Basketball Drills: The Hurdle Hop with Paul Fabritz

No matter if you’re gearing up for a varsity game or competing in a local rec league, having a strong vertical jump can be a gamechanger in basketball.

For players looking to improve their hops, the Hurdle Hop can help give a boost to your vertical jump.

The drill is set up with several hurdles spaced evenly apart. To complete the hurdle hop drill, run through the following steps:

• Move between the hurdles, striding as far as you can
• Jump as high as you can over the hurdles

While many similar drills consist of players simply hopping over the hurdles, this exercise adds a new twist to it.

“Striding out as far as we can works on what’s called our penultimate step,”says Performance Enhancement Specialist Paul Fabritz, who trains professional basketball players. “That’s the second-to-last step before the vertical jump. And here’s the thing, if you look at any great jumper… you are going to notice they have a very long penultimate step.”

Having a long penultimate step is a crucial piece of adding height to your jump.

“That long penultimate step gets them to naturally drop their hips down, so once that front foot lands, everything is up and explosive from there,” Fabritz says. “This drill is the best thing you can do to improve that.”

By working through this drill regularly, you can help take your vertical jumping game to new heights.

Having a strong vertical jump is important when playing in the post. But you’ll also need to have strong post-up moves. Check out this video to learn more about the jump hook, drop step and up, and up-and-under post-up moves.