Your vertical jump, or “vert,” is the difference between how high you can reach while standing flat-footed and how high you can touch at the peak of a jump. Measuring it takes just a wall and some chalk, though more advanced tools can improve precision. Here’s how to get an accurate number using any method available to you.
The Wall-and-Chalk Method
This is the classic approach, sometimes called the Sargent Jump Test, and it’s the easiest way to measure your vert at home. You need a wall you can mark on (or tape a strip of paper to it), chalk or colored finger tape, and a tape measure.
Stand with your dominant shoulder about 6 inches from the wall. Keep your feet flat on the floor. Rub chalk on your fingertips, reach your dominant arm as high as possible overhead, and press your fingers against the wall to leave a mark. This is your standing reach height. Getting this number right matters more than most people realize. If you don’t fully extend your arm or subtly rise onto your toes, your standing reach will be off, and your final jump measurement will be artificially inflated.
Now, re-chalk your fingers. Without taking a step, drop into a squat and explode upward. At the very top of your jump, tap the wall with your chalked fingers. The vertical distance between your standing reach mark and your jump mark is your vertical jump height. Give yourself three attempts and record the best one.
Using a Vertec Device
If you’ve watched an NBA draft combine or a college football pro day, you’ve seen a Vertec. It’s a tall metal pole with rows of colored plastic vanes stacked in half-inch increments. An evaluator adjusts the bottom vane to match your standing reach height, then you jump and swat the highest vane you can. The number of displaced vanes, multiplied by half an inch, gives your jump height.
The Vertec is more precise than wall chalk because each vane represents an exact half-inch increment, eliminating the guesswork of interpreting smudged chalk marks. It’s the standard tool in professional athletic testing. The typical protocol is three jumps, and results are reported either as a single best jump or as the average of all three.
Smartphone Apps
Apps like My Jump use your phone’s slow-motion camera to calculate jump height from flight time, the duration you spend in the air. You set up the phone at ground level, record yourself jumping, then manually select the frame where your feet leave the ground and the frame where they land. The app uses those two timestamps to estimate how high you went.
This method is surprisingly accurate when done correctly. An iPhone’s 120 Hz slow-motion camera captures 120 frames per second, which means a jump that keeps you airborne for about half a second (roughly a 30 cm jump) produces around 60 frames to work with. That’s enough resolution for a reliable measurement.
The weak link is human judgment. You have to pick the exact takeoff and landing frames yourself, and several things can throw you off. If you tuck your knees or point your toes just before landing, you artificially extend the flight time and inflate your result. If one foot touches down before the other, choosing the wrong foot as your reference point skews the number. The key to consistency is picking the same landmarks every time: full foot separation from the ground at takeoff, first contact of either foot at landing.
Getting Your Standing Reach Right
No matter which method you use, your vertical jump number is only as good as your standing reach measurement. Stand sideways to the wall with your shoulder close to it, reach the arm nearest the wall as high as you can, and keep both feet completely flat. Have someone watch your heels. Even a slight rise onto the balls of your feet adds a centimeter or two to your reach, which directly subtracts from your reported jump height.
If you’re measuring someone else, make sure they’re genuinely stretching to their maximum. A lazy reach that falls an inch short means the final jump measurement looks an inch better than it actually is.
How to Warm Up Before Testing
A proper warmup can meaningfully improve your measured vert. Cold muscles produce less force, so testing without preparation leaves inches on the table.
Start with 5 minutes of light cycling or jogging to raise your core temperature. Then stretch your calves, quads, hip flexors, hamstrings, and glutes, holding each stretch for about 15 seconds per side and repeating twice. Follow that with 2 minutes of jumping exercises: skipping for about 20 feet, 6 two-footed ankle hops, 5 split squat jumps, and 5 standing jump-and-reach reps.
Research from the Journal of Sports Science and Medicine shows that adding a few sets of explosive half-squats after this general warmup further improves performance. Even light loads (25 to 35 percent of your max) performed with maximum speed help prime your nervous system for a bigger jump. The key is moving through each rep as fast as possible and emphasizing the quick switch from lowering to driving upward. Rest about 2 minutes after your last set before testing.
What Your Number Means
Vertical jump is measured in inches or centimeters. For context, the average adult male jumps somewhere around 16 to 20 inches. College athletes typically range from 24 to 30 inches depending on sport and position. Elite NBA prospects regularly clear 35 inches or more at the draft combine.
If you want to go beyond raw jump height, you can estimate your lower-body power output. The Sayers equation, widely used in sports science, calculates peak power in watts: multiply your jump height in centimeters by 61.9, add your body mass in kilograms multiplied by 36.0, then add 1,822. So a 80 kg person with a 40 cm vertical would produce roughly 7,182 watts of peak power. This number is useful for tracking progress over a training cycle because it accounts for changes in both explosiveness and body composition.
Common Mistakes That Skew Results
- Taking a step before jumping. The standard protocol is a standing jump with no approach step. Adding even a small gather step turns it into a different test and inflates your number.
- Not fully extending on the reach. Shrugging your shoulder up and pressing your fingertips as high as possible can add an inch or more to your standing reach, which keeps your jump measurement honest.
- Testing cold. Skipping the warmup costs you real height. Five to ten minutes of preparation is enough to see the difference.
- Inconsistent arm swing. Your arms generate momentum. If you restrict your arm swing on one attempt and use a full swing on another, the results aren’t comparable. Use a natural, full arm swing on every rep.
- Averaging instead of taking the best. Some protocols report the average of three jumps, but if you’re tracking personal progress or comparing yourself to benchmarks that use a best-of-three format, make sure you’re using the same standard.