Here is something interesting that I tell a lot of the athletes I work with: "the more chin ups you can do, the higher you will be able to jump". 
After I tell them this they usually look at me with a blank stare, some simply accept the statement while others will come back and say "but chin ups is an upper-body exercise, jumping is your legs!". While this is essentially correct, it is not the whole story so lets explain this further.
First of all I have my anecdotal evidence, the athletes that I work with who do the most chin ups are also the fastest runners and best jumpers, this is for male and females. This is my own personal experience, but many other coaches will tell you the same thing; lots of chin ups = good sprint speed = high vertical jump.
Secondly, your upper-body contributes approximately 10-20% of your vertical jump; you can jump higher when you swing your arms.
Thirdly, what does a chin up measure other then upper-body pulling strength? Well, it is a measure of your relative strength. Your relative strength is your strength relative to your body mass, in layman terms it is often called your "pound for pound strength". This, I believe is the main reason why I and other coaches see this correlation. Relative strength is key to being quick, fast and jumping high.
Tack,
Mike Reid
references:
Harman, E.A., Rosenstein, M.T., Fryman, P.N., Rosenstein, R.M.
The effects of arms and counter movement on vertical jumping
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc 1990 vol. 22, page 825
Mark S. Walsh, Harald Böhm, Michelle M. Butterfield and Jabakar Santhosam. 2007: Gender Bias in the Effects of Arms and Countermovement on Jumping Performance. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 362–366.
Bobbert, M.F., Huijing, P.A., Van Ingen Schenau, G.J.
Drop jumping. I. The influence of jumping technique on the biomechanics of jumping
Med. Sci. Sports Exerc 1987 vol. 19, page 332
Recent Comments