High Jump practice

Bottoms Up! Sit on the ground with your legs straight out in front of you. Swing your arms, anyway you choose, one at a time, and try to lift your bottom off of the ground without touching the ground with your hands or bending your knees. Can't do it can you? Now, pull both arms behind your body, elbows bent at ninety degrees. Keeping them bent, swing your arms in front of your body and stop them abruptly when your triceps are parallel to the ground. Wow, now your seat is not longer on the ground is it? This simulates the double arm block at the takeoff point in the high jump. This is the one of the best and first high jump drill that beginning jumpers should learn and practice every day.

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Back to Basics Back it up! Back overs have jumpers stand with heels about eight inches from the edge of the pit. Have them drive and block their arms while jumping off of two feet. Teach dropping the head back to look at someone standing off of the back side of the pit, not jumping into the pit. Athletes should never be thinking about getting into the pit. Dropping the head will lift the hips to clear the bar.

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Keep Your Eye On the Black Box: Intro to Visualization Visualization is an important element of jumping events. The athletes must be able to tune out distractions and crowd noise and almost think themselves over the bar. A visualization technique for beginners that has been used by some high jumpers and other track and field athletes is to stare at a piece of paper with a black box in the center for about 2 minutes. Then look away from the paper at a blank wall and you should see the reverse; a white box on a dark background. The purpose of this drill is

to learn to focus your attention. Future tips on this site will address more advance visualization drills.

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"Lean Away!" One of the more difficult, yet most important sections of the high jump for most athletes to nail down is the coordination of the last three steps. In the last three steps of the high jump, the athlete's body should be leaning away from the bar. If a coach were to take a picture of the body position on the very last step, a line should be able to be drawn from the top of the head, down the length of the spine and continuing down the takeoff leg to the ground. This away position allow the jumper to convert vertical speed to horizontal speed with enough space to help the hips, the center of mass, fly on a parabola over the top of the bar and not into the bar. Top help athletes get comfortable in this position at a fast yet controlled speed, have them practice running twelve foot diameter circles around cones.

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Watch Where You are Going Your head and your eyes will dictate what your hips do. If you are looking down at your feet or your steps, you certainly won't jump up in the air. If you are looking at the bar when you jump, you will run right into it. A high jumpers gaze should shift over the course of the approach and then the jump. It should start at the near standard. When the jumper begins the curve of the J-run, their sight line should move with their shoulders and hips toward the middle of the bar, and as they get closer to the bar and their hips and should are turning more perpendicular to the bar, they should be seeing the far standard. At the point of takeoff, the gaze of the high jumper should be parallel to the bar, not looking at any of the high jump apparatus but at something that could be along the line of the bar about twenty feet away. After the take off the high jumper should lean

their head slightly back and try to look at something on the opposite side of the pit from the middle of the bar.

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Use Your Arms! The last three steps are the most difficult for the body, and even more difficult to coordinate with the arms. On the penultimate step of the high jump, jumpers should have both arms back behind the body, elbows bent, in preparation for the drive and block at the same time as the takeoff. To teach this coordination to jumpers, teach them to walk ten steps, counting them aloud with a regular arm swing, and on the count of eight, hold the arm that is back behind the body, on the count of nine, the other arm comes back to meet it, and on ten, the final step, both arms come forward, driving the body up and off the ground. Have athletes repeat this sequence over and over, and then have them do it with a pop or tiny jump on the end to simulate the actual take off.

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Keep Your Eye On the Black Box: Intro to Visualization Visualization is an important element of jumping events. The athletes must be able to tune out distractions and crowd noise and almost think themselves over the bar. A visualization technique for beginners that has been used by some high jumpers and other track and field athletes is to stare at a piece of paper with a black box in the center for about 2 minutes. Then look away from the paper at a blank wall and you should see the reverse; a white box on a dark background. The purpose of this drill is to learn to focus your attention. Future tips on this site will address more advance visualization drills.

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High Jump Equipment Back in the 1940s, cotton was king. Though nylon and some other synthetics were on the scene, they werent in wide use for clothing and that was as true for track and field as it was for street clothes. Todays high jumper, though, usually wears synthetics mostly forms of nylon and polyester. Shoes have also evolved. Nylon uppers and synthetic soles werent in general use for footwear in the WW II era. Leather and canvas have now given way to nylon and other synthetics, which make for lighter, more breathable shoes. Manufacturers such as Nike and Adidas make shoes specifically for high jumping. Modern foams and air bags have made high jump pits a much more comfortable proposition and enabled the development of the flop style jump that now predominates in the sport. Early jumpers used the scissors style partly for selfpreservation. Landings could be hard. The use of glass composites and aluminum for crossbars is also a fairly modern innovation.

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Jump Training Suggested high jump training for beginning or intermediate jumpers: Day 1 - 8 x 50m on the track curve Day 2 - circle drills, back overs, 5-step scissors, 5-step jumps Day 3 - 10 minute run, 4 x 100m Day 4 - circle drills, back overs, 5-step hurdle drills, full approach jumps Day 5 - simulate competition jumping with bar Day 6/7 - 4 step jumps off of a box or ramp, full approach runs with no jumps

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Pick 'em Right How do I recognize an athlete that could be a good high jumper? High jump coaching is a very technical job. The tallest or thinnest athletes may not be the best selection to compete in the high jump. Your most #156;coach-able athletes, those who well aware of their bodies and can respond to technique instruction, and athletes who are coordinated and have the best control over their limbs are the athletes you want to teach the high jump. High jumpers are runners first, technicians second, and jumpers third.

