I think the potential increase in vertical velocity would be far out weighed by the inevitable decrease in horizontal velocity. high jumpers can use the technique as horizontal speed doesn’t necessarily correlate with performance. There’s also a few triple jumpers who use the gathering arms technique (olsson, wilson etc) but I think in their case they’re jumping far despite the technique not as a result of it and I’m pretty sure their coaches would have at some point tried to coach them out of it. Problem with using it in the horizontal jumps, especially long jump, is that setting before the board will result in a decrease in horizontal velocity at the crucial moment prior to take-off and could also leave the athlete’s body in a bad position. reckon it could possibly be beneficial off a really short approach though.
