[grprahl]

grprahl on April 20, 2009 at 5:37 am #15632

I’m in my senior year in high school. Have jumped 6’4 about 5 times. Have long jumped over 21′ twice (both indoor this winter) and TJ’d 42’8.

I’d really like to place at state in all three (last year placed 3rd in HJ). I’d like to win state in the HJ.

As for the videos, the first one is this spring. It’s a USATF meet. Since we have no indoor season, I wasn’t able to practice for this meet, (only train…weights, weekend bball, and sports acceleration treadmills). I still managed two PR’s in horizontal jumps and tied HJ PR of 6’4 (although closest ever attempt to 6’6).

Second video is the most recent meet (last Tuesday). It was fairly cold and the HJ comp took about 3 hours. After I won at 6′ I took a couple attempts at 6’5 for an outright school record. Legs were a little cold and stiff, but crowd adrenaline balanced it out.

As for the long jump, what would you suggest? One big thing that pops out to me is the double arm drive (probably should fix that) and also landing (I’m leaning back and streching legs out instead of leaning forward and putting arms back). Also any comments on takeoff mechanics would be appreciated.

TJ needs a lot of form work I’m sure. I never seem to get anything out of the last phase and it always feels like I’m pounding instead of springing down the track.

HJ main thing appears to be rotation over bar. I have plenty of rotation at lower heights(like 5’8), but once I get up there my head’s barely getting horizontal with my knees over the bar. I see a lot of good jumpers with their heads well below the level of the bar by the time they kick. How should I fix my approach to fix that? Looking at elite jumpers, they all seem to have more approach speed. If I move my mark back and increase approach speed (also by effect moving takeoff mark further from bar and lengthening parabola), will it give me greater angular momentum at takeoff and better rotation?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I don’t have as much time devoted to work on the jumps this year. I’m doing decathlon next year so most of my practice time is being devoted to other events that I need to learn (hurdles, sprints, pv).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCTgFmk8thA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pp4xqClpOLk

[aivala]

aivala on April 20, 2009 at 6:40 am #81864

In the HJ you will get the extra rotation by planting further away in front of your COM and coming in faster, your form looks pretty nice, and more considering you didn’t do tech work. In the second video I had the impression you were taking off too close to the bar, so perhaps thats why you feel you lack rotation over the bar.

Watching the way the bar falls will also help to know if you are taking off close or on the ideal spot.

Regarding the LJ you mentioned the most obvious issues, take off looked nice. You can get lots of improvement by working on sprinting mechanics, I had the impression you were cutting your stride short.

[aivala]

aivala on April 20, 2009 at 6:49 am #81865

I am looking at the first vid in slow mo and your attempts at 6-6 looked fine, the bar fell fine vertically so you may lack power to get that high at this point of the year. With more practice you should be clearing it with no problems at all.

I believe that in the TJ you seemed to transition from the hop to the step with a butt out posture, that will make the bound very very hard. You should also use your arms for the landing.

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on April 20, 2009 at 11:49 am #81881

TJ – You have 2-3′ in you:

1) Your run-up, as commented by others – is a little tight, and you might even consider lengthening it a bit to give you more time to build speed. You seem like you don’t leaver yourself quite enough time to get moving, causing you to hit the board tight. Based on your HJ, you are plenty strong, so a little longer (and more importantly, FASTER) run will give you chance to use that strength.

2) Your step phase – You are not being active with your landing foot (transitioning into the jump). You are just letting the ground come to you, causing you to have to really power into phase 3, which makes you spend too much time on the ground, thus shortening the jump phase.

LJ – Yeah, the 2 arm take-off hurts speed, though you really use a nice penultimate rhythm.

HJ – Looked smooth. You’ve got 6’8″. Will just be more tech work. You are comfortable with a slow run and more of a power jump, so don’t lose that. (This also means you’ll hit that final stride a little bit longer than speed jumpers). I would just get lots of jump reps. You look a little tight too (on run and jump) so maybe flexibility work is in order?? (That is just a passing comment, though, not certain if it has any merit).

[K Rackley]

K Rackley on April 20, 2009 at 12:06 pm #81886

What’s your vertical and broad jump?

