Physiology of Jumping Higher

Beach Volleyball Workout to Jump Higher in Sand
Formerly known as jump training, plyometrics are exercises developed to increase your vertical leap. The words plyo and metrics actually stand for measurable increase. Beach volleyball vertical leap plyos workouts are the best way to go to increase you effectiveness of jumping in sand.

Plyometrics links strength with the speed of the muscle to produce power. Plyometrics are exercises designed in a way to enable a muscle to reach maximum strength in the shortest time possible.

When you brain tells your muscle to fire it does so by sending nerve impulses to the muscle fibers which causes a chemical reaction. When you bend down prior to jumping, your muscles react without any conscious thought on your part.

One thing that has been noticed is how the best jumper of all time are on the ground for a very short period of time before take off. This is because your body can actually lose power the longer that it is on the ground.

One of the main focuses of plyometrics is to shorten the amount of time you are touching the ground. Plyometrics focus on using the stored energy in your legs from the loading phase of the jump.

A muscle actually will have more power if it is stretched before it contracts. This is the reason that you need "load" before you jump.

Muscles behave in many ways like a rubber band. The more you stretch a rubber band the more power it will have when you let go.

An example of how our muscles react to stretching is the knee test. When the patella tendon under the knee cap is tapped, your muscle will react with power with no conscious thought on your part.

A muscle contracts faster when being stretched first. You can't really change the speed of the stretch reflex with training but you can change the strength of the response, which will cause you to jump higher.