Basketball is a sport that favors people that are tall or can jump higher than the competition.  If you have ever wanted to learn how to jump higher in basketball to dunk this article is for you.

Before you can dunk you have to be able to jump high enough and this is the part of basketball training that you need to focus on.  Vertical jump training emphasizes building up strength in your legs along with speed. 

Jumping is a quick explosive movement and power is a result of strength and speed.  If you train properly, you can increase you jumping ability greatly in a very short period of time.

One exercise that is great for building strength is the squat.  When you squat you want to do it quicker than what you would normally see in the gym.  You are not training your muscles to go through movements slowly, rather you want to train them to develop fast twitch muscle fibers.

The speed training is done by doing exercises that are known as plyometrics.  When doing plyometric exercises you need to focus on the speed of each jump.  When doing reps you want your feet to be in contact with the ground for the shortest time possible in between each rep. 

Training only for speed or strength is what most people do and end up seeing very minimal gains after months of training.  You have to take your jump training seriously if you want to get real gains in your vertical leap ability.