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Jumpers are Runners High jump training should consist of running short sprint distances and longer distances with lengthened strides, explosive strength and agility training, and weight lifting. High jumpers need to be strong, fast, and flexible, not necessary tall or thin, though height gives an advantage of course. Dynamic stretching will increase range of motion and strength in muscles that are in an elongated position. High jump training can be worked into practices three times a week including any meet days, if the athlete competes in other running events.

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Start Small Some useful high jump drills for beginners and experienced jumpers: back overs from the ground and from a six inch box scissor kicks from five steps hurdle drills from five steps jumps a low height from five or six steps

Practice warm-ups should mimic meet warm ups. Whatever sequence and combination of drills athletes do to prepare for practice jumping should be the same in type and duration as what they do for meets. Muscles have memory and you want to trigger the muscles that will tell your body to run, lean away, drive, block, and layout.

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Jump Right In Not so fast! Most student athletes want to literally jump right into the event when they join the high jump team. But before any athlete approaches the pit, they must first learn the proper high jump technique. The success of the high jump depends on consistency. How high and how well you jump depends almost entirely on what you do on the ground and very little on what you do in the air. High jump technique should be learned from the ground up and from the take off back.

High Jump Tips

Use the Right Shoes Too many jumpers are either jumping in regular track spikes or in spikeless basketball or running shoes. Using spikes, most jumpers can gain at least 6", if not 12" on their current best. THe reason being is that high jump is all about taking horizontal speed and turning it into vertical pop, and taking the angle of your body from the curve to flip you over the bar. Without a good set of high-jump shoes that have both toe and heel spikes, you not only lose the solid plant you need to transfer your running speed into vertial acceleration, but you also risk badly injuring your ankle and causing shin splints. New track shoes don't cost an arm an a let. DO an internet search for high jump shoes and try online stores like Eastbay to find an inexpensive pair. Usually, you can find a good set for about $25, the more you pay, the better quality and coomfort you can get, but the $25 pair will do the trick.

Save Your Legs During Warmup When you are warming up,don't take too many jumps. There is no need. When you do take jumps, make sure you are doing your full routine before each one including your pre-jump ritual. Treat it like a legitimate jump so that when it comes time to do the real thing, you are confident you can succeed. At most take 7 warm-up jumps, but try to keep it at 5 or less. If you can do with even less than that, do it. The more you jump, the more you are going to waste your energy.

If you need to get your legs warm, jog around the track and do some short, light sprints, but don't use jumps to get your muscles warm. Jumps take a lot out of your lets and body, energy that you will need once the competition begins.


Tip #1: The Long Approach Many high jumpers, especially those in high school, make the mistake of using a short approach! Within the first three steps of their approach they have already started their curve. Because it is hard to tell how fast you are accelerating and traveling during the curve, this leads to inconsistent jumps and poor performance. Start your approach about 25 feet behind where you do now. Run perpendicular to the bar and reach a comfortable speed before your begin your curve. This will let you glide through your curve at the perfect speed and focus on your jump, not your speed during your last two steps. The only reason you may want a shorter approach is if you are a decathlete in order to preserve energy. If you compete only two or three events, you will want to use a long approach. This will help you have greater speed, control, and pop when you arrive at the bar! Tip #2: Develop a Pre-Jump Ritual High jumping is like a golf swing, it is important to train your muscles to do the same thing because it can be a tough mental game (especially once the bar gets above your head). One thing that nearly all jumpers overlook is having a pre-jump ritual. A simply ritual like rocking back on your back foot or doing two skips to start your approach lets your body know you are high jumping again. It can help you get incredible consistent because your muscles will get used to the repetition. The opposite is true also, if you are stuck in a bad rut, try a new ritual to start your jump, it may be just the change your mind needs to get it out of some bad jumping habits you may have developed. Watch good high jumpers start their jumps, every single one (and I do mean EVERY SINGLE ONE) has a very specific ritual they perform before every jump without fail. High Jump Higher is a free resource to help jumpers of all abilities increase their personal bests and enjoy the sport of high jumping. For more info visit High Jump Higher.

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HIGH JUMP TIPS:

1) Visulization and Jumping A simple drill before high jumping is about visualization. If you take a piece of paper with a black dot on it and stare at it for a minute and look at a completly different blank surface, the blank object will the opposite and you will be seeing a black background with a white dot, this is good for focusing, such as where you stand and where your going to jump the bar, everything about the bar in general... Also if you pretend your reaching for an apple jumping over on your back, it could help. And when your jumping over the bar, try to not think about the bar, and you making it over. Get some steps, jump high, get that ark, and do good in some High Jumping! Submitted by: Cody from MI, USA Rated: 0 Times | Average Score: 0 | Rating Points: 0

2) dragon run very slow while jumping. see where the lowest and try to jump from there. Submitted by: subasis from kathmandu, Nepal Rated: 0 Times | Average Score: 0 | Rating Points: 0

3) dragon ball don't let your hip or leg touch the stick. after you have jumper immediately go out of the ring if you do that so even if the stick falls down you may not be disqualified.