Countermovement jump

What the countermovement jump (CMJ) is, how it differs from the squat jump, how coaches use it to track fatigue, and a free CMJ test from phone video.

Test your jumpFree · no install

Best: a slow-motion video from your camera app. On iPhone, slow motion takes a few seconds to prepare after you pick it. Your video stays on this device. Nothing is uploaded.

Set up in 30 seconds

  1. 1Put the phone on the floor or at knee height, 2–3 m (7–10 ft) away, so your whole body and both feet are in the picture.
  2. 2Stand still, jump straight up as high as you can, and land on the same spot with straight legs.
  3. 3Then step through the video and mark two frames: take-off and landing.

How to do a CMJ test

  1. 01Warm up and do one or two practice jumps.
  2. 02Stand tall with your hands on your hips (or swing your arms, the same way every time).
  3. 03Dip quickly and jump straight up as high as you can, in one movement.
  4. 04Land on the same spot with your legs straight. Rest a minute and repeat: three jumps is common.
  5. 05Mark each jump here and keep the best, or the average when you're tracking fatigue.

What a countermovement jump is

A countermovement jump starts standing: you dip down and immediately drive up into the jump [1]. Keeping your hands on your hips, or a light bar on your shoulders, takes the arms out of it, so the test measures your legs [1] [2].

Countermovement jump vs squat jump

A squat jump starts from a held squat with no dip. The countermovement jump goes higher: by 1.4 cm in college men [3], and by 3.4 cm on average in volleyball players starting from the same body position [4]. The dip lets the muscles build up force before they start to shorten [4].

Coaches compare the two as the eccentric utilization ratio, CMJ height ÷ squat jump height, and track it through the season [5].

How coaches use the CMJ

It's quick, safe and repeatable, so it's the most common jump for monitoring. Across 151 studies, the average of several jumps picked up fatigue and recovery better than the single best jump [6]. After a hard session, jump measures were down and most returned to baseline within 24 hours [7].

A related number is reactive strength. In a drop jump, step off a low box and jump the moment you land: jump height ÷ ground contact time is the reactive strength index, about 1.3 m/s from a 30 cm drop in physically active men [8]. It's a highly reliable test [9]. For the countermovement jump, the modified version divides jump height by the time to take-off: medians of 0.42 m/s for NCAA men and 0.31 m/s for women [2].

Typical CMJ heights

GroupCMJ heightHow it was measured
NCAA Division I men36 cm (14.2 in)Force plate, no arm swing [2]
NCAA Division I women27 cm (10.6 in)Force plate, no arm swing [2]
Men aged 20–24, general population49.4 cm (19.4 in) medianForce plate, arm swing allowed [10]
Women aged 20–24, general population31.8 cm (12.5 in) medianForce plate, arm swing allowed [10]

Questions

What is a countermovement jump?

A vertical jump from standing with a quick dip first: you bend and immediately jump. It's the standard jump test in sports science.

What is a good CMJ height?

NCAA Division I athletes averaged 36 cm (14.2 in) for men and 27 cm (10.6 in) for women without arm swing. With arm swing, the general-population median at 20–24 is 49.4 cm for men and 31.8 cm for women.

Hands on hips or arm swing?

Hands on hips measures your legs alone and is the usual test protocol. Arm swing jumps higher. Pick one and keep it.

Is the countermovement jump an exercise?

Both. It's the standard jump test, and it's a plyometric exercise too: training programs that mixed squat jumps, countermovement jumps and drop jumps gave the best results in a large review.

What is the difference between a CMJ and a squat jump?

A squat jump starts from a held squat with no dip; a countermovement jump starts standing and dips first. The countermovement jump usually goes a few centimetres higher.

Is my video uploaded?

No. The tester reads your video inside your browser, frame by frame. Nothing is sent to us or stored on a server.

More on the vertical jump

How to measure your vertical jumpEvery way to measure a vertical jump, compared: the wall and chalk test, jump mats, force plates and phone video. Then measure yours here, free.Average vertical jumpAverage vertical jump by age and sex from a national survey of 5,188 people, plus college athletes and the NBA and NFL combines. See your percentile.How to increase your vertical jumpA 12-week plan to increase your vertical jump, built on what research reviews found works: enough weeks, enough jumps, strength work and regular testing.

Sources

  1. Lesinski et al. (2020). Maturation-, age-, and sex-specific anthropometric and physical fitness percentiles of German elite young athletes. PLoS One
  2. Sole, Suchomel & Stone (2018). Preliminary scale of reference values for evaluating reactive strength index-modified in male and female NCAA Division I athletes. Sports
  3. Walsh et al. (2007). Gender bias in the effects of arms and countermovement on jumping performance. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
  4. Bobbert et al. (1996). Why is countermovement jump height greater than squat jump height? Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise
  5. McGuigan et al. (2006). Eccentric utilization ratio: effect of sport and phase of training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
  6. Claudino et al. (2017). The countermovement jump to monitor neuromuscular status: a meta-analysis. Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport
  7. Gathercole et al. (2015). Alternative countermovement-jump analysis to quantify acute neuromuscular fatigue. International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance
  8. Healy, Kenny & Harrison (2016). Assessing reactive strength measures in jumping and hopping using the Optojump system. Journal of Human Kinetics
  9. Flanagan, Ebben & Jensen (2008). Reliability of the reactive strength index and time to stabilization during depth jumps. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research
  10. Hoffmann et al. (2019). Normative-referenced percentile values for physical fitness among Canadians. Health Reports, Statistics Canada