Vertical Drills You Can Do From Home

Vertical drills are an important part of any basketball players’ game.  There are a lot of effective vertical drills, and so there should always be room for mixing it up and having fun with it.

The point of vertical drills is to train your body to jump higher.  Your goal should be to improve your vertical leap by improving the strength in your thighs, calves, hamstrings, knees and abdominals.

Before you begin any vertical drills, you should stretch your muscles & warm up by taking a light jog or jumping rope.  Jumping rope and stretching will improve your body’s elasticity and allow you to be more flexible.  Take some time and review a couple vertical drills to improve your vertical leap that you can do at home.

Low Squat Ankle Jump

• Squat down low and stay on your toes (make sure you are not resting on your heels as this defeats the purpose of this drill)
• Stay in the squat position and bounce up and down repeatedly on the balls of your feet.
• Do not bounce high enough so that your legs become straight, keep your legs close to your chest
• Use as much force as possible while you bounce, the more you push, the stronger your legs will become

Box Drill – Not your typical box jump!

This is probably the most effective of the 3 best jumping higher exercises.   You will need enough room to make a “box” with each point spaced about 2 feet from each other.  Before beginning, picture 4 different points on the ground & number these points 1-4.  For this exercise to be effective, make sure to keep your feet together.  If you step forward with one foot, you will have completely botched the point of this drill.

• While keeping your feet together, stand on number 1 and jump with feet to number 2
• Next, jump from the second spot sideways to spot 3 without turning your body
• Jump backwards to spot 4 and then to left and back to spot 1

An example of the above points is illustrated below:

2                         3

1                         4

Why aren’t you getting serious about your training yet? The Jump Manual has everything you need to start dunking right now!