In the last post we discussed the need for Core Stability, Posture and Balance for increased vertical. This post discusses Coordination and its importance for vertical.
Here is Part 2 – Core Stability, Posture and Balance
The body is a complex system of balances and counter balances, it needs to work front to back or side to side. If there is an imbalance then power is lost or injury can occur. Getting your muscles to work in a coordinated fashion requires patience. Many people want to just jump, let grab a ball or box and start jumping is often the first thing you want to do. While getting work done is great, adding just a little coordination to the warm up or cuing it in the drill can lead to even greater results.
Working on coordination is very valuable, learning to move your arms and legs in the proper order can make significant improvements, getting the arms to move correctly in the lead up sprint is an excellent start. The arms must swing opposite of the legs in order to get a counter balance, this is often a great place to start with youth athletes.
This is a great drill to get coordination in youth athletes, however it is something you do for a minute at the beginning of a workout, spending too much time on it can waste valuable time in your training time. .
The bear crawl is another great exercise; it develops core control and coordination. I have seen many variations of the bear crawl, however I often stick with the variation with the torso parallel to the ground, with this you get core strength, hip mobility to go along with the development of leg and arm coordination which you need for a lead up to any running jumps.
Coordinating the legs can often be trick too. Many people overlook this aspect, they think they jumps from their calves, however this is incorrect. Many great jumpers use their glutes to jump. When doing plyometrics and sprints it can be extremely helpful to start with no arm swing, instead focus on using the glutes to drive your legs through the ground.
Coordination is often more coaching intensive so it is important to watch technique and if you make a mistake stop, correct and try it again. Letting too many flaws go will often offset the impact of the drill, however if there are many flaws be careful not to try to fix everything in one shot, instead find one flaw and fix it. Be patient yet be strict about technique.
Next Post will look at Plyometrics and how it can help your vertical.
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