Plyometric Workouts
A great thing about the human body is that it can adapt very quickly to any type of stress that is put on it. When you start lifting weights the body will get stronger and muscle fibers will increase in size. This is what happens when you start training to jump higher. The muscle fibers might not get bigger but the type of muscle will change to fast twitch fibers.
What are the differences between fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers? Well, as you might of guessed one is obviously faster but it also fatigues much faster. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
A sprinter needs a lot of power but not for very long. So they train to get as much red muscle as possible and as little white muscle as they can.
You might think you want all you muscles to be fast twitch but then what about standing all day or sitting up straight? The lower back will have a lot of endurance muscle.
So now you are probably wondering how to get more fast twitch muscle. You type of training directly corresponds to the muscle you will create.
If you train in short burst with a lot of power you will be training your body to create more fast twitch muscles. While if you train doing long steady workouts you will get endurance muscles.
There is a science known as plyometrics that is created for one thing and that is to make you jump higher through creating more fast twitch muscles.
So naturally you could assume that plyos will consist of high powered exercises that only last for a few seconds. You don't want to do hundreds of reps when trying to create power, you need to do low reps at high intensity to get the result you are looking for when training to jump higher. It's time to stop dreaming that you can jump like a pro basketball/volleyball player and get out there and train so that you really can.