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High Jump Developing an awareness of the Arch
Body awareness in the
air is not always an intuitive talent. Many new jumpers have only
a raw sense of where the bar is, and do not have any early facility
in arching over it, or maintaining a layout position long enough
for a clearance. This feel for where the cross bar is, is often
delayed by the beginning jumper discomfort at being in the layout
position to begin with. This initial paranoia about being backwards
and not seeing the mat (which some new jumpers swear is as disconcerting
as being upside down) often leads the rookie jumpers to do the single
greatest in-air mistake: bringing the chin down to the chest to
get a “head's up” orientation in the air.
Of course, what this
does is bring the hips down so that the rear end smacks the bar,
or if done slightly later in the jump, brings the calves and heels
into the bar. In any case, the arch is broken, the center of gravity
is lowered, there is no clearance, and we have low jumpers, not
high jumpers. What can we do to get beginning, rookie, new, or even
fairly season jumpers to keep the shoulders back and down to keep
the hips up while over the bar?
For most of these jumpers,
it does little good to tell them to just “keep the head back.” They
have precious little orientation awareness anyway, and tilting the
head straight back is not going to help that right off. What I ask
the jumpers to do is to tuck the chin into the lead shoulder and
look down at the mat. To give them focus, I put a dollar bill on
the mat about in the middle of the end mat, and ask them to grab
it with their lead arm as they land.
This accomplishes several
things, really. The head stays back, albeit to one side, and the
lead arm is used to guide the upper body back down to the mat The
jumper is able to maintain an arch longer, and also keep a “safe”
visual spatial awareness of the mat. An additional benefit is that
the athlete then gets comfortable with landing on the upper back
in the pit, with the legs almost directly above. and finally, the
jumper is intent on reaching into the pit and so does not “hang”
above the bar only to land on it but drives into the pit after that
dollar.
Flexibility is a key
factor here, as increased flexibility leads to better in-air motions
and the possibility for more complete arches and therefore higher
centers of gravity. Box jumps (standing jumps onto the pad over
a lower bar from a box) also increase in-air confidence and arch/landing
awareness.
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