Rest

It has been shown in studies, performed by scientists, that sleep is essential for learning. A person who studies anything with great persistance during the day will do far better by resting than pushing the training one ore two hours more. In fact, if you push yourself too far, it might prove to be destructive for your learning process. This goes not only for studies in general, but also for your training in particular! The muscles are not ”built” during the exercises. They are torn down. It is during the sleep they are repatched and built up! It is during the sleep you get the effects you want from your training.

In a particular study, scientists divided up people into two groups, had them learn a new skill during a few hours and then go to bed. One group, was left alone to sleep and get proper rest. The others weren’t allowed to sleep properly. Only fr a few hours. Testing both of them on their newly aquired skill the day after, the effects were dramatic! Those who did get enough sleep were far better in performing the techniques than those who had only been allowed marginal sleep.

The take home lesson here is that working more is not always the same as wanting it more. In fact, you might be counter productive by working out too hard, or for too long each day! It is far better to be focused, prepared, and ready to play when it’s time, rather than staying far beyond the limits of what your body can endure for constructive learning. This is especially true for your muscles as you’ll be putting a lot of stress on them by pushing them to the limit every single day.

However, and this is a twist to what many might forget in this context, is that we all have a different amount energy any given day. There are some days that we seem to have endless energy and can pump more iron or whatever the exercise for far longer than usual. Other times, we might feel down, out of focus and low on energy. A good thing is of coure to adjust yourself a little to that, but not too much. It is very important to follow through all planned exercises even when you feel a little down. But those days you might not find it to be constructive to stay the extra laps. On the other hand, when you do feel you could run a marathon after practise, you might want push it a little more. Just don’t over do it!

If you are aiming to increase vertical jump ability to the max, then have a look at some of the jump programs featured on this site. They take you step by step, from scratch to success!