Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

Novice - 30 June 2008 07:41 PM

The “pull” in Randy ala Powell is in reference to pulling the free leg through a.k.a swinging the free leg through agressively.

Is it???

With some of the talk about differences in Russian jumping technique, I thought I would add some of the thoughts of Anatoly Golubtsov, from the book ‘The Preparation of High Class Sportsmen in Horizontal Jumps.’  Golubtsov, a Ukrainian and former USSR coach, has worked with numerous world class jumpers such as Inessa Kravets and Francoise M’Bango.  These are my interpretations of what he is trying to get across, Russian translations can be difficult to interpret.

- Do not attempt to drive the foot into the ground actively, it takes place at the expense of gravity and the elasticity of the muscles.  Any additional operations will decrease the reactivity of the muscles and decrease the speed of movement

- The accent on powerful takeoff is the limiting factor at the end of the run-up, it results in a loss of speed before takeoff and negatively influences the result of the jump

- Before the pushing (takeoff) leg ground contact, the free leg is bending with a swing upwards and forwards.  The quickness of the takeoff depends on the speed and movement direction of the free leg.  The swing leg is considerable bent at the knee.  This increases the speed of movement and provides a fast takeout of the hip up and forwards

- The takeoff leg is like a bar contacting on the whole foot and rolling on the full foot.  Concentrate on simultaneous full-foot contact, rolling over the foot.

- There is no need to put any special emphasis on takeoff angle.  This cannot be constant, it changes for the same athlete depending on his/her physical and mental condition.

- Most important is skill of the run and then transfer it slightly into the jump, there is no need to waste time training far fetched techniques

-If all phases of the jump are carried out properly, the imperceptible transition of run-up into the jump without accentuated repulsing and visible exertion is reached.  This is a sign of great skill.

- In a correct takeoff the jumper should feel fast moving forward as though there is an additional increase in speed.  The faster the bending of the free leg, the stronger and faster the resulting action.  The immediate stop of the free leg and arms decreases the moment of inertia in the takeoff leg, this decreases the load on the muscles

Regarding the emphasis on the upwards swing of the free leg, I’ve read similar comments from Igor Ter-Ovanesyan who had said that ‘the jumper should focus on the loose, upward drive generated by the swing of the free leg.’  He also says that concentration on the act of planting the takeoff leg on the board makes the last strides slow.’

When I think of these descriptions, within the current jumpers, I think Kotova who has very little lowering in her penultimate, in fact it’s hard to tell when her takeoff is even coming.  Chistyakova was also quite similar.

So at least these two Russians don’t place much of an emphasis on lowering in the penultimate or pulling on the board, just carrying speed through the takeoff and a big swing of the free leg to get lift.  The Russian women are ridiculously strong in the long jump nowadays with 6 of the top 10 in the world.  The men not so much.  Is it possible this style is more suitable to women, especially lightly built women like the majority of the Russian jumpers?

I’ll write more when I have more time but at the clinic my company put on today, Tom Tellez spoke at length AGAINST pulling back at the board. In fact, it was the focal point of his presentation on long jump takeoff mechanics.

Mike Young - 01 July 2008 09:32 PM

I’ll write more when I have more time but at the clinic my company put on today, Tom Tellez spoke at length AGAINST pulling back at the board. In fact, it was the focal point of his presentation on long jump takeoff mechanics.

It would have been interesting if he talked about what happened to Phillips.

Well, USA should dual it out against Europe and then figure out who in relative terms in regards to the speed/ distance ratio jumps further.

I’m not familiar with the cue Push-Pull-Plant.  Could someone who is familiar with Randy Huntington or Mike Powell explain what you are trying to push, pull and plant?

im not familiar with either, but from this i’m taking away, PUSH with the penultimate, PULL with the take off leg down and back and PLANT the take off leg continuing in a down and backwards motion…

Do you think that is also important to emphasize backwards arm swing of the non take-take-off-leg side?

I have a new thought about this issue, an analogy to running: when you sprint at full speed you don´t think about pushing, you fucus on your knees or anything that moves forwards in your body. Triple extension should follow. The backwards push at full speed happens too fast and when you try to push you run slower. Normally any kind of backwards leg movement cue is avoided while sprinting, isn´t it?  When you are running that fast thinking about something or trying to force something also slows you down. When you are trying to reduce ground contact times it isn´t really that helpful to cue on something that at high speed sprinting is known that slows one down.

Then, why should someone try to follow a cue that would contradict any other type of cues given for high speed sprinting? Why wouldn´t one just focus on the free leg swing, which is analog to the perception of full speed sprinting?

You can get extra momentum from this and a greater rom (see the original philips images posted by crazyhops). Then this would help a lot on those athletes who aren´t able to extend completely from the take off and who are cued to open up in the air like a scissor or sthg like that through more jump power or on those who are rushing the mid air technique since they would be forced to fully move their limbs arround.

I just did a little experiment at home to prove this jumping cue, I encourage other people to do this since it´s really easy to do: go to a stair and jump up / forwards to land some steps above. Try first to do this while conciously pushing with your take off leg. Then try to do this just moving your non take off leg powerfully forwards / upwards. When did you fly the best?

