed. You might not notice it much but this type of fatigue will tend to show itself very quickly as a decrease in performance of the vertical jump. If this happens, ideally you will want to cut back slightly on the volume of your training session(s) to recover. One thing you can do is use your vertical jump as a barometer of how much volume and intensity you should use for a training session.
If the height is down 10% or more you should cut the volume in half for that session and cut the training intensity down by 10%. For example, instead of performing 16 total sets with an average load of 80% 1rm, you might need to perform 8 sets with an average load of 70%, stopping each set well shy of failure.
If the height of your vertical jump has not increased or decreased, simply carry out the training session as planned. If the height is up 10% or more, you can increase the volume by 20% and the intensity by 5%.
Photo credit from:theexercisers.com/:THE VERTICAL JUMP TEST (SARGENT JUMP TEST)
One thing to note is if you have recently completed an intense leg training session and have a lot of soreness, your performance might temporarily decrease anyway so it is best to use this test either after an upper body workout or when you are experiencing little to no soreness.