Many athletes big and small and especially those that love playing basketball are always eager to improve their performance on the game and off. For every basketball athlete, their main goal is to be able to dunk a basketball. Size does not matter, even short players with heights of 5'8 and 5'7 have been able to accomplish the amazing feat of dunking a basketball. So what are the keys to being able to jump higher and slam down the ball? Its quite simple, weight training is one critical key that you must do if you even want to jump higher to dunk a basketball. Here are some exercises of the many that can help you jump higher and make your goals come true to dunk and impress everybody.
Working out the calf muscles
Doing calf raises is just one part of the exercise that you will be doing to help you jump higher. Many muscles in the legs, or all of them actually all act all the same time. When look at Olympic athletes, you will see that many of the track and field athletes have large calves. Why is this? It is because it is a muscle group that can give you an added boost to your running strides. Their are two ways that many people use the calf raise exercises, one is with weights and the other is by using a platform with no weights. I would recommend that you do calf raises with weights because it will provide more resistance the more resistance that you have then the more stronger your muscle group worked gains. That is what you want, you want the best muscle group strength gains for all of the workouts that you have done.
Working out the quadriceps
The quadriceps muscles is located above the knees in the front side of your body. The muscles in the back is called the hamstrings. The quadriceps is a very important muscle group that helps transfer kinetic energy that is made from the bottom of the feet during take off when you are jumping or running. The quadriceps are bug muscles so that means that they use a lot of energy since they are big and that also means that they can give you a big benefit to jumping higher because it is a huge muscle. One of the most common and known exercise for working out the quadriceps is the leg extension exercise that is done with machines.
Be careful not to over due yourself when working out. It is important that you stretch before working out to reduce chances of getting injured. Ultimately these muscle groups will help you jump higher and be able to fly over your opponents.
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