Test protocol

Standing Vertical Jump

The first number every athlete asks about, and the easiest one to run badly. The mat times how long the feet are off the floor and converts that to height, which makes the test simple to administer and simple to inflate. Here is how to run it so the number is worth keeping.

3 reps · best counts Both feet Measures flight time Under a minute
The protocol

Run it the same way every time.

Warm up first: five minutes of general work, then two build-up sets of low hops. A standard is only as good as the test underneath it, so the rules below do not change between retests, between athletes, or between seasons.

Setup

  • Both feet on the mat, centred.
  • Hands on hips or arms free. Pick one and keep it forever.
  • Athlete starts tall and still, not already dipping.

Cues

  • Dip and drive.
  • Land where you launched.
  • Stick it tall, then step off.

What ruins the number

  • Tucking the knees in the air, which inflates flight time.
  • Stepping into the jump instead of starting still.
  • Soft, crumpled landings that blur the touchdown.
  • Changing the arm rule between tests.
Same hips. Different number. The mat times the feet, so tucking buys air time the hips never earned. Clean jump 705 ms in the air 24″ Knees tucked 748 ms in the air 27″

The hips rose 24″ both times. The tuck added 43 ms of flight, and height is computed from flight time, so the mat reports 27″. That is three inches of nothing, and it repeats every time he does it.

In the 3.0 app

Two ways to record it.

The app separates a quick check from a formal test, and the difference matters if you ever want to compare sessions. Both save into a session; only one of them fixes the protocol for you.

Assessment

Standing Vertical Jump

Pick the named assessment, pick the athlete, jump. Rep count, kept reps, sidedness and start position are all fixed by the protocol, so the test stays standardised and repeatable. This is what you want for anything you plan to track.

Display mode

Vertical

Pick the mode and go. Nothing is enforced, which is right for a quick check in the middle of a session but wrong for a test you intend to compare later. In the API these sets come back with a null assessment_id.

The mat measures flight time and reports jump_height_cm as the primary metric. It cannot tell whether the athlete used a countermovement, an arm swing, or a static squat jump. That is yours to control, which is exactly why the arm rule has to be written down.

The standards

Where the number puts him.

Both modes compute height from flight time. Just Jump Mode applies the legacy inflation so historical numbers line up, so the same jump reads several inches higher there. Grade an athlete on one mode and stay on it.

LevelMaleFemale
World Class> 34″ · 86> 23″ · 58
Elite31–34″ · 7921–23″ · 53
Advanced27–31″ · 6918–21″ · 46
Efficient23–27″ · 5816–18″ · 41
Developmental19–23″ · 4814–16″ · 36
Poor< 19″ · 48< 14″ · 36

Heights shown as inches and centimetres. Sport-specific sheets are calibrated to their own populations, so a basketball or volleyball sheet will not match this table exactly. Basketball standards · What trained athletes actually post

Every test, scored on the floor.

Plyomat runs the standing vertical as a named assessment, keeps the best rep for you, and freezes the session so the number is still there next term.

See the systems →