Vertical and Quickness Training Question

Recently I received this question from a young man in Tampa: “What do you think is the best way to increase my vertical and the best way to get quicker? Like what drills or programs should I be doing?”

My response:

Thanks for your question. It is a good one and I will do my best to answer it. The problem is, I don't know that much about you to advise you completely. I am assuming you are a high school basketball player about to start your pre-season practice and try-outs. If this is so, then it really is too late to try to gain much improvement in either vertical or quickness. Drills, programs, and specific training for skill and agility improvement should be done in the off-season. The rigors of the regular season wear you down, and the best you can hope for now is to maintain a reasonable amount of vertical and quickness that you already have.
To try and do any specific program at this point would only cause your body to break down and you would lose some of the vertical and quickness you originally had. As for extra training, this is the time of year when you should be doing the minimum so you can maintain what vertical and quickness you have.

That said, let's assume you want to know what to do in your off-season to improve in those two areas. To improve skills, I favor doing the skills, over and over again: Rope jumping, long jumps, rim touches, bounding, along with agility training with quick stepping and other reactionary drills are helpful. But if you want to jump higher to dunk, then nothing works better than dunking a lot. And its more fun too. An off-season program such as the one mentioned on my website under "Conditioning" would also be beneficial. Notice that the Wednesday workout is Quickness Specific.
I hope this helps you. Please email me again if I can help you in any other way.

Coach Battenberg

Links

How to Make the High School Team 

Goal Setting

Vertical Question

Player Development

Conditioning

Weight Training

The Daily Four

Off Season Improvement

Fall Conditioning