Pieces of the Puzzle: How to Improve Your Vert, Part 2

Pieces of the Puzzle: How to Improve Your Vert, Part 2

Coach Jace and Volt Advisor Mike Favre, Director of Olympic Sports Strength and Conditioning at the University of Michigan, broke down the importance of POWER in the vertical jump in Part 1 of this series. Now, Volt Advisor Justin D. Smith, Co-Director of Athletic Performance at the University of Vermont (UVM), and Coach Jace analyze the second ingredient to an impressive vertical: SPEED.  

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3 Easy Tips for Improving Grip Strength

3 Easy Tips for Improving Grip Strength

The benefits of having a strong grip go beyond just making a good impression when shaking hands or opening jars of tomato sauce. There are serious performance benefits from developing some good, old-fashioned “old-man” grip strength. Sadly, a direct focus on increasing grip strength is often neglected in strength training programs—and more grip strength can translate to better sport performance. Increasing grip strength for sports like baseball, lacrosse, and hockey helps improve the force transfer from the arms through the bat or stick. And contact/combat sport athletes can benefit from having hands like vices, which make tackles and take-downs much harder to escape. Adding focused grip work into your program doesn’t take much time or planning, and can keep your workouts fun by challenging new areas of improvement.

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