Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

I am high school girls track coach and our season is 3 weeks away from our district meet. I have a young lady that won the Triple Jump last year and should win again this year, however, no matter how much we work on her approach come meet time, her mark is off on every jump. We can usaully get one or two out of 6 jumps in, but they are not her best jumps in most cases. Every other attempt, she is scratching. Last year her winning jump was off her incorrect foot because again her mark was off. We currently do not use any kind of check mark with our jumpers but need to do something to ensure that her mark is correct come the big meet. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

First thing I would do is a 2 step mark.  Hopefully she starts from a standing/rocking start so give her a mark to hit on her 2nd step to ensure consistency of the first 2 steps.  Weather conditions can also wreck major havoc on approach distances so I’d be prepared for her marks to change some every meet.

Completely agree with Mortac.  Your first two-four steps have the biggest degree of variance in the approach run.  Having a mark right outside or inside the runway line (all depending on how strict they are) will allow her to see if she is on or not.  If she is off she can adjust by opening up a little more, shortening some strides or just stopping and going back to her mark.

Put me down as agreeing as well.  First few steps are likely to vary far more than subsequent ones.

I too like the four step mark. 

Another thing I learned this year came from a coach in Germany after I watched my triple jumper have three massive fouls 50cm beyond his PB..(They were all toe fouls).  I had moved him back on each jump 10cm, 20cm then 30cm and still the exact same foul.  I wrote to the German guy who I had visited a few years ago and he told me to take him back a meter when they happens.  He said it usually means they are just too jammed in to get the run to work.  Moving back a meter gives them a chance to attack the board.  If they are a foot behind the board on the next jump then you make the little correction then.  I worked with this philosophy this year and it has worked.  In the end we had to move that jumper run back over a meter as he had gotten that much stronger and faster.

Cheers

I agree with the previous posters about the check marks. One other thing that may help and that every jumper needs to do but many are taught not to do is look at the board. If a jumper does not have a visual on the board, a fair jump is a crap shoot.

I think for experienced jumpers, visual steering is a necessary skill. Beginning jumpers need to learn the rhythm and timing of the run-up without looking at the board in order build consistency.

JimP - 08 May 2008 09:51 AM

I agree with the previous posters about the check marks. One other thing that may help and that every jumper needs to do but many are taught not to do is look at the board. If a jumper does not have a visual on the board, a fair jump is a crap shoot.

If a jumper DOES have a visual on the board, a fair jump is a crap shoot.  JMO

I thought that you can never look at the board? My biggest problem with long jump is that I look at the board on the take-off and in doing I rotate forward. Therefore I can’t finish the jump because I almost land on my face? (actually my biggest problem is that right now I can’t train on the long jump but that’s beside the question). And I don’t consider myself a beginner (7m47 - 24.507874 feet according to google).

There is a necessity for guidance to the board.  Most often the biggest problems in terms of guidance or visual steering is less experienced jumpers don’t have the same spatial-temporal awareness that more experienced jumpers/athletes do.  Less experienced jumpers also have stride/acceleration patterns that are relatively immature and lacking in consistency which further complicates this awareness.  Even when using guidance most experienced jumpers are not focused on the board, they are just aware of the movement the board is making in their field of vision and relating information as such in terms of acceleration and speed to other proprioceptive feedback about the speed and acceleration they are relaying.  The more experienced and more competent jumpers/athletes process this information automatically, while less experienced jumpers think and process this information while still performing causing some interference with performance.

As for the lady in question, if she’s even a semi experienced jumper and this is the problem, and I see this all the time as it’s the most common thing I have seen.  Either the athlete is not adequately warmed up for the event, they are too tired from other events, etc…, or they made their mark when they warmed up less than adequately.  Typically, it’s a result of less than adequate warm up, her warm ups should include at least 2-3 efforts of competition speed for a very brief period of time. 

At a meet without recent previous coaching marks done in practice (hs coaches don’t always have the time to get the newest coaching marks from developmental athletes), if I can eyeball the athlete reaching and it’s not an easy task to do so, it would have to be an excessive reach with a less than spectacular jump for the athlete, I would just cue the athlete for greater speed/acceleration.  If the athlete is creating tons of forward rotation and not very much distance, I would move them back probably 2-3 feet or 1/3-1/2 a step length if I have that data. However, I try my best not to move my athletes ever from a mark in a meet and 99% of if I do move them it’s back.  I have switched the starting foot when it’s a clear straddle of the board and there are no stutter steps and someone else did their meet mark (likely marked the wrong foot on a runback, and again this is only with brand spanking new athletes).

Mostly though when looking at the board as a coach I am videotaping and typically that’s mostly with newer and inexperienced athletes and what I am ultimately trying to see is everything in the last ground contact to takeoff and figuring out a cue and feedback system/process they understand to break them of stutterring or reaching on the last step which are reflexes relating to improper guidance and inefficient mechanical output for performance.  Don’t get me wrong, those videotaping sessions are all part of back tracking process to find the source of the problem and correct the first error.  Fouling is a symptom of some other error and/or symptom which is done repeatedly till you get back to the source.  Often it’s a maturing or inconsistent stride pattern in the semi-experienced jumper and it is almost always the case with an inexperienced jumper or athlete whose stride pattern will mature almost daily with a rather markedly less developed guidance system. 

With the female athlete in question, it’s likely an inconsistent stride pattern because of inadequate warmup or it’s a newer more mature stride pattern that is faster than she’s used too and her guidance system hasn’t caught up yet.  There are long term planning solutions to this problem with developing athletes that can be taken care of throughout a season.  I can tell you one thing, if this ever happens with my athletes, at their next jump practice we move the approach back one stride (2 steps) and it’s happened only 2x in my short career and if they are jumping close to or better than previous practices/meets we stick with it.