Dr Hay's article you site was one of 2 cornerstones for my paper. But primarily for his tentative suggestion that supported my conclusion.
Mike may have some hard data, or Boo? but to my observation, reading, study, etc.
it is my opinion that US women and many men are lacking in proper carriage and free limb actions over the last 3 steps in ALL JUMPS save maybe PV.
They also appear to me to lack the strength to handle/re-direct the forces that their approach speeds generate. Being way up here so close to the Canadians, I can always make a Conscientious Objector / Run for the Border if someone takes offense to the next statements:
Its seems to me that (in general) we in the US are good at producing jumpers with great approach speeds. It also seems to me that we have some success? with creating "boneyards" filled with athletes that we made fast before they were strong and technically proficient enough to handle the speed. Or worse still are the horror stories one hears of programs that apply a Battan Deathmarch approach to training. That is where you bring kids in and run them / plyo them to death and the survivors benefit from the "That which does not kill me, only serves to make me stronger" super compensation effect. Not quite in the spirit of Bompa, and this unique training method usually is associated with a similar approach to the athlete's academic half-life at an institution.
We have an interesting situation here with, albeit a distance runner. Possibly the greatest distance talent to come out of a US HS? she has run only casually here for a number of reasons. She may or may not run at a high level again. But by not beating her up physio/psych wise, maybe she will get her legs under her again, so to speak. And from a holistic, career, lifetime view, isnt that the proper approach? To try and tie it back in, what is the prime jumping age for an athlete? And given this, what should be the training priorities along the way. I read recently, a euro jumping athlete's trashing of coming over to the US on scholarship for many of the reasons I sight above.
Or try this one. How successful has the US been in International Basketball as of late? Do we really believe that our little Air Mikes, are going to develop a foundation of skills when they play at say age 10, in a game where zone defenses dont teach man to man skills but simply "how to occupy space" and worse still is by employing a zone, there is no offense because the little skippers cant drive the lane packed with zone defenders and the little kids are too little to heave a 20 footer. I know, I am on a rant here so let me try and get back to the question at hand.
After a quick re-read of Hay's conclusions I am not sure I accept the suggestion that Todd quotes from Hay of
"…Later correlating measures of levers and limbs, they offer the following for achieving greater vertical velocities
1) CG of non-support leg and arm on support side low at t.d. and high at t.o."
The compromises required to create the positions suggested for the free limbs at touchdown are counter to the pre-eminent "need for speed' That is to say, if you dont bring horizontal energy to the touchdown, all the mechanics in the world wont save the attempt.
When you have a problem with the end result of a series of linked events, where do you fix it? My belief is you start as close to the begining as possible and or identify the specific error/breakdown and then look "frames" earlier to start the correction process.
Given this, I would offer that
"1) arrive at board w/ horizon vel close to average Oly finalist
2) lost less horizontal velocity during takeoff than avg finalist
3) took off w/ horizontal velocities above average"
is the good news
and that "…vertical velocities and angle
s of take off below average"
is not
I also agree in general with Todd's statement that "…1) When I watch- European jumpers on the runway seem to be more vertical in running and striking the track than do Americans"
and
"…than are we in the U.S. lacking the 1) strength to convert the horizontal components into vertical components "
I would say that I believe that one can never be "too fast" only unable to leverage the benefit of their speed. And I also would propose a serious review of the perscription of the "Hitch Kick" for women LJ jumpers as well as most men.
Note: Most everything above has an almost equal, across the board "cause/effect" relationship to HJ and TJ as well, taking into consideration the components that make each technique unique.
Our phone lines are open, lets have at it…