Get More BOUNCE With These 3 Single Leg Plyometric Exercises

It’s sad. Most athletes struggle with their single leg explosiveness. And because the ability to explode off of one foot is imperative to pounding the ball through the rim, and leaving your defenders on the ground…

You’re at a severe disadvantage if you’re not efficient on one leg.

So today, I want to share 3 single leg plyometric movements that will help you become a better one foot jumper… Which will also make you quicker, more explosive, and overall, a better athlete.

Now, lace up your kicks, find some empty space, and get ready to get more explosive off of one leg.

Single Leg Plyometric Exercise  #1: Bulgarian Split Squat Drops

You probably know this because of your overwhelming intelligence, but, the ability to absorb force is the foundation of explosiveness.

Not just for jumping,

But running too.

As such, I had to share a single leg explosive exercise that would help you build a solid foundation of force absorption in one leg.

See, most athletes stick with depth jumps to teach themselves how to absorb force.

While these are great, they don’t really carry over to single leg jumping that well.

That said, you should stick with the Bulgarian Split Squat drops.

To perform this exercise, set up in a Bulgarian Split Squat stance.

Then, all you’re going to do is slightly lift your foot off the ground (you can move your foot slightly forward if this is more comfortable for you), and quickly drop to the bottom position of the BSS.

When you drop, you should absorb all the force from the drop, and stick the landing. That means your hip and knee stay in a fixed position, you don’t let them drop lower once you stick the landing. Also, land with your weight more on the ball of your foot as you would for a depth jump.

As you get better at these, you can hold dumbbells to make them more difficult.

Unfortunately, I don’t have a video for this, but hopefully this description does it justice.

Single Leg Plyometric Exercise #2: Single Leg Seated Box Jump

To perform this movement, you need a lot of single leg stability, as well as significant strength in the glute medius. If you don’t think you’re there yet, read this article to learn how to develop this with stretching, mobilization, and activation exercises.

This explosive one foot movement is great because it relies on pure force production. When you’re in the seated position, it limits your ability to absorb force, and relies almost purely on your muscles to generate force.

Another reason this is a great movement is that you can adjust the range of motion.

If you want to develop explosiveness through a large range of motion, you can sit on a lower box. If you want to get more sports specific, you can raise the box, so you’re jumping off one leg from the depth you sink to during a vertical jump.

Alright, enough build up…

Here’s how to perform the single leg seated box jump.

To start, you’ll pick a box to sit on based on your goals. Then, you’ll sit on the box with one foot on the ground and one foot straight out in front.

After that, without rocking back, or lifting your foot off the ground, you’ll explode up and land softly on the box.

When you do this, be sure to pick a reasonable height for the box you’re going to land on. These are very difficult and it will take some time to get good at them. You may even want to remove the box from the equation, and just do single leg vertical jumps, starting from a seated position.

Alright, onto number three.

Single Leg Plyometric Exercise #3: Single Leg Tuck Jump

This is one of my favorites, but another very difficult movement for most athletes, but one that’s a good starting point. As I said above, most athletes struggle with their one foot jump.

With this movement, you can choose to make it easier, by landing on two legs. Alternatively, you can make it more difficult, by choosing to land on one.

Again, if you lack stability, you can go here to ensure you have a strong base first.

To perform this movement you’ll start on one leg. Then you’ll bend the knee and push the hip back until you get to vertical jump depth. From there, explode up, and get your knee up as high as possible.

If you want to get really advanced, you can add tempos to this movement to work different anatomical mechanisms (I’ll make a post on that soon).

Why These Single Leg Plyometric Exercises Don’t Work

It’s true.

There’s a specific progression for plyometrics. And if you don’t progress your plyometrics that way, you’re not going to jump higher, or be more explosive.

And expecting to jump higher without progressing plyometrics is like going to the gym, lifting the same weight, and expecting to be stronger.

Luckily, you can get a scientifically proven plan to pump more bounce into your step.

It’s called The Flight System.

And it contains the most Advanced Vertical Jump Techniques on the web… Mostly because the techniques inside Flight System helped me achieve a 44 inch vertical.

Click the link below to learn more…

If anything you can watch the video of my incredible vertical jump:

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