I came to this idea after watching the long jump in the OT´s decathlon. Pappas, who looks like a bulldozer, won that event. His free leg swing was tremendous in comparison with clay, who seemed to rush everything.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mhcX7RXBNYE

Saladino´s 873 jump and big foul also show a tremendous degree of forward kick in comparison whith his other less successful jumps.

Jump extension should be the sprinting triple extension, thus arm movements play a role here, like happens in sprinting with the arms limiting stride length, just now I don´t know how.

This supports russian ideas posted above.

edit: standing on a mechanical wage, whenever I move my arms like in long jumping (jump leg arm forward like running and free leg arm backwards extended swing) the weight indicator moves first upwards. This is proportional to swing force, so the faster the swing and the greater the amplitude of the swing (specially the extended arm of the free leg) the greater the vertical force applied to the ground.

I believe the cue for top speed sprinting that some use that are considered “pushes” say to push up for flight time as opposed to pushing back.  I believe they use this cue because the flight time vs. ground time is something like 4 to 1.  Most pullers I think have reduced air time due to the foot striking slightly more in front of their body at contact.  When my kids sprint I do tell them to push up for flight time and be bouncy down the runway or track.  I may be wrong.  Once again I am not sure if there is a right or wrong way.  People have been very successful with pulling and very successful with pushing.  Just like all sports there are different ways to skin the cat.  As long as you believe in your system and know it very well you will have success.

A little thing that we haven´t discussed yet is the case of those jumpers who accelerate through the table and are faster at take off than on the runup. I coulnd´t find the numbers now but they are somewhere on the net.

I believe Tomlinson was a case.

Someone posted this in the sprint start mechanics thread but it was wonderful regarding this issue. Extensive interviews with Tellez and Schexnayder:

http://www.athleticscoaching.ca/default.aspx?pid=11&spid=82&sspid=103

I have just listened the first ten minutes of Schex´s interview and he says a lot. A must.

wow..totally awesome dude..

never heard those before…just listened to Boo’s interview…the interviewer said, “oh wow” after everything Boo said…hahahah, i think he was having a good time while listening to him…lol…sorry.

anyway, real cool stuff…boo never jumps full approach in practice he was saying…and he also moves short approach jumps back throughout prep closer to competitions…good stuff…

He doesnt believe in long bounding exercises…this is one fundermental difference between him and the cubans/ europeans…

From Boo´s interview: (Sorry if it is a little bit cryptical, notes taken while hearing)

Recomends Bompa´s periodization book.
early career: block system (3 week system + 1 rest)
late career: rotational scheme, 1 week tech, etc.  (dind´t get this right)
develop speed, power, elasticity / develop other skills secondarily
trains speed earlier, heavy bounding after
very fast accels, then max v, finally speed endurance (!!) due to motor habilities development (hold positions, etc.)
jumpers have to deal with impact, absolut strength helps on that
special strength: not that necessary, jump training is more general
plyos: first low intensity bounding , later depht jumps and bounding for power, peak of intensity just at the beg. of the competitive season
avoids long bounding (not specific), md distance perhaps for rythm in the triple jump
periodization: self developed, simple progression, contrast med ball with more intensive, etc. (usual)
elite athletes: fairly intense to very intense, less developed easy to intense

john moffit hadnt had a competition in six weeks before medalling in athens > high training intensities
jumpers who compete more arent unable to get as much quality training
high intensity, low volume towards competition phase

three week block in competition phase
mon: accel (though), bounds, o lifts + squat
tu: short run jumping + circuit
wed: runway rehearsal (hard) + sprint dev + vertical bounding / depht
th: tech + circuit
fri: like monday
sat: speed endurance

Long jump:

center mass moving beyond pen step > continued displacement
the penultimate is the vertical input
there has to be a penultimate
there has to be a tradeoff speed loss > penultimate
lower towards the board (forwards and downwards) > lowpoint on the board, with rise after board
pro´s are able to lower more than developing athletes, not that developing athletes should not lower much
low heel recovery last step of the take off foot
the horizontal component on the last step
hips moving forward
keep your feet underneath
accelerate through take off is good take off

teaches hitch / hang and goes from that base
extend free leg in front of body
preparation for landing on peak of flight
arm sweep for good landing, torso upright and not tucked, reaching for toes accelerates forwards rotation

Triple jump:

free leg swing, low recovery
passive jump leg
no penultimate or very very little
out - up - up
anterior pelvic tilt during phases causing trouble
long hop and short step not necesarily due to big hop but to bad midair leg change
double arm > more power , but tries to stick to the athletes own techniques

Approach:

try to look as little as possible
constant rythm
some athletes have stability issues
good vertical forces sprinting > good pelvic alignement  
he wants a vertical component on the last steps, minimizing forwards push
constant fouling arround some centimeters (crazyhops your case!!) is due to posture > body instability reflex
good stability solves fouling issues

he jumps all year round
1/3 to 2/3 of max approach length during practice

Given that he doesn´t speak about a push / pull clue and that he says the penultimate inserts the vertical component of the jump and that you should maximize forwards momentum in the last step I asume he wants his athletes to run off the board.

great work my friend..i was just about to do this myself…

yes i listened to fouling part at least 10000000000000 times…(Mike can you see this in my case, fouling because of my posture? ? ? 

also, he never jumps full approach in practice ? This contradicts his book? mike, any thoughts?