Hey all,
Just wanted to other peoples views and experience to short approach jumps…
What do you put main emphasis on when doing them yourselves, coaching others etc…How much do you care about fouling? jumping far? correct technique etc?
Practice jumps…
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Participant -
Participant
So, Mike when were at LSU and you watch the guys there doing short approach, was fouling an issue? Did Boo care about it? or did they are only care when doing full approach run through practice?
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Participant
When we do practice jumps we usually jump from “wherever” and the jumps are almost never measured. If we do measure stuff, we just throw down a piece of tape for a pretend board, jump, then mark it in the sand and try to beat that mark on subsequent jumps.
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Participant
When we do practice jumps we usually jump from “wherever” and the jumps are almost never measured. If we do measure stuff, we just throw down a piece of tape for a pretend board, jump, then mark it in the sand and try to beat that mark on subsequent jumps.
I actually believe this is one of the best ways up until 8th or 9th grade to learn how jump.
As for Nick’s question. Right now, I wouldn’t be measuring any jumps except I wanted to do testing, but I would be hesitant on doing this with jumpers with a high level of competence unless they thoroughly understood they wouldn’t be close to competition distances and when they do hear the distance it won’t have any mental effects on them. I also believe it depends on the athlete and what you are looking for, this time of year I don’t expect the speed I would be looking for during competition, but I would be looking at acceleration(step pattern) and any associated guidance issues with an inconsistent approach. I would be doing a lot of videotaping with lots of marks on the track as reference points.
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Participant
I think it’s the best way up until about 16th grade 🙂 I subscribe to the Olfield quote of “why create demons at the board?” so we just ignore it and jump from whereever. That being said I also sometimes like having athletes start from varied starting marks and steer to a predetermined takeoff point.
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Participant
I think it’s the best way up until about 16th grade. I subscribe to the Olfield quote of “why create demons at the board?” so we just ignore it and jump from whereever. That being said I also sometimes like having athletes start from varied starting marks and steer to a predetermined takeoff point.
Sure it’s great for creating temporal-spatial awareness, but oversteering to the board is a huge problem in high school and age groupers of those ages because they haven’t developed a mildly consistent acceleration/approach pattern. By doing this you are creating demons at the board.
My reasoning for 8th-9th grade is visual tracking doesn’t become effective till about 10-12 years of age and therefore they use it to develop all the abilities involved with visual tracking skill while in a dynamic movement pattern.
Developing the visual tracking then develop a consistent acceleration pattern in the approach which you change when the athlete adapts and steering happens early on and not throughout the stride. I don’t want junior or seniors in high school focusing on hitting the board, but focusing on executing the entire event with competence and self-confidence.
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KeymasterNick and I just had a lengthy conversation about this.
To answer the questions, at LSU fouling wasn’t too much an issue but there was always a goal of getting on the board. Technical demands of approach, penultimate and takeoff mechanics came first and steering / hitting the board was a secondary goal. With that said though, there wasn’t anyone in my 4 years there who had a major issue with fouling (as Nick does). So what should the focus be, we’re currently focusing on getting on the board on every jump (and acknowledging that it will be VERY difficult to do so due to the practice variability I’ve been employing) while still having good mechanics. In general, the 2 issues go hand in hand but in Nick’s case, his mechanics are generally quite good and consistent…the problem is that he’s been ridiculously consistent at being 1″ over the board so we’re placing a big focus on getting on the board.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Nick and I just had a lengthy conversation about this.
To answer the questions, at LSU fouling wasn’t too much an issue but there was always a goal of getting on the board. Technical demands of approach, penultimate and takeoff mechanics came first and steering / hitting the board was a secondary goal. With that said though, there wasn’t anyone in my 4 years there who had a major issue with fouling (as Nick does). So what should the focus be, we’re currently focusing on getting on the board on every jump (and acknowledging that it will be VERY difficult to do so due to the practice variability I’ve been employing) while still having good mechanics. In general, the 2 issues go hand in hand but in Nick’s case, his mechanics are generally quite good and consistent…the problem is that he’s been ridiculously consistent at being 1″ over the board so we’re placing a big focus on getting on the board.
Mike:
Do you believe this 1″ problem has been learned and ingrained during his prior development? If so what do you believe are the causes?
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Keymaster
Mike:
Do you believe this 1″ problem has been learned and ingrained during his prior development? If so what do you believe are the causes?
