What Is a Good Vertical Jump, and How to Measure Yours

If you are training to jump higher, you need a number. Without knowing your jump height you are guessing about whether your program is working, which exercises are paying off, and how close you are to dunking. And one number is only the start: test the right handful of jumps and you get a full profile of why you jump the way you do, which tells you exactly what to train next.

This guide covers what a good vertical looks like, the four jump types worth testing, the comparison scores coaches actually program against, and how to measure all of it with nothing but your phone.

What is a good vertical jump?

For a standing countermovement jump — hands on hips, dip and drive straight up — rough adult benchmarks look like this:

• Average: 30–40 cm (12–16 in) for males, 25–35 cm (10–14 in) for females.
• Good: 40–50 cm (16–20 in) for males, 35–45 cm (14–18 in) for females.
• Excellent: 50–60 cm (20–24 in) for males, 45–52 cm (18–20 in) for females.
• Elite: 60 cm+ (24 in+) for males, 52 cm+ (20 in+) for females — the territory of high-level basketball, volleyball and AFL athletes.

Add a full arm swing and a run-up and most athletes jump well above their standing number — a 45 cm (18 in) standing jumper might touch 60–70 cm (24–28 in) on the move. Junior athletes should expect lower numbers that climb quickly through their late teens as strength arrives.

One caveat: how you measure changes the number. Centre-of-mass methods (force plates, Metric Jump) read lower than reach tests and jump mats — a Vertec lets your shoulder and fingers buy you height, and a mat can be cheated by tucking your legs. Neither is wrong, but do not compare a chalk-mark number against a force-plate number and think you got worse.

The four jump types worth testing

Different jumps answer different questions:

• Countermovement jump (CMJ). The default vertical jump test. Hands on hips, dip down and drive straight back up in one motion, no pause at the bottom. Your headline number.
• Squat jump (paused). Start from a held squat, pause at least a second, then jump with no dip. This isolates pure concentric pushing power by removing the stretch-shortening cycle.
• Abalakov jump. A two-leg countermovement jump with a full arm swing — the closest thing to how you actually jump in a game.
• Single-leg jump. Jump and land on one leg, tracked per side. The staple of return-to-play testing after injury.

The comparison scores: your jump profile

One jump gives you a number. Compared jump types give you a profile, and a profile is what you program against:

• Eccentric utilisation ratio (EUR): CMJ ÷ squat jump. How much free height your stretch-shortening cycle gives you. A ratio of 1.0 means the dip adds nothing; higher means more elastic and explosive. Consistently under 1.1 and elasticity is your weak link — plyometric-style training will pay off most. Well above that and you are already springy, so raw strength deserves the bulk of your effort.
• Arm swing contribution: Abalakov vs CMJ. How much height your swing adds, as a percentage. A good swing is worth 10% or more; less points to a timing or coordination issue worth drilling — especially in jump-dominated sports like basketball, volleyball and Australian football, where it is free height.
• Left–right symmetry: single-leg left vs right. Under 10% asymmetry is normal and balanced, 10–20% is worth noting, and more than 20% warrants a closer look. This is the asymmetry screen that matters most coming back from injury.
• Bilateral index: two-leg CMJ vs the sum of both single-leg jumps. Typically your two legs together produce less than the sum of each leg alone — the bilateral deficit. Some athletes show the opposite. Neither is good or bad on its own; it is a trait to track over time as your training changes.

The metrics beyond height

Within any single jump, a few more numbers tell you what is going on under the hood:

• Takeoff velocity. How fast you are moving the instant you leave the floor. It tracks improving performance, and it dips when you are run down, so it doubles as a day-to-day readiness check.
• Reactive Strength Index (RSI). Height relative to the time you took to produce it. Two athletes can jump the same height, and the one who got there faster is the more explosive.
• Impulse. The net force you applied multiplied by how long you applied it — the mechanical cause of the jump.
• Flight time. How long you are in the air, best read from your body's centre of mass rather than a contact mat, because a tucked landing inflates mat numbers.

How to test all of this with your phone

Running that whole battery used to need a force plate: thousands of dollars, fixed to one spot. Wall-and-chalk cannot do any of it beyond a single height. This is why we built Metric Jump. It reads your body's centre of mass from your phone camera and derives height from takeoff velocity — the same impulse-momentum method a force plate uses, correlating at r = 0.96 with lab equipment. Because gravity is identical everywhere, every jump self-calibrates against physics, and because it tracks your centre of mass rather than your feet or hands, you cannot inflate it by tucking your legs.

It classifies all four jump types automatically as you jump, works out your EUR, arm swing contribution, symmetry and bilateral index for you, and charts everything against your personal bests. No force plate, no jump mat, no hardware — and it is free to try during the beta on iOS and Android.

Testing rim touch and reach for basketball and volleyball

If your sport is played above a rim or a net, one more test matters: your standing reach — how high you reach flat-footed, arm fully extended. Your running jump plus your standing reach is what decides whether you dunk or block, not the jump alone. A shorter athlete with a 70 cm (28 in) jump may still not reach a 305 cm (10 ft) rim that a taller athlete clears with 55 cm (22 in).

Measure it the classic way: mark your standing reach on a wall or backboard, chalk your fingertips, take a full run-up jump and touch at the top. The gap between the marks is your functional, sport-specific vertical. It is worth testing occasionally alongside your CMJ, because it folds in your approach and timing — the skill side of jumping.

How often should you test?

Every three to four weeks is the sweet spot, long enough for real change and short enough to catch a program that has stalled. Test on fresh legs, warmed up, at the same time of day and in the same way every time. That consistency is what makes the number trustworthy.

How long does it take to add inches?

The most common question we get is some version of "how long to add five inches?" For a beginner with room to grow, 5 to 13 cm (2 to 5 inches) over a focused eight to twelve week block is realistic. The more trained you already are, the slower each centimetre comes. Two things set your rate of progress: training the right exercises in the right doses, and actually measuring so you can adjust when something stops working.

Test, train, re-test

That loop is the whole game. Get your baseline today, follow a vertical jump program, and let the numbers tell you it is working. If you want the science behind the training first, start with how to jump higher.