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I am one of the highest jumpers on the planet and a big reason for that is because I have the
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mobility to hit the positions I need to maximize my vertical jump. And today I'm going to show you
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five stretches that I do every single day to give you the flexibility to hit those positions
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First, let's look at the penultimate step. Penultimate stands for second to last and it
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is the second to last step in a two foot jump. It is characterized by a really long split and the
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purpose of the penultimate step is to lower you. The lower you are, the more time you have to apply
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force which can lead to a higher jump. However, you want to make sure you lower efficiently
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And the longer the split on your penultimate, the lower you're going to get. And as you can see here, you need to have a lot of mobility at the hip
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And to do that, we need to stretch this muscle. This is the rectus femoris. And my favorite stretch to do this is the couch stretch
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Having mobility here is also good for this part of the jump. This is a toe off of the jump
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And you basically have to hyperextend at the hip. You can see in all my jumps, I literally hyperextend at the hip at toe off
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This is a stretch that I've done before jumping and I jump instantly higher. Another benefit for the couch stretch is that the front leg is in a lunge position, so the quad is getting activated, so it serves as an isometric for that front leg
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And I like to hold this stretch for two minutes each leg, which sounds like a long time, but holding for two minutes each leg allowed me to dramatically improve my mobility in just a couple of days
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Once you can get to the point where you can get that back knee all the way up against the wall and you can stay completely straight up and it doesn hurt then you can lower that to like 30 to 45 seconds once a day in order to maintain your flexibility in that position now most people have a lot of trouble getting into that position some ways you can make it easier is
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one by staying low so you don't have to stand up straight you can just stay in that low position
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and the second way is getting your knee farther away from the wall what i suggest first is get to
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the point where you can stand up with your knee pretty far away from the wall and then slowly edge
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your knee closer to the wall as the days go on. Now, these stretches do help your jump technique
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and this is important because jump technique can increase your vertical instantly. And if you want me to yze your jump technique personally, go to THBstrength.com and sign up. There, I hold a
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call once a week where I yze everybody's jump technique and lifting technique and answer all the
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questions that you have. Again, if you're interested in this, go to THBstrength.com, sign up for my coaching. The second most important stretch that you need is a bent knee ankle
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stretch. Why do you need a lot of ankle mobility? Look at the position my foot is in at mid support
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of the penultimate. I am in extreme ankle dorsiflexion. This allows me to lower myself even
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more right before taking the penultimate step without losing my upright position. And this
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stretch is pretty easy. You just lunge down. I like to do this in front of a wall. That way I can
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gauge my progress. If you're very inflexible, you would do it with your toe right up against the
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wall. And then while keeping your heel on the ground, you just shoot your knee forward. Good
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two jumpers that I seen can be six to eight inches away from the wall and be able to touch their knee on the wall with their heel still on the ground This is another stretch that you can do two minutes each side A secondary benefit to this stretch is that by improving your ankle mobility you can also
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increase the depth that you can get on your squats. Look at when I do squats, I get really deep
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and the only way I can do that is by having my knee super far out in front of the toe because of having good ankle dorsiflexion. Being able to squat deeper allows you to load up your
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muscle fibers even more, which allows you to produce more force intramuscularly, allows you
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to stretch your tendon more when you jump, where it can recoil with more energy and you'll jump
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higher. One disclaimer though, for the bendy ankle stretch, do not do it if you feel a sharp or
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pinching sensation at your heel, especially for guys that have had Achilles tendinopathy in the
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past. So if this is you, unfortunately, you're probably gonna have to skip this stretch. Another
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way that you can improve your ankle mobility is by doing seated calf raises with big ranges of
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motion. Now, those two stretches are going to have the most transfer over to your jump technique
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The last three stretches are not as important, but they can just make you feel better in terms of moving in your day-to-day life and when you lift
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The first stretch is a seated V stretch. Now, I do my stretches differently for most people in that I try to keep a neutral spine when I do them
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That way, I'm not loading up the back unnecessarily. To do this, I just place my hands behind me, make sure I keep a neutral spine position, and then I just spread my legs until I feel a light stretch in the groin
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The fourth stretch is a 90 stretch This stretch is your glutes And one of my favorite ways to do this is actually to do it dynamically For both the seated V stretch and the 90 stretch I hold them for 45 seconds each one to three times per day This allows me to maintain a good level of flexibility where my
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hips feel great in just my day-to-day life and training. And then finally, we have the seated
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hamstring stretch. This is similar to the seated V in that I keep a neutral spine and then I push
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myself forward with my arms until I feel a light stretch in the hamstrings. Having flexible
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hamstrings is really important for lifting specifically because it allows you to be able
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to do pulls from the floor with a neutral spine. Most of the time when athletes can't pull with a
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flat back, it's usually because of two things. One, you have a weak lower back where you can't
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maintain that position on your load. And two, your hamstrings aren't flexible enough to maintain a
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flat spine while keeping your legs straight while pulling from the floor. If this is you, then I
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highly suggest stretching your hamstrings every day, two to five minutes a day. Now, if you have
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the mobility to pull from the floor the flat back I suggest only stretching your hamstrings for 30 to
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45 seconds at a time because I have found that getting your hamstring flexibility too high has
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a negative effect on your vertical so you only want to do it just enough to where pulls from the
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floor feel nice and easy in terms of how often I do these stretches I do them right after lifting
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just once and then on my general days when I'm doing isometrics I do my three to five sets of
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isos and then I do these stretches right after if you found this video helpful at all guys please
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press the like button subscribe if you haven't already so that you can learn more about jump
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training and I'll catch you guys in the next video peace out
