Michael Jordan Vertical Jump
If we talk about basketball players, Michael Jordan is one of the most popular players of all time. Not only that, but also his vertical jump is one of t he highest after being a kid, he joined NBA. Not late, he started with Chicago Bulls after being very well at the US Olympic Team to the Gold in 1984, he had his shoe deal back then in the years.
In these years, 30 years ago only the best players got shoe deals and some of them where Kareem, Magic Johnson and some others.
The shoes name was Air Jordans, which was a testament for his ability to float and hang in the air, which is obvious from the name.
He was also inspired to switch to basketball from his father. After Wilt Chamberlain, he was also the second that scored the 3000 points in a single season. His college degree was in cultural geography. Through nike partnership, he made made over $1 billion.
The situation now is not like it used to be back then, because now majority of the players get shoe deal, but not many get their own signature shoe, including Kytie Irving as well as Lebron James.
What was special about Jordan was that he was able to score even just joined the league and his vertical jump was what gave him very big advantage.
His athleticism was very good and this made him a NBA All Star. His game wasn’t the most elegant and he used to shoot in low 40% range. Majority of them were fast breaks and he was able to beat the opponent by just jumping over or hanging in the air for longer.
We as basketball players know that, it’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest in most cases to be able to jump as highest as possible, because it gives you huge advantage to work on your game as well and refine it, while you are scoring a lot.
During his career, he developed signature moves and he was getting better with the shot selection, which made him the greatest of all time for many fans and people over the world.
Not only his vertical leap was outstanding, but also his childhood.
He wasn’t very good at school, as he wasn’t also interested, as you know other great players are not good at school, but when he started at Emsley A. Laney High School, he was B+ student and performed very well in football, baseball and the most important in his career, basketball.
In 1978, Michael was just 5 foot 9 inches in the Laney High School was cut from the Varsity team, which was very interesting and the coach picked the 6 foot 8 inches Leroy Smith. He hit his growth spurt and before the next season he had 5 inches and in the next two varsity years, he on average did 25 points per game and he was the first back then player in the high school history that average a triple double.
He took his team to a good level and led them to the State Championship.
In 1980 as he was playing for the Laney High School basetball team, he did 25 serial scores. Then people realized how athletically gifted he was.
One year later on April 11, 1981 on McDonald’s All-American High School Basketball Game in Wichita. He did hits a pair of free throws with 11 seconds left to give East a 96-95 victory and they won the game with 30 points as the records still remains up to this day.
Michael Jordan Vertical Jump
If we discuss Michael Jordan’s vertical it was 46 inches, which is from the NBA Players With The Highest Vertical Jump
Back in the days, Jordan had one of the best, if not t he best jumping capabilities due to combination of things, height, genetics, distance as well as the hang time. There are now players like Zach Levine, who also has similar vertical, but he still misses some of the things to be like Michael.
Ja Morant and other are also with very good verticals and they jump high, as well as they have good distance, but compared with Michael, I think he has a little bit more skills, no wonder why he is one of the best players of all time.
You can even see below a video of the Slam Dunk Contest in 1988.
He was very dominant with his vertical jump and he was very well known with his in t he NBA. The vertical leap he had was based on his athletic abilities and powerful determination. He was a beast and that’s why he was dominated the dunk contest back then.
From all the other great leapers and athletes from the league, the footage of Jordan’s running leap from the free throw line grabs the attention of the audience for sure. This was very remarkable part of his career.
No wonder, why he was always known as extremely competitive. He also very hated losing and played with a chip on his shoulder, he always wanted to be the best and he was for a lot of years.
You can see below how he was performing back then.
The new players are still improving in many aspects and they keep working on their abilities and their vertical is similar around 45, 46 inches.
During Jordan’s amazing career, he didn’t have bad game, he was always performing at the best, he used to be very obsessed with the game
He was very competitive at all the things, he used to do, also the poker games according to his teammates from Chicago Bulls.
His work ethic and discipline make him a beast. Even though, he was one of the best back then, he wakes up every day to workout after a night game.
As he has said in some of this older interviews, he had a trainer that was in NBA Tim Grover and mentioned after the games, Grover thought of them being at the gym tomorrow.
They either went to the gym at 6, 7 or 8 am. They didn’t need to communicate about it, it was as a law.
So, you can see how Michael Jordan’s work ethic and consistency got him to where he was, since college. Also there is a study from a University that measures vertical jump and have evidence of Jordan working on it to improve it, because many people think that vertical jump is gifted. There are some players that genetics plays a role in, but you also need to work on it in order to be successful.
You can see how successful people are, they are very dedicated at what they do and Jordan was not an exception. He has worked on all of his abilities and improving them since a young age, he was also a late bloomer and growth rapidly in high schools and he used to jump a lot more than the other in order to be competitive enough.
After they, he gradually started to become more popular and he became bigger and stronger. You can look at his picture while being at 3 and 4 NBA seasons and compared to the Chicago Bulls days, he built a lot more lean muscle and became bigger.
He worked a lot in order to become successful at what he does.
Michael Jordan Vertical Jump Training
Jordan’s 46 vertical jump was achieved from a lot of training and weight trainings as well, because they also help a lot.
As most of the players, that just came to NBA, they were skinny with huge calves. His upper body part wasn’t well proportioned compared with the stronger lower body.
You cannot see his thighs from t he shorts, but you can see how good looking are the calf muscles.
It’s obvious that Michael’s legs look very different from most of the bodybuilders who can’t even jump.
The weight trainings help, but you need a mixed proper exercises for jumping higher that improve all of your body parts. The calves are very good sign for this, most of the bodybuilders have large roundish calves.
While most of the basketball players, especially Jordan’s calves do loo a lot more rectangular, when you look at them.
Many people are still wondering how Michael Jordan was able to achieve such hops, even with his discipline and according to many nobody will never know.
But, if we are talking about outperforming Jordan in terms of vertical jump, there is one with 50 inches vertical that shows you how to achieve it in the training program, that you can check here.
Many beginners and even advanced have increased their vertical up to 15 inches with this training program as it also don’t require you to have weights or even access at the gym. It is 8 week program and every session is important to reach the full potential.
Firstly before Michael developed his amazing skills, he first was a leaper and after that become a scorer.
Gradually, he improved his skills and he was becoming more accurate and better.
Of course his jumping ability lead to improving his other skills to score more points, that lead him in the position where he was, the greatest of all time, but you need mixed skills and your jumping ability is one of the first things to really work on.
There are multiple ways, but one of the best ways for beginners is to take a program for jumping higher that is proven.
As a basketball player myself, I personally used the one, that you can see by clicking below and no matter, if you are a beginner, then of course it will be even more helpful to you, but even if you are a little bit more advanced, it can also help you to add additional inches to your vertical.
My opinion is that, you need to be consistent and you can become a great player, because many people give up too early and they haven’t even achieved something remarkable enough through their career.
The greatest players of all time have dedicated most of their lives doing what they like and they have gone to the top by doing that. Be consistent and never give up, if you really like something enough and you are passionate.
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