Jumping high is simply not an option for me. I am earthbound. I have never been particularly fast either and have never understood why.
Lately I have been wondering about two things— if my muscles aren’t tight enough for spring and my lack of gluteus maximus tone keeps me down. I‘m not positive but I am curious about it.
Most of the athletes I work with tend to be fairly tight in their hips and hamstrings.
And I often find that the tighter they are the faster they are and the higher they jump.
With the exception of the gluteus maximus muscle, I should have what it takes to jump high. The instructions are usually to strengthen the abdominal muscles and quadriceps, stretch the hamstrings, and work the dorsiflexors of the feet.
I have all of that already and go nowhere.
But I have no tone in my gluteus maximus, which I have been working on lately.
My latest body project has been the opposite of jumping. I want to learn to do pistol squats (another post) which are as difficult for me as jumping high.
The exercise in the picture below is the main exercise I have been working on for my glutes, mixing a set of ten into my yoga practice.
It is a basic tracking exercise but when I started my knee would collapse in and the leg lifted behind me would swing in the direction of the standing leg.
I am sad to say that while the above exercise has improved my vertical leap and pistol squats have not as of yet changed much.
But I will keep working on it.
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