The Dot Drill

The dot drill is a great exercise in that it is simple to set up, requires little preparation and has tremendeous effects for your body! This is the best drill there is for improving your quickness in jumping.

This exercise is more focused on the overall performance rather than jumping high in particular. However, it does have a big impact on that too! You simply can't go wrong by doing this exercise on a daily basis.

You begin by marking up a two by three foot square with four dots in the corners. Then you place a fifth dot in the middle of the square. The best thing is to have the dots sprayed or painted directly on the floor. This way you don’t have to redo the marks every time. If you are not the owner of the place where you want to do the drill, just ask them if they are willing to help you out with marking out the dots. Otherwise use tejp.

Now to the exercise.

1. You begin with placing your feet on both the lower dots. That is, left foot on lower left dot and right foot on lower right dot.  Jump forward to the middle where your feet meet and then onward to the upper dots where left and right foot reach respective dots. Then you do the exact same thing back, without turning around, jumping to the middle dot and back to the starting position. That is one lap. Repeat this six times.
2.  After completing the former pattern you move on to the second where you place both your feet in the lower right corner. Jump in following manner: lower right dot to middle, to upper right, to upper left, to middle, to lower left, and back to lower right. Here you have completed one full lap. Do this 6 times as fast as you can.
3. When you reach the starting point after the sixth lap, you switch to your right leg and do the exact same pattern. Do six laps.

4. Switch to your other foot and repeat six laps.
5. Now comes the final part where you line up as you did in the beginning, with both your feet on the baseline again (the lower dots). Now you do the first exercise again, but with the addition of turning when you reach the opposite side. This way you should always be jumping forward, turning every time you reach the end lines.

If you are new to this exercise you will feel completely exhausted in the beginning. A good first time around is usually 60-70 seconds for the entire exercise. It takes a while to learn all the patterns by heart. As you become better at this, you should be pushing 40 seconds. The best female times recorded in the world are around 38 seconds!

Good luck!

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