He never looked at the board prior to the end of last year and he’s never practiced steering much. Also, he’s very competitive and naturally wants to get EVERY inch of the board AND pop the big jump at every meet. I think last year for the first half of the season it created some internal pressure to get the big mark. Nick could probably speak to this better than I could. He did the latter (jump big) quite a bit last year (5+ jumps over 7.65m) but they were always very slight fouls.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Keymaster
Wanted to add that we never measured practice jumps at LSU. I can’t recall once in 4 years. Athletes would compete amongst themselves to put the furthest mark in the sand but they were never measured.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
Mike:
Do you believe this 1″ problem has been learned and ingrained during his prior development? If so what do you believe are the causes?
I will also give my thoughts as well. I often think about this, why is this such as issue for me? I have never had a problem with anything sports/movement related in my life. I always been good at any sport ive played (basketball, cricket, martail arts, tennis, soccer, rugby etc). I have always learn’t skills quickly, i have alot of motor experience etc etc…
But why have i never been able to get this ONE THING right?? ? ? ?
Well, Honestly it doesnt make sense to me. All i can think is, i NEVER EVER even thought about looking at the board during my approach, not even peripherally (sp) until this season. So maybe i never gave my self a chance to steer and learn to steer and it was always hit and miss. During my slower days the hits were more often than the misses, but since ive gotten faster over the last 2 years, the misses happened about 85% of the time.
This year i am looking at the board up until the final stride, and so far it is helping but still its not perfect. I have to learn something ive never learnt before, the problem is, i have to learn while im relatively fast, which most kids dont have to do.
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Participant
I have a question about the, not ever measuring short approach jumps thing…
I have always been used to measuring what i thought to be the best jump during each practice session. Maybe put a marker after each jump, then measure the best one at the end of the session.
This was for a few reasons,
1 – as a performance indicator
2 – to show if you are ready for the new short approach distance in training
3 – to help with goal setting for up and coming meets etc…Without any measuring at all, how does the athlete know what he/she is ready for? or if they are ready for a longer approach in practice?
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Keymaster
I have a question about the, not ever measuring short approach jumps thing…
I have always been used to measuring what i thought to be the best jump during each practice session. Maybe put a marker after each jump, then measure the best one at the end of the session.
This was for a few reasons,
1 – as a performance indicator
2 – to show if you are ready for the new short approach distance in training
3 – to help with goal setting for up and coming meets etc…Without any measuring at all, how does the athlete know what he/she is ready for? or if they are ready for a longer approach in practice?
Part of it I’m sure was for logistical reasons but more so because of the belief that the training sessions are for technical development rather than measurements. If one is making a technical modification it’s probably reasonable to actually expect a performance decrement on the first 10, 20, 30? times that you make the technical modification that will eventually lead to bigger performance gains. So focusing on jump distance could misconstrue the focus. I don’t think measuring is a 100% no-go but I don’t think that measured distance of a jump is the sole or even primary goal of a practice session…especially for short approach work.
ELITETRACK Founder
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Participant
I have a question about the, not ever measuring short approach jumps thing…
I have always been used to measuring what i thought to be the best jump during each practice session. Maybe put a marker after each jump, then measure the best one at the end of the session.
This was for a few reasons,
1 – as a performance indicator
2 – to show if you are ready for the new short approach distance in training
3 – to help with goal setting for up and coming meets etc…Without any measuring at all, how does the athlete know what he/she is ready for? or if they are ready for a longer approach in practice?
If you train alone this is the only way you can create competition, but typically I only do this with kids on what I believe is a PR jump being done in practice to boost their confidence and these kids are beginning jumpers who are not very competent. I like the idea of competition without measurement this relates back to one of Vern’s blog postings a while. Although, I don’t see what Vern sees as a huge problem in it being overused. My athletes come to learn my stopwatch and measuring tape are tools for me to control the practice environment unless it’s a test day. IE rest/recovery and pace with the stopwatch and measuring approach/hurdle distance reference marks with the tape. Sometimes I do competitions were we keep records for practice activities, but mostly they are used in terms of competition for testing purposes like a 5 hop test, 5 bound test, 2 x 200/300m relay I use as a relay practice which is Special Endurance related.
As the season progresses your short approaches get longer as you get faster and more competent at hitting the board and this continues to happen your competence and self-confidence grows and you don’t think about the board, but think about the event in general and you know what’s going to happen and how it happens and exactly how you are going to execute the entire jump from start to finish before it even happens.
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Keymaster
One thing that Dan hints at, is that I actually like to hear the occasional practice marks from the athletes I train via correspondence. It’s one way of knowing how things are going.
ELITETRACK Founder
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