How To Improve Your Vertical Leap

If you are wondering how toincrease your jumping ability, you're not alone.  Just about every basketball player, whether street ball, high school, college or pro, is constantly on the lookout to improve their vertical to get whatever advantage they can over their opponent. Here are 5 tips to improve your vertical leap in just 3 weeks: 1. Lose some weight - if you have a little excess weight, lose it.  Being lighter will help you jump higher and you will reduce the amount of work your legs have to do. 2. Workout - more specifically, workout your legs and calves.  For legs, some effective muscle building exercises are squats and lunges.  For calves, simply standing on the edge of the stairs and raising yourself up will help to build muscle.  Getting your quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves stronger will help you improve your vertical leap. 3. Eat right - to support muscle growth, eat plenty of high quality protein, such as from chicken, turkey and beef.  Also be sure to eat plenty of complex carbohydrates, such as pasta and potatoes.  The protein will help you build muscle and the complex carbs will give you sustained energy.  On the flip side, stay away from empty calorie foods, such as cakes, candy, doughnuts and regular soda.  These will only slow down your progress. 4.  Stretch - be sure to stretch your muscles thoroughly before and after every practice.  By doing so, you will 1) become more limber, which will help improve your vertical leap, but you will also 2) help avoid injury.  One of the top reasons athletes get injured is because they don't properly warm-up and stretch. 5.  Train and practice like an animal - this is the cream of the crop.  If you trulywant to improve your vertical leap, you have to train and practice with a vengeance.  Keep jumping and keep practicing until you literally cannot do it anymore.  You have to want to improve your vertical so bad you can taste it!  Channel that desire into practicing like crazy until you reach your goal. Mat Hultquist is an online researcher on how toimprove your vertical leapand blogs about the secrets and tactics used by professional athletes to increase their jump to unbelievable heights.  Discover their most trusted secrets athttp://www.verticalburst.com