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 20, 2009 at 12:47 pm #81889

What’s your vertical and broad jump?

Standing vertical’s about 29-30″ Broad jump I’m not exactly sure. Maybe 9′. Haven’t tested it in a while. But here’s some other test marks if it helps:
Squat- 330, Powerclean- 260, Bench- 235, 40yd- 4.7 (hand time on grass). 100R split- 11.3

I believe that in the TJ you seemed to transition from the hop to the step with a butt out posture

Could you please explain this more. I’m not exactly understanding it yet.

Your step phase – You are not being active with your landing foot (transitioning into the jump). You are just letting the ground come to you, causing you to have to really power into phase 3, which makes you spend too much time on the ground, thus shortening the jump phase.

Okay, that makes sense.

I had the impression you were cutting your stride short.

Your run-up, as commented by others – is a little tight, and you might even consider lengthening it a bit to give you more time to build speed.

I had actually planned on adding length to the approach throughout the season. I planned on starting with 15 strides, then moving to 17 and eventually 19. Although, I’m not quite sure by what it means by saying I’m running “tight”. Does this mean that I’m not using a full range of motion? Or that I’m holding back somewhat? I will admit, after those first drive phase of the approach I just get into a little groove and focus on the jump ahead, not necessarily on sprinting as fast as possible. I have been told by plenty of coaches and athletes that I have really good sprinting form, so perhaps it is that I’m holding back on the horizontal jumps’ approaches.

[aivala]

aivala on April 20, 2009 at 2:06 pm #81890

Butt out > your torso is tilted forwards, you have to keep a better posture while bounding.

At first I had the impression you were running squatty and lacked rom but now that I watch it more carefully it seems that your clothing made an interesting effect in combination with the quality of the video. It seems ok. I believe your stride lacked smoothness but a better video would be nice to see.

Don’t you have one with better resolution avaiable?

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 20, 2009 at 10:32 pm #81898

What I’m going to do is upload the videos of me running the approach again, as well as running a 100m, but in slow motion so it’s easier to analyze the form. Also, if you go to the actual youtube site to watch them, you can click on the “HQ” button to watch in higher quality.

[aivala]

aivala on April 21, 2009 at 3:07 am #81909

What I’m going to do is upload the videos of me running the approach again, as well as running a 100m, but in slow motion so it’s easier to analyze the form. Also, if you go to the actual youtube site to watch them, you can click on the “HQ” button to watch in higher quality.

I hadn’t seen the videos were aivaiable in HQ. I normally download the videos with keepvid.com and watch them frame by frame with media player classic or kinovea.

[Matt Norquist]

Matt Norquist on April 21, 2009 at 4:42 am #81916

What I mean by running tight is limited ROM in arms, and particularly front-end mechanics (Knee lift). Also seems that you’re running pretty flat footed. (Seeing it slowed down would be easier to tell, so these are just observations).

[johnstrang]

johnstrang on April 21, 2009 at 11:41 am #81933

In the high jump you plant your foot about parallel with the bar, try pointing it a little bit more toward the back right corner of the mat coupled with a good knee drive and your rotation will be fine. Like said above I don’t think much more speed will help you out right now, chances are you aren’t going to be able to control it into a good high jump. Also on some of the hj you have a tendency to sink your hips, try to avoid that and youll clear high bars very soon.

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 21, 2009 at 12:10 pm #81936

In the high jump you plant your foot about parallel with the bar, try pointing it a little bit more toward the back right corner of the mat coupled with a good knee drive and your rotation will be fine.

Foot direction is something that’s always been a stuggle for me since my feet are naturally pronated out a bit. I used to always run and walk toes out, but have been able to make it better. I think it’s something I should be able to really focus on now that I know the rest of the approach is fine.

BTW, by sinking hips I’m assuming you mean at take-off, usually coupled with a bent take-off leg? Or are you referring to letting them sink during bar clearance?

Also, thanks for defining the running mechanics, and here is the slow motion video of both the long jump approach and part of the relay I ran. I originally timed myself on video at about 11.6 but coach had the split at 10.9. The track had weird markings so it was hard to tell where the exchange zones were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIfTBqN2T88

[aivala]

aivala on April 21, 2009 at 12:28 pm #81939

you seem to run on your toes

[Nick Newman]

Nick Newman on April 21, 2009 at 12:43 pm #81940

Yeah on toes and squaty. You don’t fully complete any strides and don’t get nearly full force out of any ground contact.

