Why Won’t My 40 Inch Box Jump Get Me In The NFL Draft?

http://excelsior-fitness.com/2015/02/08/why-wont-my-40-inch-box-jump-get-me-in-the-nfl-draft/

Posted by Jason Breen

You just jumped 40 inches.  Awesome!!!  Was that on the box jump or the vertical jump test?

If it was on the box jump – cool, grab your phone and post it to YouTube.

If it was on the vertical jump test – OMG, grab an agent and sign a multimillion dollar sports contract.

Your feet were 40 inches off the ground in both cases, so why the big difference?  Let me give you a little perspective: In the first case, you are among the top 10% of athletes at your local CrossFit box.  In the second, you are among the top 10% of athletes in the 2015 NFL Combine.  These stats represent the practical difference between the two feats. Accomplishing the first can seriously change your day (I know that PRing always put a perma-grin on my face).  The second can seriously change your educational opportunities and tax bracket. But here are some additional noteworthy differences.

Many coaches believe that one’s vertical jump is the best and most reliable indicator of their athletic ability. In professional sports, the industry standard for the assessing this ability if the vertical jump test (also called the Sergeant Jump Test).  The box jump, on the other hand, is a relatively moderate intensity plyometric exercise that is safe for many people to perform and is useful for developing strength and power.   There is a functional difference between the two.  The vertical jump test is an assessment used to test ability. The box jump is an exerciseuse to develop ability.  Often times we confuse testing our ability with developing it and vice versa.

There is also a kinematic difference between the vertical jump and the box jump.   This is probably what you really want to know when you asked about the difference between them.   The easiest way to illustrate the kinematic difference between the box jump and the vertical jump test is by analogy. While he box jump is similar to jumping over a hurdle, the vertical jump test is similar to jumping to blocking a shot in volley ball.  In the first instance, your primary concern is clearing an obstacle on the ground.  In the second, it is reaching a target above your head.  Given that the tasks are different, the kinds of movement most effective for accomplishing the tasks are also different.   To clear the obstacle the hurdler merely has to get her feet and posterior over the obstacle. She can accomplish this by flexing her hips and pulling her feet up to her posterior at the top of her jump. Theoretically, if the hurdler’s posterior is higher than the obstacle and she is flexible enough, she would not need to move her head and torso upwards at all.  But the volleyball player needs to move her whole body up in order to reach the target.  If her hand is still below the ball, then pulling her feet to her hips is not going to help, and adding hip flexion will just waste some of her energy. So unlike the hurdler, the volleyball player’s hips are fully extended at the top of her jump.  The tasks are different, thus the movements are different.  A great box jump can be achieved by having great flexibility at the hip.  A great vertical jump test score demands that the athlete powerfully extend her hips.

When training with the box jump, you should be conscious of which movement you are doing.  Are you clearing the box by flexing or extending your hips?   It’s fun to jump onto ever higher boxes, but your new PR may not be the product of an increase in strength and power.  You might be getting better at bringing your feet to your butt rather than getting better at jumping higher.  To ensure that you’re truly adding inches to your vertical and developing power, try incorporating some jumping-to-a-target drills into your training.  These drills shouldn’t be maximal effort attempts, like the vertical jump test (remember the difference between training and testing).  A good drill may be to do burpees where you have to jump and reach a target, such as a gymnastics ring, suspended six inches above your reach.

Incorporating jumping-to-a-target drills in your workout  will help you realize the most important difference between vertical jumps and box jumps: performance difference. An athlete who scores 40 inches on the vertical jump test is able to reach heights that are literally head and shoulders above the one who can merely box jump 40 inches.  This translates into blocking more shots in volleyball, the legendary hang time of Michael Jordan in basketball, winning the header from the corner in soccer, and intercepting the touchdown pass in football.  It translates to the beauty of a well-executed play and the thrill of victory.

How to Box Jump:

1. The Set-up: Stand with arms loosely at your sides, your feet shoulder-width apart, at a comfortable distance from the box.
2. The Jump: Drop into a quarter squat, then quickly extend your hips and knees, swing your arms forward and up, and push your feet through the floor to jump.
3. The Landing: Land in shoulder-width stance with your knees in line with your toes. Try not to land hard or “stick” the landing. You will know if you land hard by the loud bang emanating from your feet. Instead, try to land quietly.  Get in touch with your inner ninja.
4. The Dismount: Step back off the box to the floor and re-establish your set-up position.

How to conduct the vertical jump test:

1. The athlete warms up for 10 minutes
2. The athlete chalks the end of his/her finger tips
3. The athlete stands side onto the wall and, keeping both feet on the ground, reaches up as high as possible with one hand and marks the wall with the tips of the fingers (M1)
4. The athlete, from a static position, jumps as high as possible and marks the wall with the chalk on his/her fingers (M2)
5. The assistant measures and records the distance between M1 and M2
6. The athlete repeats the test 3 times
7. The assistant calculates the average of the recorded distances and uses this value  to assess the athlete’s performance

For some amazing examples of vertical jumping power check out his video by Sport Scicence