Depth Jump Leap
Also works: Abductors · Adductors · Calves · Glutes · Hamstrings
Drop from a 30-40 cm box, land, and rebound immediately up and forward onto a taller box in front of you. The measure is ground contact time — under about a fifth of a second — which makes this one of the few drills that trains the reflexive end of the stretch-shortening cycle rather than voluntary leg drive.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Set the drop box at 30-40 cm to start. Higher boxes lengthen contact time, which defeats the drill.
- Place the landing box 60-90 cm in front, a little taller than the drop box, and check both are stable.
- Stand on the drop box with feet hip-width and toes just short of the edge, arms hanging.
- Rehearse the sequence once from the floor so the landing target is not a surprise mid-air.
- Warm up thoroughly first — a few submaximal jumps and some ankle work before the first real rep.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — One breath per rep: inhale on the box, hold through the drop and the rebound, exhale as you land on the target. The ground contact should be under 0.2 seconds — film it from the side once so you know what that looks like.
Before you load it
- Land on a forgiving surface. Rubber flooring or a lifting platform is fine; bare concrete multiplies the joint stress this drill already carries.
- Skip this entirely if you have a current knee, Achilles or lower-back complaint. The forces arrive too fast for you to protect anything mid-rep.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Bodyweight only — never add a vest or dumbbells to a depth jump. Progress by shortening ground contact at the same drop height, then by moving the landing box further away, and only last by raising the drop box, in 5-10 cm steps. Cap total contacts at 15-20 per session.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Cue a stiff, short contact — think of the floor as a hot plate. If you sink past a quarter squat, lower the drop box until you can rebound almost instantly.
Start at 30 cm and only raise it when your contact stays short and your rebound distance holds. If the leap onto the second box gets shorter as the drop box gets taller, you have gone past your limit.
Put them first, straight after the warm-up, and stop at 15-20 total contacts. Once fatigued, contact times lengthen and you are absorbing impact for no adaptation at all.
Spend a block on squats and step-ups until you can squat roughly 1.5 times bodyweight, and build up through box jumps and bounds first. The landing forces here are several times bodyweight.
Why bother
Falling off the first box loads your legs faster than you could ever load them by dipping voluntarily. Your tendons and the stretch reflex handle that arrival, and if you leave the floor quickly enough, most of the energy comes back out of the tissue rather than out of a muscular contraction. That is the whole mechanism, and it only exists if the contact is short.
The forward target adds the second half. Rebounding up and out onto a higher box in front means the force has to go through the hips at an angle rather than straight down, which is closer to what a running takeoff or a broad jump asks for than a vertical depth jump is.
Where it fits
This is the sharp end of plyometrics and it belongs at the front of a session, fully rested, at low volume: 3-4 sets of 3-5 leaps with two to three minutes between sets, once a week. It needs a strength base first — comfortably squatting around 1.5 times bodyweight is the usual entry standard, and it is not an arbitrary one.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Asked and answered
How high should the drop box be?
30-40 cm for almost everyone, and that is not a beginner concession. Contact time is what makes this work, and research on depth jumps consistently finds contact lengthens as drop height rises. If a taller box does not make your leap longer, it is simply adding impact.
What counts as a good ground contact?
Under about 0.2 seconds. You cannot judge that by feel, so film one set from the side at 60 frames per second and count the frames your feet are on the floor. Twelve frames is a slow, sunk contact; six or fewer is what you are after.
Is a depth jump the same as a depth drop?
No, and the depth drop is the version you should start with. In a depth drop you step off, land, and stick the position without rebounding, which teaches you to absorb the arrival on a stiff ankle. The depth jump adds the immediate rebound and roughly doubles what the tissue has to handle. Spend two or three weeks sticking drops cleanly from 30 cm before you rebound out of one.
How often can I do them?
Once a week during a training block, 15-20 contacts at most, and not year-round. Four to six weeks of depth jumps followed by a break works better than grinding them in every session — this is the most fatiguing plyometric there is, and the fatigue lands on tendons that recover slowly.