Jumping higher in volleyball: jump technique and plyometrics
"How do I get higher?" is the question a volleyball coach hears most often, and the answer is usually "more squats". Six weeks later nobody jumps measurably higher, because nobody ever measured. Jumping higher is no mystery, but it is a sum: where do the centimetres sit, what do they cost in time and what do you give up for them?
Where jump height comes from
A jump is force times speed, but the time you have to put that force into the floor is absurdly short. In an attacking jump the foot is on the floor for roughly two to three tenths of a second. Whatever force does not come out in that time does not count. That is why there are three different dials, and why turning the wrong one does nothing for months.
- How much force there is in the engine. The maximum strength of legs, glutes and trunk. This is the domain of strength training: the most expensive route in time, and at the same time the foundation under the other two.
- How fast that force comes out. A player can be strong and still push off slowly. This is the reactive part: tendons working as a spring. Plyometrics belongs here, and for club players this is often where the quickest gain sits.
- How much of that force you send upwards. Technique. The approach converts horizontal speed into height, and for most players the arm swing adds five to ten centimetres. The full rhythm is in the attack approach.
The order in which you tackle those dials is almost always the reverse of the order in which players talk about them. Technique is the cheapest: it costs weeks and no equipment. Reactive jumping ability costs a block of three months. Strength costs a season. A coach who starts with strength in September while his hitter still approaches with two equal steps is leaving the easiest centimetres lying on the floor.
Measure first: four numbers against a wall
Without a baseline, any jump programme is a matter of faith, and faith does not survive November. You need nothing beyond a wall, a tape measure and a bit of chalk or a board marker on the fingertips.
- Standing reach. Feet flat, one arm as high as possible, mark it.
- Block reach. Two hands, jump from standing without an approach, mark the highest point.
- Attack reach. One hand, full approach, mark the highest point.
- The two differences. Block reach minus standing reach is the standing jump. Attack reach minus standing reach is the jump with an approach. The difference between those two is what the approach adds.
Three attempts per measurement, the best one counts. Always measure at the same moment: straight after the warm-up, before the hard work, in the same shoes. A measurement at the end of a practice is not a measurement but a fatigue test.
What the approach adds is your diagnosis straight away. If it stays under eight centimetres, that player does not have a strength problem but an approach problem — there are ten to twenty centimetres waiting there and the gain comes in weeks, not months. If the approach gain is well over fifteen centimetres but the absolute numbers are low, the technique is fine and it is the engine's turn. And a player who barely leaves the floor from standing but keeps up nicely with an approach is mostly short of reactive ability.
Measure three times a season: at the start of pre-season, halfway through the season and at the end. Measuring more often mainly produces noise, because day-to-day form easily accounts for two centimetres. Write down all four numbers per player with the date next to them; over a whole season the line is more interesting than any single number.
Practical: stick a strip of tape vertically on the wall and mark it every five centimetres, from 220 to 340 centimetres. Then you measure a whole team in a quarter of an hour instead of half a practice, and in January you have exactly the same set-up back.
What it really costs in time
This is the part that usually gets skipped, and precisely the part on which programmes founder. An honest bill for a club player who trains twice a week:
- Technique — three to four weeks, about ten minutes per practice. For a player who never properly learned the approach, this is by far the best trade of the year.
- Reactive jumping ability — eight to twelve weeks, twenty minutes twice a week. In untrained players three to six centimetres is a realistic result; the spread between players is large and nobody can say in advance where someone will end up.
- Strength — twelve to sixteen weeks at the very least, half an hour twice a week, and only then does it start to do anything for the jump.
Together: a player who keeps all three going consistently for half a season often ends up five to ten centimetres higher. Growing youngsters and players starting from nothing sometimes go well beyond that; trained senior players get less. So never promise a number of centimetres — promise a measurement in week thirteen.
The other half of the bill is what you give up. Twenty minutes of jump work in a ninety-minute practice is a good fifth of your evening, and that time comes off ball contacts. That is a defensible choice in pre-season and a questionable one in March. Weigh it per period: jump work is practice content with a price tag, not an extra.
And it runs back. Reactive ability goes first: after four weeks or so without jump work part of the gain has gone, while strength you have built up sticks around much longer. Maintaining costs about a third of building — which is exactly why one block a week during the season is worth so much.
Plyometrics: count contacts, not repetitions
Plyometrics is not "doing jumps". It is making use of the spring in muscle and tendon: the tissue is stretched quickly on landing and gives that energy straight back — provided the contact with the floor stays short. If the landing takes too long, the energy leaks away and you are simply doing strength training with your own body weight.
That is why the measure is not the height but the ground contact time. The coaching cue that works best is "the floor is hot": off the ground before you can think about it. Anyone who visibly sinks and only then comes up is doing something other than what he thinks he is doing.
You count the volume in contacts: every landing is one contact. For a beginning team sixty to eighty contacts per session is enough, for advanced players a hundred to a hundred and forty. Two sessions a week, never on consecutive days, with real rest between the sets — three quarters of an hour of puffing is conditioning, and that belongs in a different block.
