What Muscles Are Used in a Vertical Jump?

What Muscles Are Used in a Vertical Jump?

Want to jump higher? - You will need to know which muscles to train.

Increasing the height of your vertical jump is a great way to give you an edge over your competitors. However, if you want to increase the height you can jump, it is important to know which muscles you should train. While there are a number of important muscles that contribute to the height of your vertical jump, there are three key muscle groups in your legs that require explosive power to elevate your body off the ground. I will discuss the function of each of these muscle groups starting at the ankle joint, then the knee joint and finishing at the hip joint.

Ankle plantar flexors

The ankle plantar flexors are a group of muscles that pull the bottom of your foot toward the ground. However, if your foot is already on the ground, these muscles have the potential to elevate your heel off the ground. In other words, your ankle plantar flexors exert a large proportion of the jumping force at the ankle. The biggest plantar flexors are your calf muscles (back of your leg between your ankle and your knee).

There are two main muscles in your calf that attach to your ankle via your Achilles tendon. These muscles are your gastrocnemius and soleus. The gastrocnemius is the more superficial of the two and it sits close to the skin than the soleus muscle. The gastrocnemius plays a key role in the rapid exertion of force that is required to jump. You may have noticed that people who can jump for a high often have well defined gastrocnemius muscles.

Knee extensors

Knee extensors are the muscles that straighten your knee. The quadriceps femoris muscles are your primary knee extensors. These are the muscles between your knee and your hip joint, at the front of your thigh. As the name suggests there are four separate muscles that make up your quadriceps femoris complex. However, they generally contract almost at the same time to exert force through your patella tendon (to straighten the knee during a jumping motion). In case you are interested the names of your quadriceps muscles are vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis and rectus femoris. You will need your quadriceps muscles to rapidly exert force to extend (straighten) your knee, in order to jump high.

Hip Extensors

Hip extensors straighten (extend) your hip joint when you jump. The largest hip extensor and prime mover during a jumping motion is your gluteus maximus. Your gluteus maximus is the largest of the gluteal group of muscles (in your butt), which also includes the gluteus medius and gluteus minimus. However the gluteus medius and minimus play more of a stabilisation role when you are jumping than a prime mover role to elevate you off the ground. However, you will need your gluteus maximus as well as your hamstrings (back of your thigh) to help exert force to propel you forward and up as you jump.

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