Vertical height is an essential component of figure skating jumps. Plyometric exercises have been proven to increase vertical jump and explosive power. Try out the exercises we describe to help improve your figure skating jumps.

• Plyometric Exercises for Vertical Jump
• What is Plyometrics?    
• Lower Body Exercises

        - Squat Jumps

        - Jumping Lunges

        - Box Jumps

        - Depth Jumps

        - Hip Twist Jump

• Upper Body Exercises

        - Medicine Ball Slam

• Benefits of Plyometrics
• Conclusion

• Frequently Asked Questions

       - What is Plyometrics?

       - Does Plyometrics Increase Vertical Jump?

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One of the more common issues for figure skaters when they are struggling to land a jump is a lack of sufficient jump height to achieve the necessary rotations. Rather than simply intending to “jump higher” on the ice from their willpower alone, figure skaters need to train their vertical jump height off the ice in order to be a more explosive athlete on the ice.

Vertical jumping is a key aspect of figure skating as jumps are one of the main elements that single or pairs figure skaters perform on the ice.

Vertical jump height is determined by:

• The strength in the hip, knee, and ankle joints of the athlete (force developed)
• The ability of those muscles to produce explosive power (rate of force development)
• The ability of the athlete to coordinate these movements (neural coordination)

Jumping is a complex movement pattern that requires lower body strength, explosive force development, and the coordination necessary to produce these dynamic movement patterns.

If you are a figure skater wanting to increase your vertical jump, Incorporating plyometric exercises into your weekly routine for training is an important way to help develop lower body power through explosive movement patterns that will translate into the ability to both jump higher and land softly on the ice.

Plyometric exercises are any exercises that involve a rapid decrease in speed of an object followed immediately by a rapid acceleration of the object in the opposite direction.

• The object could be the athlete themselves or an external object such as a medicine ball.
• These plyometric exercises activate the “stretch-shortening” cycle of muscle fibers that undergo a rapid eccentric elongation phase before a rapid concentric contraction phase.
• Plyometric exercise drills were originally used by coaches to develop vertical jump and explosive power in track and field athletes, but now many other sports have incorporated plyometric exercises as part of their jump training due to their effectiveness in developing maximum power, explosive strength, and more vertical jump height with the control to land softly.

These lower body plyometric exercises help develop vertical jump height and explosive power in athletes. There are a few things to consider, as a coach or an athlete, when using plyometric exercises.

• Before plyometric training, a coach or athlete should consider:

        - The age of the athlete,

        - History of injury

        - Appropriate warmups to be done prior to doing plyometric exercises

        - What foundational strength and resistance training experience the athlete has.

• During plyometric training the coach or athlete should ensure:

        - Appropriate footwear and jump surfaces for training to prevent stress-related trauma

    - Proper form when performing the plyometric exercises, especially when the athlete is fatigued.

      - Adequate recovery between sets so that correct technique on the plyometric exercises is maintained throughout all the sets.

• After plyometric training, a coach or an athlete should follow:

    - Recommended guidelines for frequency of plyometric training drills which is 1-3 days per week, with no consecutive heavy training days targeting the same muscle group.

Squat jumps are a great exercise to start training vertical jump height and explosive strength. Before squat jumps are attempted, the figure skater should first have good form in their basic squat position before moving on to the jumping exercise.

Step 1

To begin the squat jump, the figure skater should start with their feet shoulder width apart and lower themselves into a squat position, focusing on good alignment of the knee and ankles over the toes.

Step 2

The figure skater should then push up from the squat position into the air. Their entire body leaves the ground, and the primary focus should be to achieve triple extension of the hips, knees, and ankles.  In this position the figure skater should be completely straight in the air with their hips slightly pressed forward.

Step 3

From this vertical jump, the figure skater should then land softly back on the ground into a squatting position, decelerating and absorbing the impact of the jump through the hip and glute muscles rather than in their knee or ankle joints.

Jumping lunges are a great way to add plyometric training to a basic lunge workout. These plyometric exercises will help train vertical jump height as well as explosive strength and control. They should not be attempted, however, until the figure skater has good alignment of the knee and ankle joints and is able to keep their hips stable in the basic lunge position. If the figure skater is unable to maintain good form in the lunge when adding the jump, then these exercises should be delayed until a later time.

Step 1

The figure skater lowers down into a forward lunge, with one leg in front of their hips and one leg behind their hips, their knee and ankle at a 90 degree angle with the hips and the upper body, and quads parallel with the ground.

Step 2

The figure skater pushes through their front and back toes and jumps up into the air, keeping their upper body engaged so that they do not break at the waist. In midair, the figure skater switches their legs so that the opposite leg is forward when they land. The figure skater should land softly through their toes.

Step 3

After the toes touch the ground, the figure skater absorbs the momentum by lowering back down into a lunge, keeping their torso upright the whole time.

Box jumps are another excellent way to incorporate plyometric exercises into off-ice training and are a key part of increasing vertical jump height as they help figure skaters develop fast twitch muscle fibers that are essential for explosive jump strength.

When starting box jumps, an athlete, under the supervision of a coach, should begin on a very low box or step in order to progressively load the force of landing that the athlete experiences on landing from the box and ensure that they can maintain good form and land safely on every jump.

Step 1

To begin the box jump, the figure skater stands with their toes a few inches away from the box with their feet shoulder width apart.

Step 2

The figure skater then presses down into squat position and then pushes through their feet to explosively jump onto the box, landing softly on the toes with the knees bent in squatting position. The figure skater should then rise up to standing position on the box.

