I was wondering if anyone really uses Jump Squats to build muscle. I loved them in High School training for Track and Football and recently started using them once a week on one of my legs days. I know they are pretty tough on your knees especially If you don’t land properly, but any opinions?
no man you don’t use them for building muscle…and if you are…your wasting your time!
Use the jump squats when you wanna do more explosive work…or are focusing on that solely.
It’s also better to do them after a couple months of strength n size training, then switch diretions and make things explosive with the jump squats.
The jump squats aren’t going to get you anymore muscle…but if you implement it corerctly with a couple other exercises your vert will go higher lol.
And that’s that thread.
I think that you can gain muscle if implementing jump squats the right way. You can use them as an activation exercise before you do heavy front or back squats. They will help recruit more fast twitch muscle fibers and in change allow you to lift heavier weight and build more muscle. Implementing jumping before squatting ,for me, has yielded good results in the past.
[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
I think that you can gain muscle if implementing jump squats the right way. You can use them as an activation exercise before you do heavy front or back squats. They will help recruit more fast twitch muscle fibers and in change allow you to lift heavier weight and build more muscle. Implementing jumping before squatting ,for me, has yielded good results in the past. [/quote]
I second this! On a few occasions I did them first and the stretch reflex at the bottom of the squat seemed to really wake up my nervous system for my heavy sets.
[quote]MytchBucanan wrote:
ebomb5522 wrote:
I think that you can gain muscle if implementing jump squats the right way. You can use them as an activation exercise before you do heavy front or back squats. They will help recruit more fast twitch muscle fibers and in change allow you to lift heavier weight and build more muscle. Implementing jumping before squatting ,for me, has yielded good results in the past.
I second this! On a few occasions I did them first and the stretch reflex at the bottom of the squat seemed to really wake up my nervous system for my heavy sets.[/quote]
I actually did jumps from the knees yesterday before squatting and had one of the best squat workouts ever. I feel that doing a little bit of jumping before heavy squatting really can help, but there is no need to go overboard. 8-15 jumps will probably do the trick.
I have never seen a top-level bodybuilders, or even a big guy in a local gym ever do jump squats.
The only ones I see do these are generally small and weak. But heck, they can play basketball well.
So what’s more important to you, progression and size or doing something just because?
PS, I’ve also never seen anyone jump squat more than 185.
When I was introduced to Weight Training, I was shown ALOT of stretches.
Jump Squats were ( and still are ) something I did to warm up. To stretch my upper and lower legs.
I did/do other BW shit, like BW Squats before Leg Days too.
I don’t think these are that fantastic for building lower legs, without BB or DB.
I do train Weighted Jump Squats, however, but the BW kind again is only to ‘wake-up.’
I wouldn’t recommend Weighted Jump Squats for a random guy who doesn’t have a bigger ( that is more XP ) guy to yell at his ass for being a slob or something. ( That is training the kid ).
‘Waking-up the muscle’ though, is vital! Stretching without weights then more stretching with weights ( warm-up sets I guess ) is protocol for me.
Alright hahah we are off topic to the orginal question. Jump squats are actually an excellent way to fire up the nervous system, but I always do some form of plyo work before lower body lifting anyways.
The main question is do jump squats help build muscle…I would say no. Excite nervous system sure…but there’s a million ways to do that and I don’t think jump squats alone will give that effect. Hell just doing your warmup with MAX SPEED will fire you up and is the same thing.
Start at 135x8…by the time I get to 275 the bar is bounching up when I lockout.
I would say there are better methods and I would keep the jump squats for explosive phase…at the same time though being explosive/doing explosive work is a good thing that a lot of people don’t do.
Play with it. You could even do 20 vert jumps before your workout as well.
I don’t think anyone can say that they don’t build muscle. I think the nature of jump squats would overload the stretch replex at the bottom of the movement more so than a regular squat.
Having to hit the breaks from coming back down gives the quads a sharp spike in tension. This has been my experience and the few times I have done them I did get an enormous pump.
Really? Are we doing the same jump squats here? You don’t break parallel with jump squats…
Also to clear things up here’s a GREAT article by Kelly Bagget for Benefits and Application of Jump Squats
What ebomb outlined above in how he felt great doing his jump squats then reg. squats is also mentioned in this mini-article.
[quote]rasturai wrote:
Really? Are we doing the same jump squats here? You don’t break parallel with jump squats…
[/quote]
I always went into a full squat. Maybe that isn’t the correct technique but it felt good.
I do them when I’m trying to improve my squat… I think they’re a great addition to a routine… The one thing I don’t like is the impact of the weight coming back down on my spine… Haven’t hurt myself yet but I strainedmy lower back many doing other things…
I would go up to 185 at my strongest… doing 5 reps for 5 sets and as explosive and as intense as I could go… That would be 4 days after my regular leg work out… Also I go to parallel, sometimes deeper but I gotta be careful to not round my lower back…
It’s speed work… The faster you can get the weight up, the more you can lift since your muscles are under tension for less time…
Why would you do jump squats to build size?
People need to understand the reasoning for doing a specific exercise.
Are jump squats a good exercise? yes.
to build size? no
exactly.
Please look no further and use this article as guidance everyone, helped me lots.
Thanks for your comments and thoughts