The build-up goes in five steps, and you skip none of them:
- Land and stand still. Step down off a low box, land and freeze. Anyone who wobbles here is not ready for step two — the details are in learning to land safely.
- Low hops. Back and forth over a line, on two legs, low and fast. The aim is short contact time, not height.
- Maximum jumps with a counter-movement. Sink and explode immediately, full arm swing, complete rest in between.
- Jump to jump. Low hurdle hops and bounding, where every landing is immediately the next jump.
- Depth jumps. Step off a box, land and go straight up to maximum. Only after three months of clean build-up, only for fully grown players, and starting at twenty to thirty centimetres of box height — no higher than the height at which the contact still stays short.
Twelve weeks in three blocks
A build-up that fits into a normal club week, twice a week after the warm-up:
- Weeks 1-4, foundation (15 minutes, around 60 contacts). Land and stand still 2×6, line jumps back and forth 3×10, squat jumps 3×5 with full rest. Alongside that, two short strength sessions outside gym time.
- Weeks 5-8, strength and speed (20 minutes, around 90 contacts). Maximum jumps with arm swing 4×5, low hurdle hops 3×6, single-leg lateral hops 3×6 per leg, attacking jumps with a full approach 3×5.
- Weeks 9-12, specific (20 minutes, around 80 contacts). Block movement plus jump 4×4, attacking jumps on a real set 3×6, and for fully grown players with clean landings depth jumps 3×5 from thirty centimetres. Fewer contacts, higher quality.
Week thirteen is measuring week: the same wall, the same tape, the same four numbers. Then you choose: another block, or switch to maintenance.
Four rules keep the plan upright. Jump work goes at the front, straight after the warm-up and never after a heavy playing block. You do not do it the day before a match. With sore or leaden legs a player skips it — that is not weakness but the plan working as intended. And you only make it harder once the previous step looked clean three sessions in a row.
Fitting it into the season without wrecking your practice
In pre-season the full block can run twice a week. Once the league is under way, one block of twelve to fifteen minutes a week is enough to hold on to what you have built. In a week with two matches you drop it without discussion.
Keep an eye on the total while you do. Those jumps do not come on top of the existing load without consequences: there is already jumping at the net in blocking work, hitting lines and the warm-up hitting. A jump programme added in September without anything coming off is the most common route to tendon complaints in November. How you count and spread those jumps is worked out in jumper's knee and the jump budget — that sum is worth doing even when nobody has any complaints.
The five mistakes that eat the gain
- Volume instead of quality. Two hundred little jumps with a long contact time train endurance, not explosiveness. Fewer and sharper wins every time.
- Depth jumps too early. The most copied drill from clips and the least suitable one to start with. They belong on step five, not step one.
- Jump work at the end of practice. Tired legs push off slowly, and pushing off slowly is exactly what you are then grooving in.
- Training only the jump, not the approach. For half of all club players the biggest gain still sits in the last two steps and the arm swing.
- Never measuring. Without a baseline nobody knows whether it worked, and programmes without a visible result die within two months.
Youth, growth and patience
Children jump of their own accord, and that is the best foundation there is. With young youth players you keep it playful: hopscotch, skipping, jumping forms in tag games, over lines and low objects. Structured plyometrics is fine from about twelve, provided the landing is clean and the volume starts low.
During a growth spurt the picture changes. Players get taller while coordination and load tolerance lag behind; it is not strange for measured jump height to stand still for six months or even to drop slightly while reach goes up. That is no reason to train harder — it is a reason to lower the volume and stay on technique. With persistent pain below or just below the kneecap a player belongs with a doctor or (sports) physiotherapist, and that person also decides when full jumping is allowed again.
And for the player who asks whether he will ever get above the block: jump height is one of the dials, not the only one. Timing, the direction of the swing and reading the ball weigh heavier than ten centimetres, and that is what attacking effectively when you are short is about. The jump is the means, not the goal.
Frequently asked questions
How many centimetres can you add to your jump?
That differs a great deal per player and nobody can predict it in advance. For a club player who combines technique, plyometrics and strength consistently for half a season, five to ten centimetres is a realistic result. Anyone who still has to learn the approach often gains more and faster; trained players gain less.
How often a week should you do jump training?
Twice a week is the norm in a building block, with at least one day in between. During the league season one block of twelve to fifteen minutes a week is enough to hold on to the gain you built. More sessions rarely give more and do raise the load on knees and tendons.
How do I measure jump height without equipment?
With a wall, a tape measure and chalk on the fingertips. Measure the standing reach, then the block reach from standing and the attack reach with an approach; the differences are the jump heights. Three attempts, best one counts, always at the same moment in practice and in the same shoes.
Are depth jumps necessary to jump higher?
No. They are the heaviest form of plyometrics and only belong after months of clean build-up, with fully grown players who have a reliable landing technique. For most club players, lower jumping forms with a short ground contact time deliver the same thing at a fraction of the injury risk.
From what age may a youth player do jump training?
Playful jumping is fine at any age and is the best form for young children. Structured plyometrics fits from about twelve, provided the landing technique is there and the volume starts low. During a growth spurt you lower the volume rather than raise it, and with persistent knee pain a doctor or physiotherapist decides.
