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Anyone interested in a conversation about the dive straddle technique of high jumping? I might prefer to have it outside of this forum, but I'll take it where ever I can get it. So you are fully informed, my bias is that there may be some athletes who could high jump their best heights using this technique, but don't get the chance because they fail with the flop technique and give up high jumping despite tremendous jumping ability. I don't advocate this for everyone, just, perhaps, for some.

@Masonsfive
Matt Lydum
Instructor Jumps
School Director Youth Level 2 Program
2007 & 2009 World Youth Championship Coach
Fred Wilt Coaching Education Award Winner
Defiance College Assistant Track Coach and Professor
Author Coaching Youth Track & Field

Check out the USATF Level I Coaching School at Villanova on March 16-18. The gentleman above is one of the presenting clinicians. He may be able to shed some light on your flop vs. straddle questions. My understanding has always been that the flop allows an athlete to transfer horizontal speed into vertical lift. For a "slower" athelete who has plently of leaping ability, the straddle style may be preferable. If an athlete is explosive enough to leap however, the speed issue may be more biomechanical than innate.

Thank you for providing that information. I have been corresponding with a professor in the midwest about this, but Villanova is a bit closer. Again, thanks.

If an athlete is explosive enough to leap however, the speed issue may be more biomechanical than innate.

@rnicklas

As I am trying to unpack this last statement, I think you might be saying that the biomechanical issue of ones ability to execute a technique weighs more than ones innate proclivity to elevate, regardless of overall speed, and I would agree. I am, however, in paraphrasing like this, putting words in your mouth, which you may not have meant, particularly because your premise was that there is a direct relationship between speed and verticality. I might believe that a person could execute the straddle technique with a slower run up speed, regardless of whether the jumper is capable of a faster run up, but still would be most effective with the fastest possible run up.

@Masonsfive

Jumpers who "lack" speed to execute well in the flop may in fact have poor running mechanics. If they have explosive, fast twitch muscle tissue that allows them to leap, they should also have the innate ability to run fast. Doing sprint drills, plyometrics, and weight training may help correct poor running mechanics.

A further word on the flop, there are "speed" jumpers and "power" jumpers. Try to google Dwight Stones; he certainly could elaborate on these issues. He may have an e-mail address.

@Masonsfive
coachstones@sbcglobal.net
I found Dwight Stones' e-mail address. Give it a try.

Ok.It is worth a shot.

I hear there's a pill to aide ones proclivity to elevate, along with increasing ones verticality. (I think it's blue)

@Donbet
Funny thing. I took that pill and all it did was improve my vocabulary. Obviously it had a different effect on you.

@Donbet
I threw mine in the toilet; now I can't get the seat down!!

@rnicklas It's been more than 4 hours. You may need to contact your plumber if symptoms persist.

@Masonsfive I think this is something worth pursuing. I am not a coach, but I volunteered to coach the jumpers on Jr. High a while back, and I saw that a lot of them were just running into the bar backwards. The straddle allows you to LOOK at the bar when you are jumping, so the natural tendency is to want to jump UP rather because you can see where the bar is. I did some drills where I just had the kids do an approach run, plant, kick and jump up, then just land on their plant foot. The point was to reinforce the the idea of jumping UP. I actually put the bar up at maybe 6' 5", so the kids would try to get their heads up over the bar.

The biggest hurdle that I ran into in trying to teach this is getting buy-in from the other coaches and kids. All they know is the flop, and even if they can't flop, they kind of can't handle the idea of doing it a different way. My experience was a failure because our kids only jumped maybe twice a week, lots of them quit trying, and the best athlete learned to flop.

I myself was probably a good example of a person with good jumping ability by poor speed. I had an official best of 5'7" with the straddle, but was one of the slower guys on the team.

There are jumpers over 7" with straddle, and as a matter of fact there were other jumpers over 7' competing with Dick Fosbury when he won the Olympics. I read a while back that there was a guy still jumping that way very competitively in recent history, but obviously he's one of a few now.

In regard to the straddle technique:

The last world record jump with the straddle technique was Vladimir Yashtshenko's 2.34 metres (7 ft 8.25 in) in 1978. (The best result was 2.35 metres (7 ft 8.5 in) obtained in Milan at the 1978 European Athletics Indoor Championships).

I'll take 7' 8.5"!

In 1993, an American high jumper Steve Harkins brought back the Straddle style in the Master's [over-40] division to break the Master's World Record and then went on to beat a 'flopper' at the World Championships in Miyazaki Japan. Harkins used the 'head down first' style as did former Russian WR holder Valeri Brumel. With his 6'71⁄4" at the U.S. National Championships in Bozeman, Montana in March 1993, Harkins became the highest jumper ever in the Master's Division to have used the straddle style.

Steve Harkins graduated from Chichester in 1969 and went on to compete in T&F at the Naval Academy.

@JimDillner
I appreciate your willingness to consider different approaches when working with JH jumpers. I agree that it is a challenge to think inside a box that was long ago discarded, but between your post and the next post after you it is apparent that 7' high jumping is possible with the straddle technique. It is not an easy accomplishment with either technique, but the straddle has not been taught or coached since the advent of newer surfaces and pits, plyometric training, etc. I have a powerpoint called "The Evolution of High Jumping Technique: Biomechanical Analysis" (2002)that illustrates very clearly some of the advantages of both techniques. I found it on the web at this link:www.indiana.edu/~sportbm/p391-presentations/hjevo-isbs.ppt

@rnicklas
I think most coaches and jumpers would find 2.35 meters (7' 8.5") more than acceptable. That remains only 4" below the current world record, and still could win some elite competitions 34 years later. I think a lot of HS coaches would like consistent 6' - 6' 6" high jumpers, and too few are being found and not through lack of good coaching and training. Even if only a few powerful jumpers are eliminated due to inability to master the only technique taught, shouldn't a "less effective" technique be considered in those few cases?
Could Yashtshenko have jumped 8' if he had mastered the flop? He died several years ago, so we can't really ask him. Maybe the bigger question is whether Harkins would have even cleared 6' if he felt limited to the flop...

The advent of newer surfaces and pits should be a blessing to straddle jumpers! The first picture shows a pretty decent pit from Scotland School, but whatever was under that tarp may have been a collection of random inner tubes, foam rubber and whatever. The second set of pictures shows a sawdust pit (Boiling Springs?). Can you imagine having your body horizontal five feet off the ground, and rotating over the bar to land on a pile of wet sawdust (it was always wet) six inches thick! It knocked the wind out of me, and actually messed up what was pretty decent straddle form in the first year I did that.

With pits that most high schools have now being about three feet of foam, a jumper is only falling a short distance and landing on a decent cushion. So the "fear factor" is greatly reduced.

I did look at your power point, and it makes sense. I'm not sure I agree that learning straddle is harder than Fosbury. I still can't figure out Fosbury... With straddle you can set the bar very low and get the concept before moving the bar up. It's just kick, pause, roll, and fall. I learned it myself with no coaching.

I really hope that you can get the authority and the buy-in from the athletes to do this. I really think it would be great to see some kids having success with it!