Vertical Jump Test Calculator (Sargent Jump)

The vertical jump — the Sargent jump, in its classic form — measures lower-body power: how fast you can apply force into the floor. The score is one subtraction, jump reach minus standing reach. Enter that difference in centimeters:

Running the test

1. Stand side-on to a wall, feet flat, and reach up with the nearer arm as high as possible. Chalk or tape the fingertips and mark that point — this is your standing reach.
2. From standing, with no approach steps, dip quickly and jump as high as you can, touching the wall at the peak.
3. Jump height = jump mark − standing reach. Take the best of three attempts, resting fully between them.

A 24-inch jump is 61 cm; the calculator is in centimeters, so convert before entering.

Height is not power — and the calculator scores height

Worth being explicit, because the two get conflated constantly. The band this page prints classifies how high you jumped. It does not compute mechanical power, because power depends on how much mass you accelerated, and jump height alone does not know your body mass.

To get power, the equation to use is from Sayers and colleagues, who tested 108 college-age male and female athletes and non-athletes on a force platform, comparing squat jumps and countermovement jumps against the jump-and-reach score:

Peak power (W) = 60.7 × jump height (cm) + 45.3 × body mass (kg) − 2055

Worked through: a 5 ft 9 in, 176 lb athlete (1.75 m, 80 kg) jumping 55 cm gets 60.7 × 55 = 3,338.5, plus 45.3 × 80 = 3,624, minus 2,055 — about 4,908 watts of peak power. The paper reports a standard error of estimate of 355 W and finds the squat-jump-derived equation more accurate than both the older Lewis and Harman equations, underestimating measured peak power by under 1%.

Two footnotes that matter. The equation was derived from squat jumps; feeding countermovement jump data into it overestimates peak power by about 2.7%. And the authors explicitly conclude that separate equations for males and females are unnecessary — the single equation differs by about 5% of power output between sexes.

Where the rating bands come from

The five-band scale above is the widely reproduced adult vertical jump table, which splits at roughly 21, 41, 61 and 71 cm for men and 11, 31, 51 and 61 cm for women. Its publisher describes its provenance plainly: the ranking scale is based on his observations. It is a useful field heuristic and it is not a sampled norm, so read a band as a neighborhood, not a verdict.

Sex-specific bands here reflect a real average difference in lower-body power output. The gap in the height table is around 10 cm at every cut point.

Why the standing start matters

Allowing approach steps converts horizontal speed into vertical lift and adds several centimeters that have nothing to do with the standing power the test is meant to isolate. That is why the classic protocol forbids it — and why an approach jump measured at a combine is not comparable to a Sargent jump measured against a wall.

For the other side of explosive movement, run the Illinois agility test, which times change of direction rather than vertical lift. To place power next to strength and endurance, read muscular strength vs endurance vs power, or go back to the fitness test calculator.

This content is informational and does not replace evaluation by an exercise professional.