Is Vertical Jump Genetic ?

By BasketballJumper 2 February 2021 Jump Higher & Vertical Tips 0 Comments

It’s widespread that genetics play a big role in our life for quite a lot of things and this can’t be denied, because there are many facts that prove that and we can’t do much about some of them.

There is also a reddit topic about that

In this case, we are gonna reveal, if it’s related to the actual vertical jump in basketball, because there are some things like our height, eye color and other factors, which we can’t change, but when it comes to the ability to jump higher, that’s not 100% the case.

Let’s get to the important question

Is The Skill To Have Outstanding Vertical Jump Genetic ?

When, it comes to a lot of good professionals in their sports, most people would say they are talented, but is this always the case, I don’t think so, personally.

For sure, there are many examples for which you may see that, they have such a high verticl jump, because of their height or bacause they are from certain race, but the thing is that, they have spent many years of training to achieve good results.

Often times, you may see black guys dunking more often than white guys, but if you see the highest vertical jumps in the nba there are also white guys. Black people have a little bit of advantage due to other reasons, genetically, but this doesn’t mean, you are not able to outperform them.

Actually, there are even players who are below 5’8 and they have extremely good verticl jump, so it’s not all about genetics.

Actually Andrew McFly is only 5’4 and he is able to dunk he is the shortest professional who can dunk. In such cases I would that only people who like to complain wouldn’t be able to achieve it.

The possibility to jump really high is closlely related to the strength in yor legs and how explosive you are.

In fact, there are some really tall players who are not able to dunk, so we can’t really blame the genetics, because it takes some dedication to achieve it.

What is really important, when it comes to your vertical the muscle explosivness is very important, in your legs even more, because from there, the explosivness comes.

RELATED: Proven Way To Increase Your Vertical Jump (Up To 15 inches )

There are variety of workouts to train your muscles, it’s similar to when you train to have bigger muscles, but with different exercises for different purpose.

What Fibers To Muscles Contain ?

Type 1: Slow Twitch Muscle Fibers. Provides Endurance
Type 2: Fast Twitch Muscle Fibers. Gives Explosivness

In order to jump higher, you would need to get more of the second type in your legs.

The first type are better for endurance time, while the second type are quicker, but more fatigued in the long term. The best combination is to have both explosivness(from type 2) and endurance(from type 1)

The interested thing is that type 2 is subdiveded in itself to:

Type 2A: Explosive Power. This is very quick
Type 2B: Extreme Explosive Power contract quciker and are better at making force on higher speeds.

The second type B is very important in developing very explosive vertical leap

What Can Be Done To Increase The Vertical Jump ?

Now, when we broke the myth about the huge genetic impact for the vertical jump, there are some basic things, you must to know in order to have higher vertical jump.

You need to strenghten your body as much as possible, especially your legs to have more explosivness.
Perform all exercises explosively, especially the weight ones.

Of course, there are also proven training programs for increasing vertical jump, that will guide you more easily the way to proceed and furthermore by professional plyers, that are with good reputation in the industry.

Programs

There are a lot of alternatives, but the most and most proven one through the years are:

Vert Shock Review

and

The Jump Manual Review 2021

I recommend those two, because they gave me the best results, the first one is really awesome, because it is focused on plyometrics, which mainly help for the explosivness, that is the second type and it’s a little bit more important.

The second program has both combined plyometrics and weights. There are also other around the web, that mainly focus on weights, but only weights, you will not be able to achieve good results and also, there are risk for injuries.

I don’t say, weight liftings also known as reps are bad , but they are not as effective as plyometrics.

Exercises

Let’s cover in a nutshell, the two type of exercises, which are usually used to increase your explosivness and your skills.

There are a lot of them and they are focused on improving your explosivness and training your muscles, which doesn’t depend on your gene.

Weight Workouts:

For some of them, you may need to go to the gym or buy some of the things yourself, even though you don’t need much.

Deadlifts
Squat
Kettlebell Swing
Squat With Toes, when you go up on your toes
Jump Squat With Weights

Plyometric Workouts:

The good part about these ones is that they don’t require you to have any equipment at all, while the weight ones may require in some cases.

Squat Jumps
Depth Jump
Drop Jump

In conclusion, I would say that genetics can determine a lot of things related to your body, but it is not a huge factor, when it comes to the vertical leap abilities.

If, you stick to the myth, that, if you don’t have the genetics, you will not be able to jump higher, this will be a problem for you mentally and most likely, you will struggle more, but if you have the right mindset, it’s fully achievable to add more inches to it.