Is there a fun jumping exercise to increase vertical leaps? Not really. Boredom would set in rather quickly if one stuck to a jumping exercise. There are many exercises and some individuals do them with ankle weights or weight vests.
It only makes sense that if a body trains to run and jump with added weights, it should be better without that extra weight. But are the ankle weights and weight vests good to use?
Adding ankle weights prevents the legs to be in the correct position for efficient movements especially when engaging in a jumping exercise to increase vertical leaps. If you were to do agility drills with weights on, your ability to move your legs in relation to your body will be tested.
You hip muscles are doing the work but these weights will cripple your body when vertical jumping. Ankle weights though are great for adding resistance to leg raises. For ability, these weights only slow movement and that is not what you want when doing a jumping exercise.
Using weight vests are not meant to compliment actions that need to be performed quickly. These actions include depth jumps, depth drops, tuck jumps, ankle bouncing, mini bounds, lateral cone hops and so forth.
As you will learn, it is very important that you be highly selective when deciding to add weights to a specific jumping exercise. If speed is needed, adding weights will only impede your progress.
If you are still of the mind to add weights, why not include a weight belt. That is less likely to compromise your form when engaged in a jumping exercise or numerous exercises to extend your vertical lift.
Of course, you do not want to add a weight vest or ankle weights if these will affect your posture or in any way contribute to the chance of injuring yourself.
