Jump! For My Love (For Reals This Time)

In a previous Technical Tuesday I discussed how to modify jumping moves for those who can’t - or shouldn’t - be jumping. But today I’m going to discuss proper jumping technique for all of you who like to add a lil’ plyo to your workouts.

So full disclosure: if you go and google “proper jumping technique” you’re going to see a lot of different things discussed. Some things I read straight-up contradicted other pages. So when there is conflicting evidence I will present both sides and then my personal take on the matter. Am I right? Am I wrong? My god, what have I done?!?

(Hope you enjoyed the Talking Heads reference. I digress.)

First: what are some tips that people agree on:

1) Keep your feet about shoulder width apart. Your knees should track over your toes during the movement and NOT cave inward. This is pretty much the same guidance you would give for a regular ol’ squat.

2) “You have to go down to come up,” as Shaun T always said. You need to bend your knees and lower down to get more height in the air.

3). At the top of the jump you should be in triple extension: hip extension, knee extension, and ankle plantarflexion, as shown:

4) Don’t land on your heels. (Ouch!)

5) Land SOFTLY. Try to make as little sound as possible when you land. This is accomplished partly by bracing, or engaging your glutes and legs to help absorb the impact. As for how you touch the ground, I’ll save that for the next section….

What people DON’T agree on:

1) Is jumping a squat, a deadlift movement, or both? Some people say that you’re going to lean forward and hinge your hips back while bending your knees, kinda like a hybrid deadlift-squat. Look at the image below: I am leaning forward, and my knees are slightly past my toes.

This is a quad-dominant jump. One of the issues with a quad-dominant squat is that it’s hard to get true triple-extension; your butt tends to stick out more at the top of the movement.

Although effective, if you really want more power and height, you should be sitting back into your squat more as if you were actually, well, squatting. This is a glute-dominant squat.

(Personally, I have trouble swinging my arms back without leaning forward too much, which is why I look a little awkward here. But you get the idea.) Notice that my chest is farther back, putting more weight in my heels.

To be honest, I am more of a quad jumper and I didn’t notice a huge difference between my quad and glute based jumps. It could just be that I need more practice with the latter. Anyhoo…

2) How to land. I have watched a lot of videos where they emphasize landing on the balls of your feet. More medical-reference type articles, however, talk about landing on your whole foot so that your weight and pressure is spread out more evenly. Personally, I don’t know how you can land softly while landing on your whole foot at the same time. So I’m wondering if what they’re getting at is…land on the balls of your feet FIRST and then follow through with your whole foot? This is a bit of speculation on my part but if makes more sense when you think about the whole movement.

When you get ready for take off, you bend your knees, in effect “loading” your legs with potential energy. You then lift off by extending your knees, hips and going up on your toes. So to me it makes sense that you would land in the reverse order: balls of your feet hit the ground, bringing heels down next, then returning to a squat position. Rebound, repeat. By doing this you are more successfully absorbing the shock of the impact and spreading it more evenly across the joints in your body.

So that’s my take on it. What’s yours? I welcome your comments below. In the meantime, you can check out my video where I blabber on about this.