Living with no regrets: 11/05/06

Sunday, November 05, 2006

IPPT - Part 2 the Standing Broad Jump (Part 1)

Ok here is that Standing Broad Jump (Some call it standing Long jump) stuff many people have been asking for. Above are 6 shots capturing the important parts of the execution. This article is about technoque, the next one will be about training. It is VERY helpful to video yourself jumping. Every camera or handphone has a video function so no excuses.

There are 2 factors at work here,

1. strength/explosivness (whatever you want to call it in this case... i am just refering to being strong) - training this will be covered later.

2. technique (can also be called inter muscular coordination - coordination between muscles in the smooth execution of the movement) - This is what we will touch on in this article. BTW if you are not strong enough you can see it because you will not be able to perform the technique correctly.

Pic 1: Stand feet shoulder width apart, toes just behind line
Pic 2: Arms STRAIGHT UP and get onto tiptoes (this will feel unbalanced at first... practice)
Pic 3: This one is where i see the most problems (well there are many problems but this one is the biggest) - Many people like to sway here, back and forth, up and down... NO NO NO. From the arms overhead position, swing them DOWN - fast and hard! at the same time dropping into a half squat (butt back, whole body leaning forward as if you are sitting down on a chair but the entire posture is now leaning forward)
Pic 4: IMMEDIATELYafter hitting the bottom of the half squat Throw your arms up and extend your body fully like a spring (ankles, knees, hip all extend) - Look straight ahead or slightly upward, launch at about a 40 deg angle (most people launch at too low an angle) - arms are 15% of jumping power - yes! its true!
Pic 5/6: Swing your legs forward and prepare for landing.
Pic 7: Absorb the landing with a bending of knees

Why does this work? We are trying to use the "stretch shortening cycle" (spring effect) of throwing ourself down FAST and then IMMEDIATELY exploding up. Its WAY better than swinging back and forth. You dont make a spring boune high by gently playing with it. You make it bounce high by slapping it down and letting it rebound up fast!

If you are not strong enough you will know it because you will not be able to "reverse" direction quickly from pic 3 to pic 4 (not to mention you wont be able to explode up hard either). We will cover how to fix this in the next article.

Enjoy!