Improve Your Vertical With Calf Raises

Your calf muscles are an integral part of your vertical jumping ability and are an important area to work on if you want to improve your vertical. There are some great machines you can use in the gym to help work your calf muscles, but if you don’t have the cash for a gym membership, there are some great exercises available for you at home.

One of these exercises would be calf raises.  Calf raises are a great exercise to do at home, as you can do them almost anywhere. All you need is some space on the floor to stand and possibly a wall close by. If wall space is tight for some reason, you can perform the exercise behind a chair and use the chair back for balance as necessary.

To start the exercise stand flat footed on the floor and then slowly lift your heels off the ground pushing your body up until you are standing on the balls of your feet. If necessary, this is where you can use the wall or a chair to help you maintain your balance. At the height of this extension stop for a second and then slowly lower your body back down until your heels touch the ground and repeat. When starting out it would be great if you could get in eight to ten calf raises, take a few minutes break and repeat for at least five sets.

You don’t want to overdo it the first couple nights as it can really work your calf and make for some painful walking the next day if you over do it. As your muscles get used to the exercise you can gradually increase the reps per set up to 20 and then increase sets up to ten.

For an even tougher workout, you can perform this exercise on a set of stairs with your toes and the ball of your foot on the step and your heel over hanging the step. This will allow you to have a slightly further range of motion downwards and prevent you from putting your heel on the ground causing a bit more of a workout.

It’s important to remember this type of exercise will make a difference in your vertical jumping ability over time, but it will require more than calf raises to really improve your vertical. A complete jumping training program requires a full range of exercises that work on all the major muscles vertical jumping requires.

Watch over the next few weeks as I add additional exercises you can use to improve your vertical. For further information on programs you can purchase that provide you with complete training programs to improve your vertical leap check out the Improve Your Vertical Now website or check out The Jump Manual Program.