At what age can you start training the vertical jump

The jump can be trained early, much earlier than most people think. What changes with age isn't "whether", it's "how" and "how much". A twelve-year-old doesn't need to stay away from jumping: they just need to do different jumps, in different amounts, compared to a twenty-year-old.

This is one of the questions we get most often, usually from worried parents or youth-team coaches. Let's put it in order.

The myth to take apart: "lifting stunts your growth"

It's the line that's been going round changing rooms for thirty years. It doesn't hold up. The problem was never the barbell itself: it's the wrong loads, technique left to chance and adult volumes put on a kid's body. Strength training done sensibly, with loads the athlete controls and under supervision, is one of the most useful things a young person can do — including for reducing injury risk.

The real risk in young athletes is, if anything, the opposite: too many jumps and too many changes of direction done only in matches and technical practice, without ever building the structure that holds them up. Nobody calls three volleyball practices a week "load", but that's exactly what they are.

Before 13-14: coordination, not load

In this age range the best work is the kind that teaches you to jump and, above all, to land. Everybody can jump. Not everybody can land, and the landing is where you get hurt.

• Bodyweight jumps, in every direction: forwards, sideways, off one foot or two.
• Skipping rope, short hops, games with changes of direction.
• Bodyweight exercises for general strength: unloaded squats, lunges, core work.
• Plenty of variety. At this age early specialisation is the real problem, not load.

No vertical jump program is needed here. What's needed is moving a lot, and moving well.

From 14 to 16: loaded technique comes in

This is when it makes sense to start introducing real strength work, but with one rule above all the others: you learn the movement before you load it. Months spent squatting, deadlifting and pressing with light loads and clean technique aren't wasted time, they're the investment that will let you load seriously later.

It's also the age when a lot of kids grow tall quickly. In those phases the levers change from one month to the next, coordination temporarily gets worse and tendons are the most sensitive part. If a kid is in the middle of a growth spurt and starts complaining about knee or heel pain, the answer isn't to grit their teeth: it's to bring the jump volume down and speak to the right professional.

From 16-17 upwards: you can program like an adult

With a technical base already built, from here you can work with the same logic as a senior athlete: heavy strength, structured plyometrics, combined methods, periodisation across the season. What stays different is recovery and total load, because at this age you're often playing in two categories at once and nobody adds up the hours.

If you train with the first team and with the youth squad, your weekly volume isn't what's written on the program: it's that plus everything else. It has to be counted, otherwise the jump program becomes the drop that makes the glass overflow.

The thing that holds at any age: start from a number

Whether you're 14 or 24, the first step is the same: knowing how high you jump today. Not to compare yourself with someone else — at 14, comparing yourself with a teammate who grew six months before you tells you nothing — but to have a reference of your own to look at again in two or three months.

It's also the most honest way to tell whether a path is working. Without measurement you go by feel, and feel lies: in growth phases it seems like you've got worse when you haven't, and in tired phases it seems like you're going well when you're piling up fatigue.

For coaches: the jump is load, treat it as such

If you coach a youth team, the useful question isn't "can I have them do plyometrics?". It's "how many jumps are these kids already doing in a week?". Adding up technical practice, matches and any gym work, the number is almost always higher than you'd imagine. Adding work without taking any away is the fastest way to end up with half the group nursing sore knees in January.

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