• Heighten your jumpBuena Vista Images/Digital Vision/Getty Images
  
  If you are using multiple strenuous workouts to increase your vertical, or jump, you may be damaging the cartilage and bone in your knees. The only way to increase your vertical is to practice the act of jumping with resistance. Other workouts practiced without the jumping motion will not strengthen the specific muscles used for jumping, and will not heighten your vertical. Practicing the jumping motion in a pool of water will give you a heightened vertical without the damage to your knees. To achieve a heightened vertical, there are daily exercises executed in the pool that will make you jump higher without pain in your joints.
  
  

Warm-Ups

• On the side of the pool, stretch your legs out by standing straight up, and bend over to touch your toes without bending your knees. Get into the water about waist deep, and do some warm-up jumps. Jump as high as you can 20 times.
  
  

Burst Jump

• Stand in the water chest deep and jump in a bursting motion. Bursting means as fast, hard and as high as you possibly can. Burst jump 50 to 100 times, and take at least a five-minute break before doing this exercise again, or moving on to the next workout.
  
  

Underwater Kick Off

• While submerged in the water, kick off the wall of the pool to the other side with an underwater jumping motion. Come up for air as needed, and repeat this exercise around 20 times.
  
  

Vandersteen Exercise

• Walk into the water until you reach chest depth. While holding your breath, squat down until you are placing all of your weight on your feet, and jump as high as you can out of the water. Repeat this 10 times, and take a break between further repetitions. The recommended repetition is once a day, but further exercise is possible, but optional.