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Jumping, particularly vertical jumping is a kind of abrupt movement that requires fast and strong muscles to create the body space upwards. In order for the body to leap up and take off from the surface, the pressure applied by the different muscles that permit this motion, should produce a net force exceeding beyond the weight of the body. The more and the faster the force applied exceed the weight of the individual, the higher the leap.

To achieve this task, fast and strong muscles are required. Muscle tissue is made up primarily of two kinds of fibers: type I (slow twitch) and type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers.

The slow type of muscle generates its necessary energy through oxidation and it is in charge of aerobic process. That is, can work for longer amounts of time producing calculated levels of pressure. The fast muscle, rather, is composed mainly of fibers that don't need oxygen to get energy, they use anaerobic (no oxygen needed) chemical substance methods to generate motion.

Type II, or fast twitch muscle, can provide extreme breaks of pressure in short durations. They fatigue quickly, in comparison with slow muscles. These are the primary muscle fibers that must be developed and trained for the intense explosive force needed to leap. Slow fibers also must be exercised to function faster and with more energy, to assist the fast fibers, but they only can be enhanced a lot.

To exercise fast twitch muscles, routines should include quick and quick motions, with few repetitions pushing for optimum force and pace, such as jumping weighted squats as an example. A mixture of power improving and speed enhancing exercises must be incorporated, to increase the speed of slow muscle and boost the force of fast muscle. This is often referred as contrast load training, where a few repetitions of extremely heavy packed workouts are accomplished, follow by a brief rest and then by extremely gentle and quick workout on the same muscle group.

These routines will raise the overall energy and pace of the muscles involved in a somewhat short period of time. But depending on the overall goal preferred, meaning the end reason for training, more or less emphasis needs to be placed on other forms of routines. A volleyball player will nearly solely focus on developing plenty of extremely efficient and effective fast muscle fibers; a mixed martial arts fighter needs a stability of fast muscles throughout his body for energy combined with strong slow muscles for endurance; and a marathon runner necessities essentially no fast twitch muscles.

An additional element necessary to attain enhanced jumping abilities is flexibility. Muscles must not simply be educated for optimum speed and power, but they also be worked to make them work comparable in some approaches to a rubber band or spring. Muscles should be able to stretch to their boundaries and recover quick and with small effort, to get ready for the next try in a short amount of time. Think of a tae-kwon-do fighter, his kick should provide a great deal of pressure immediately trying to achieve maximum distance, and his leg should be ready to do it again the task many times with little breaks in between.

Adequate education of fast twitch muscles, but balanced with conditioning of the rest of the body, is essential to achieve best physical attributes to execute each time higher vertical jumps. And like other things in life, practice definitely makes the master.