Coaching experts Jim Kilty and Liam Hennessy on why top athletes jump higher

DID YOU know a simple vertical jump is a key test to identify sporting talent? The height you can jump vertically is used by several teams and coaches to, a) identify potential athletic talent for speed, jump, throwing events and for court and field games and, b) to monitor how well a player or athlete recovers from session to session or from week to week.

Several sports use an electronic mat to measure height jumped. However, the vertical jump test is easy to carry out using a simple wall-mounted scale or tape placed on a smooth wall. This can be placed in a gym or a sport hall or on any wall beside the training pitch, court or track. Usually a 50 centimetre tape or scale is placed 20 centimetres above the average players’ standing reach height. The player stands sideways to the wall, reaches with the inside arm and checks their reach height.

This is noted as “reach height”. The player then stands about 30 centimetres from the wall and flexes or counter moves into a squat and then jumps vertically off the ground from two feet reaching as high as possible with the arm to touch the wall scale at the highest point of the jump. The distance between reach height and the touch height of the jump is the vertical jump height.

Jump higher – Run Faster: Players or athletes who can jump high also tend to be able to sprint fast. While there are always exceptions, the higher you can jump vertically using the test above the better you tend to be at sprinting. In fact as your jump increases you tend to get faster as well. So if you are a speed, jump or throw athlete or a field-game player such as a Gaelic footballer or rugby player or a court player such as a basketball player then monitoring your vertical jump height will tell you how productive your training programme is.

If your jump height is increasing over a number of weeks you are getting more powerful and faster – key fitness qualities to develop for your sport. Jump to monitor recovery: As noted this jump test can be used to monitor training progress. Many top stars also use this test to see if recovery is taking place from session to session or after a game. If the jump height is down by five per cent from their best jump then it is a sign the player or athlete has not recovered from their previous training or competition. Thus the test is a very useful one to help in deciding if more recovery is needed.

Jump to identify your muscle fibre type: Did you know top athletes in speed and power events tend to have good vertical jumps. If a male athlete (over 15 years of age) can jump higher than 50cm then he is likely to be endowed with a high degree of fast twitch muscle fibre – the type of muscle fibre top sprinters have. Likewise for females who can vertically jump above 35 cm, this indicates they have a high percentage of these fast twitch fibres and thus have good speed and power qualities.

So test your vertical jump ability – it will help you figure out if you have natural speed and power talent. More practically using the test regularly will tell you if training is progressing or if more recovery is needed.

These notes are contributed by Dr Liam Hennessy and Jim Kilty of Setanta College, the Institute of Strength and Conditioning Studies. (www.setantacollege.com)