Fix those things and you’ll improve greatly!

[johnstrang]

johnstrang on April 21, 2009 at 1:12 pm #81942

Yup, I meant on the take off. Your approach it sinks as well, but that goes with the running mechanics everyone has already been telling you about. Overall the approach looks good though just keep those hips up and try your best to have a better position with your foot when planting for take off and your gonna fly

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 21, 2009 at 10:50 pm #81963

Isn’t running on toes a good thing? Maybe I’m misinterpreting. Anyways, are there any good cues to fix this running posture? Or any articles I should take a look at? Like I said, coaches all thought I had good form so I’m not sure they’ll be able to help out as much.

[johnstrang]

johnstrang on April 22, 2009 at 12:37 am #81964

Isn’t running on toes a good thing? Maybe I’m misinterpreting. Anyways, are there any good cues to fix this running posture? Or any articles I should take a look at? Like I said, coaches all thought I had good form so I’m not sure they’ll be able to help out as much.

You want to run on the balls of your feet, so just below your toes. Good cue for you is that you need to run tall, you kind of run down with your knee bent. You want your hips up over your point of contact rather than behind, which is where it is right now. If you pause your lj video above at 13 sec and then compare it with this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Sg_kACPRM at 8 seconds you can see the difference.

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 22, 2009 at 11:49 am #81983

Thanks for all the replies. I can’t really work on the technique yet because my hamstrings are giving me some issues at the moment but I will most likely jump on thursday and try to employ some of the tips. Just another thing though… I’m assuming that I sink the hips during the phases of the triple jump as well as the running. If I can keep a taller posture during the ground contacts of the TJ, it should help significantly, right? I remember once hearing how Jonathon Edwards had a unique ability to stay tall through the jump.

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 24, 2009 at 10:40 pm #82264

Just had a meet last night and didn’t know if I’d be able to compete in the horizontals because of the strained hamstring on my jumping leg. I took one jump with triple focusing on a more active step, and hit 40′ which won on the only jump. Long jump I tried old approach first and hit 20’4, then added two steps to the approach and hit 20’9.5. I have a feeling I could have went longer in both if my legs were 100%. However, in the HJ, which should have been least affected by the hamstring, I only jumped 6′. I used the same approach and checkpoint, but seemed to stall and come down on the bar after having the height.

Here’s my question: Can approach speed be altered within the same approach? For instance, I know I was hitting the same checkpoint, but perhaps I was taking slower and longer strides to get to it; consequently, my curve strides would have followed the same pattern with a final horizontal speed less than what it was in the videos. If I were to quicken up the strides to the checkpoint, increasing horizonal velocity at the checkpoint, my curve strides would need to be quicker in order to hit the same take-off mark, and horizontal velocity would be maintained better? I realize that horizontal momentum needs to be converted to vertical velocity, but all of it can’t since then no one would ever make it to the pit. Do you think that when I come crashing down on the bar I need to slightly speed up my approach taking quicker strides?

[grprahl]

grprahl on April 24, 2009 at 10:55 pm #82265

The crossbar often bounces up and down on the standards
before falling to the ground. Two reasons why this
happens can be attributed to faults in the approach and
plant. The crossbar will leave the standards in this way
if the jumper loses speed at the takeoff, or if the jumper
takes off too far away from the crossbar. A third action
that will force the crossbar to bounce up and down is
caused by a technical flaw by the jumper in the air, hitting
the crossbar with the buttocks. The lack of continued arm swing as the jumper runs
through the turn will also force the athlete to lose speed.
The tendency of many high jumpers is to drop their arms
in the turn, to “gather” for the takeoff. It is imperative
that the jumper continue to accelerate through the turn,
which must be enhanced by arm drive.

Just read this off the articles portion. I don’t think the arm drive remained great. I remember using the arms to gather for the jump. I also may have spent too much time on the ground, partially do to pain in the knee from “jumper’s knee” and possibly partially due to thinking too much about staying tall through the hips.