Step 3

The figure skater stands on one foot on the box while dropping their other foot over the edge of the box towards the floor, like they are stepping down a stair. When the skater steps off the box, the other foot should catch up so that both feet land on the floor at the same time, and the figure skater should lower into a squatting position as they slow down the landing. Careful attention should be paid to good form on the landing, with the knees directly aligned with the toes, without dropping in towards the midline or wobbling. Until the figure skater is able to control the landing, with perfect alignment of the knees, they should not progress to a higher box.

Depth jumps are a combination of a squat jump and a box jump. This is a more advanced exercise, and it should not be attempted until the figure skater has a good mastery of both the squat jump and the box jump.

Step 1

The first part of the depth jump is exactly the same as performing a box jump: the figure skater jumps with explosive power onto the box and then drops off the box into a soft landing, with the knees bent.

Step 2

From the deep squatting position of the box jump landing, the figure skater then pushes through the floor to do a squat jump, with their entire body pushing as high into the air as possible with explosive strength, and the hips, knees, and ankles pushed forward straight in triple extension.

Step 3

The figure skater then lands from the vertical jump back into a squat position, with their knees bent and directly aligned over the toes.

Hip twist jumps are a great way to incorporate plyometric exercises into a skating specific movement pattern. Not only will these work on quick twitch activation, but they also help figure skaters work on ankle contact in the air and head position when jumping.

Step 1

With feet hip distance apart, the figure skater bends their knees and presses into the ground to explosively jump into the air leaving their head facing the same direction that they started.

Step 2

In the air, the figure skater turns their hips a quarter turn crossing their feet in mid air (if jumping to the left, the left foot is in front, if jumping to the right, the right foot is in front). The figure skater should ensure that they leave their head facing the direction they started and do not force the rotation with their upper body—the quarter rotation should be generated by the hips and lower body.

Step 3

After turning a quarter in the air, the figure skater turns back in air a quarter turn to the direction that they started and lands back on their feet in a soft squatting position.

While the lower body often receives the most attention when programming exercises for figure skaters, the upper body is very important in all different aspects of figure skating, including jumping.

The medicine ball slam is a plyometric exercise that requires coordination, speed, and power. It is a full body exercise that helps build explosive strength throughout key muscle groups.

Step 1

The figure skater stands with their feet hip distance apart and knees slightly bent, holding an appropriately weighted medicine ball at chest level with both hands.

Step 2

The figure skater should explosively lift the ball up above their head by extending their hips forward and rising to their toes.

Step 3

From the top of the lift, with the medicine ball straight above their head, the figure skater engages their core and drives their hips back to hinge forward, As their torso lowers to parallel with the ground, they swing their arms down towards the ground with as much explosive force as possible, slamming the ball into the ground.

This upper body plyometric exercise works on explosive power through the pectoral, tricep, and bicep muscles, as well as core stability.

Step 1

The figure skater stands, with soft knees and feet hip distance apart, a few feet in front of a wall with an appropriate weight medicine ball. This exercise can also be completed in pairs, with a partner to catch the ball instead of the wall to bounce off.

Step 2

The figure skater pushes the medicine ball straight forward into the wall so that their arms are completely extended and the ball is thrown in a horizontal line into the wall rather than an upward arc.

Step 3

As the medicine ball bounces off the wall, the figure skater catches it and returns back into their original position.

• Develop Power:

        When performed correctly, plyometric exercises assist athletes with the development of power, a skill that is necessary for any elite athlete’s career. Plyometrics helps athletes generate greater force at higher velocities, which means they can jump higher, move their arms more powerfully, and respond to forces, such as landings, more safely.

• Tolerate higher loads and recover more quickly:

        Plyometric exercises can also desensitize the golgi tendon organ (GTO) on the muscles which responds to muscular exertion by preventing the muscle from over contracting. By gradually desensitizing this reflex, plyometric exercises can help the athlete tolerate higher workloads and also recover from these higher workloads more quickly.

• Prevent training injuries:

         Plyometric training, when done correctly, also is useful for injury prevention, especially in sports like figure skating that have a large jumping component, as they train the body how to generate and absorb force in a biomechanically correct and safe way.

Incorporating plyometric exercises into a figure skater’s jump training is a scientifically-backed way to improve jumping ability for elite athletes. These dynamic movement exercises improve the athlete’s ability to generate maximum force quickly and are beneficial for overall athletic performance. Figure skaters looking to improve their vertical jump should incorporate the plyometric exercises explained above into their weekly routine, and it won’t be long before they start seeing the benefits on the ice!

• Plyometrics are exercises involve dynamic movements that use eccentric elongation of the muscle followed by explosive concentric contraction of the muscle, thus engaging the stretch-shortening cycle.
• These movements are also defined as the rapid deceleration of an object (sometimes the object is the athlete themselves) followed by a rapid acceleration in the opposite direction.
• Plyometrics targets the athletic ability for rapid force development and these exercises aim at producing explosive power that transfers to sport specific movement patterns.
• Plyometric training has been advocated for sports that require explosiveness and increased vertical jumping ability by the athletes.

• Yes, plyometric exercises increase vertical jump by improving explosive power. While there are multiple factors that determine vertical jump height, such as strength of the hip, knee, and ankle joints and the coordination needed to accomplish these dynamic movement patterns, plyometric exercises targets the rate of force development so that athletes are better able to accelerate their bodies and generate more force at higher speeds, leading to an increased vertical jump.

Further Reading:

• Davies, G., Riremann, B. & Mansake, R. “Current Concepts of Plyometric Exercise.” The International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy 10(6) (2015): 760-786.

• Fatouros, I. et. al. “Evaluation of Plyometric Exercise Training, Weight Training, and Their Combination on Vertical Jumping Performance and Leg Strength.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 14(4) (2000): 470-476.