While I think timing systems can be of great value I think timing the triple jump is a terrible idea for a couple reasons. One it’s inaccurate…it would be virtually impossible to put the gates in a location that would yield accurate and reliable data. On landing there will be a marked deceleration followed by an acceleration near toe-off. If the wand was placed slightly forward of this highly variable location, you would sometimes get splits that are faster (or slower) than reality. Also, with increased height comes some loss of velocity (and higher split times). If all you were trying to do was maximize speed it would actually come at the cost of total distance. Think about speed bounding vs. bounds for distance. Speed bounding is MUCH faster but you’re not covering as much ground with each step. So while I’m a HUGE advocate of maintaining horizontal velocity through the phases I’m not sure if this can be monitored accurately without a more thorough biomechanical analysis and I’m not sure if knowing the velocities during training is a good idea for most athletes since velocity in a jumping event is a ‘goldilocks’ variable….you don’t wan’t too much or too little…you want ‘just right.’
ELITETRACK Founder