I have already mentioned that when trying to improve your vertical jump, it is important to increase your maximum strength by including squats and power cleans in your vertical jumping training.
The purpose of this is to increase your strength in relation to your bodyweight. As you get your squats weight up, your body will feel lighter to the muscles responsible for the vertical jump, allowing you to get a higher reach.
The often forgotten supplement to this training is nutrition, which is absolutely vital when it comes to helping out your vertical jumping ability. Using nutrition and supplementing your diet is the key to both fat loss and muscle gain.
The 2 facets of nutrition to improve vertical
If you’re wondering how to get a higher vertical through nutrition, then there are 2 simple concepts when it comes to nutrition that will help you achieve a higher vertical jump:
- You eat to lose weight, and more specifically fat, which will help increase your vertical
- You eat to fuel your muscles and to get stronger
Unless you have been sedentary or are an absolute beginner to weight lifting, it is very hard to get stronger while losing weight. In general, considering you have a decent strength base, if you’re not consuming enough calories to maintain your body weight or go up in weight, then it will be difficult to get stronger.
For this reason, depending on your current body composition and experience, you have a choice between losing weight, or getting stronger and gaining some weight.
Increase your vertical by losing weight
If you’re overweight and have a body fat percentage that is in the 20% or higher range, then you could benefit from losing fat. If you have been strength training for a while, then your goal would be to maintain you strength while losing fat. This means that bodyweight will decrease while your absolute strength will stay the same. Consequentially, this will increase your relative strength, and thus improve jumping ability.
Eat to get stronger
Unlike what man people might think, muscles grow when you rest, not when you train. Furthermore, muscles need food as their fuel. If you want to get stronger to jump higher, then you need to eat enough calories for adequate recovery.
In addition to that, as you get stronger, you will get to a point where your caloric intake might be too low for adequate recovery. Do not be scared to increase your caloric intake and gain some weight to allow your muscles to grow. If it gets you a bit fatter, you can always lose the weight after without many problems.
Simple Nutrition Rules
Just talking about losing weight and eating well could cause a lot of confusions, and for this reason, here are some simple nutrition rules that you should implement:
- Eat whole foods 90% of the time: These include unprocessed and unrefined foods that come very close to their natural state, while avoiding processed foods that contain added sugars, Trans fats, corn syrup, and added chemicals. Unprocessed foods are things like meat, poultry, vegetables, fruits, eggs, oats, rice, etc… while examples of foods to avoid would be sausages, fruit bars, pizza, cereal, frozen meals, cookies, etc…
- Consume protein with each meal: I would recommend eating at least 1g of protein per pound of weight if you’re serious about getting stronger. The easiest way to get that much protein is by eating a whole protein source with each meal, such as red meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy.
- Consume fruits and vegetables with each meal: They’re full of vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, and fibers. They are also low in calories and work very well with whole protein sources.
- Eat starchy carbs after your workouts: If you’re looking to lose weight, consume starchy carbs like potatoes, rice, oats, and pasta only post-workout most of the time, while eating fruits and vegetables with all meals. Make sure to consume whole grain. The exception for this would be if you’re trying to gain weight.
- Avoid beverages with more 0 calories: You’re losing a lot of water with your workouts, so drink a lot of water and avoid consuming beverages with more than 0 calories as they’re usually filled with sugars.
- Eat healthy fats every day: Healthy fats will improve your health, satiate you, and will improve fat loss. Avoid artificial fats like margarine.
- Eat every 2 to 3 hours: This will leave you feeling less hungry if you want to lose weight, or will allow you to eat more throughout the day if you need to get stronger, while also reducing the amount of cravings for junk foods.
In conclusion, depending on your current build, weight, and body fat composition, if you’re looking to improve vertical jumping ability, then you have the short term choice of losing weight or getting stronger, and nutrition plays a huge role in achieving these goals.
Similar Posts to help you Improve Vertical
- Improve Vertical Jumping With Strength Training If you want to improve vertical jumping, then strength training...
- Improve Vertical – A Beginner’s Guide to Vertical Jumping Training It is important to understand what a vertical jump is...
If you are serious about jumping higher and are looking for a customizable program that targets every facet I have talked about in my vertical jump training articles, then check out Vertical Mastery.
