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Increase Vertical Jump | 3 Squat Variations
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Mar 27, 2025
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0:00
What's going on YouTube, JClarkTheJumper here
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Today I'm gonna be giving away three variations of the squat to improve your vertical leap
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So don't go anywhere. All right, before we get into the video
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make sure you guys click that like and subscribe button, click the bell for notifications
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so you know when I'm dropping new videos. 2021, the goal is to drop as much free content
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And as you guys already know, once this channel gets 50,000 subscribers, I'm going to be giving away free Vertical Leap Program
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So make sure you guys subscribe. Also, make sure you guys stay to the end of the video
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I'm going to be giving you tips on how to implement these three variations into your training
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So without further ado, let's get into it. So the first variation that we're going to talk about is just a full squat with a barbell on your back
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Now there's multiple ways you can kind of approach the squat, but today we're going to be looking at bar on the back, barbell back squat
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And the first variation is full range of motion, ATG or ass to grass, however you want to look at it
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The goal is full range of motion and just really developing strength throughout the length of the entire muscles
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In a previous video, I talk about how the squat is important to the vertical leap
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and with the full squat you want to just make sure you're getting as strong as possible across
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all ranges of motion as you are developing into your jump training so with this i take the barbell
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take a few steps back i try to keep especially when you're considering vertical leap training
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your feet are going to be around shoulder width they can be a little bit more narrow just depends
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on how you jump and how you take off when i when i'm looking at specific jumps there are jumps where
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my feet are kind of close together. So there are times where my feet are a little bit closer
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together, which is not as beneficial for, you know, let's say squatting as much as possible
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You kind of want to tailor it to your takeoff style in a sense. But I would say anywhere between
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you know, slightly wider than shoulder width to slightly into shoulder width would be an ideal
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foot placement. And you want to make sure that you are bracing the core. You want to tighten the core
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and push your stomach in a sense. I push you know when I think of it I pushing all the way out So it like let say when I have a weight vest on or a weight belt on I trying to kind of push air into the belt and kind
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of just bracing as if someone's going to punch me in the stomach and just really holding that position
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all the way down, all the way up. And another consideration with the full squat is you want to
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kind of make sure when you are squatting, you want to sit back and down. And what that does is if you
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look at the bar path of the bar as you're squatting you want to keep it vertical so it goes straight up
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straight down when squatting the goal for me is max strength so i rarely do you know sets of
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anything above eight now early in the training i will probably you know as i'm warming up i'll have
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sets of 10, 12, but when I get into my working sets, I usually live in the three to five range
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and when I'm really pushing it, I'm usually doing doubles and singles, really just focusing on being
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as strong as possible. It's not about, you know, the size of the muscles, it's about, you know
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how you're moving the weight, how fast can you move the weight, how forcefully you can move the
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weight. The next exercise will be the quarter squat. Now in track and field training, you tend
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to see the quarter squat a lot. And it's funny when I look at, you know, strength, strength
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athletes, power lifters, Olympic lifters, and they look at track and field athletes and they look at
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them squatting and it's like, you know, track, track guys and girls get made fun of a lot for
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their squat. But when you look at the force production on the track where it matters
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they are head and shoulders above any and every other sport. So I really like the quarter squat
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because it's all about applying force. Now with the quarter squat, you can definitely load up a lot more weight
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because you're not focused on getting depth. You can kind of cheat the position in a sense
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but the goal is to apply as much force as possible. So loading up the weight would be a more ideal exercise
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to safely do it with the quarter squat. When I squat, I always make sure I'm in the rack and I'm always making sure I'm trying
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to be as safe as possible when I'm doing this. Now with the quarter squat, it's the same exact concept, but you're not focused on depth
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And when you start to get kind of to that quarter area so obviously quarter is going to be half of the half squat So a half squat is kind of you know you somewhere in the parallel range and quarter squat is half of that distance between you know half the half squat and you know standing
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at the top. It's, you know, it's a really shallow movement. But when you look at takeoff of a jump and the quarter squat position, it's even more
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closely aligned because the joint angles are very similar. and with this you know when you get into that you know bottom position of the quarter you want to
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just drive out as aggressively as possible so it's the same exact concept you know you're sitting
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back and down but once you get to that position you want to start driving out of the ground and
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almost think about jumping out of the ground without actually leaving your feet now that
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leads to the final exercise which is an actual jump squat so you are actually leaving your feet
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Now, there's a lot of consideration when even implementing this exercise. I will tell you this
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I did not start using jump squats until after I'd become a professional dunker
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So I was an All-American triple jumper. I had over a 40-inch vert before I ever did a jump squat
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So this is not an exercise that you need to have in your training
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This is a very high-risk, high-reward exercise, meaning there is a chance that this will help you a lot, but if done incorrectly, if not putting the right protocol in place, this could be something that you hurt yourself on
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So, if you are a youth athlete, if you are a new to vertical jumping athlete, if you are young and young, as you've been training for vertical leap training, you're within the one to three year range, you could get away without ever doing this exercise
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I think the quarter squat would be the one that I would use and load up the quarter squat until you got comfortable
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Load up the full squat until you got comfortable. And then I would implement the weighted jump squats with the barbell on your back
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Now there's other variations with dumbbells and I will get to those in another video
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But for this one, I really like this because in a sense, loading the spine and exploding
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It has a certain feel to it and it just feels very similar
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to a max jump when doing it correctly. Now I wouldn go super heavy I have a 489 pound squat i i doing this with 135 pounds and i would probably when i if i doing this for a workout would live in this range and really
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focus on you know jumping as high as i can it's not about the weight it's about applying the
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the force so jumping jumping high with weight on your back is going to be more jumping really high
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with weight on your back is going to be better than you know barely getting off the ground with
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a lot of weight on your back. So make sure that you find a weight that's really comfortable
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and when you are landing, you really want to focus on make sure that you're on stable ground
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you land correctly, and things like that, because that's where the injury comes. Now, for implementing these exercises, the full squat would be the one that I recommend early on
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in your season to build that base, and just getting really strong as possible. When I think
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of it is I think of like if you know you as a full-grown adult compete against your younger
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self if you were just so much stronger regardless of you know training and technique and things like
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that you have a better chance at doing whatever athletic endeavor that you want just because
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you have size and strength so that's kind of the philosophy of you know squatting and squatting
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heavy and doing full squats heavy is get as strong as possible and then it will translate into
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everything else next i would actually implement the jump squats uh for the people that are ready
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because when you're getting into your training into your competition phase that's when you kind
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of want to start implementing as much force as possible and then when you're in competition phase
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i would obviously focus on the quarter squat because you don't want to overdo it in your
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competition phase with you know jumps training and jumping that's just a lot of jumping and your
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your central nervous system doesn't have time to recover. So I would do full squats, jump squats
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and then quarter squats. And I will kind of break this down even more once I get 50k subscribers and
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I talk about this in my full vertical leap, my free vertical leap program. So make sure you guys
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like and subscribe. I hope this helped. If you guys have any questions, comments, concerns
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please put them in the comments below. I'll look at them. I'm really trying to respond. Like I said
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2021. We're trying to produce content. We're trying to grow this channel. We're trying to
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do some big things and I want to help you guys achieve your jumping goals
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And that's all I have for you guys today. Take care, everybody
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