Triple Jump run-up

donothoponpop

I used to triple-jump (underage Dublin Champ in my day), and will be coaching a few lads who do LJ soon. They stride in their run-up, end with a sprint, and take-off. But a couple of them will be more suited to TJ, which needs a more controlled run-up. I used to hit the board with no more than 90% speed, and hold back on the first hop, control the step with a view to giving it everything in the jump. This was a while ago, I'm sure technique has moved on from the Jurassic era. I'd be grateful for any TJ technique tips I could pass on, thanks.

clubcard

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/triplejump/
seems like one of the more informative links.
Love watching Jonathon Edwards WR

donothoponpop

Thanks for the link.
I did a bit of googling, and quickly became aware I know nothing of arm technique, which is vital to maintaining momentum and control. There's a great pdf which analyizes one of Edwards jumps, just look at the control in how he uses his arms!

ecoli

donothoponpop wrote: »

Thanks for the link.
I did a bit of googling, and quickly became aware I know nothing of arm technique, which is vital to maintaining momentum and control. There's a great pdf which analyizes one of Edwards jumps, just look at the control in how he uses his arms!

Also regarding hitting the board the last stride this should'n be a reach as if you are reaching for the board you are not generating maximum power for lift. Also trying to get low as you hit the board. Think back to your school science days and Newtons 3rd law that every action has an opposite and equal reaction apply this and you see that without getting low you cannot generate the power to get height

With the landing aswell you should try to hit this in three phases;
1 - land
2 - squat
3 - flick feet

This ensures that the athlete maintains forward momentum during the jump and gains maximum distance.

Would be interested to know what kind of Winter training jumpers would do is it more sprinter based training for speed development or is it event specific and if so how is it maintained with minimum injury risk?

RoyMcC

Jumps aren't my speciality but I'm darned if I'm going to let a specialist T&F thread die so quickly. There was talk on here before of gathering together (on the Biki?) a body of expertise on various disciplines. TJ is just a case in point where d'pop's and ecoli's expertise just spins away down the plughole.

My observations from watching good coaches.

• As d'pop says, in LJ you need to be hitting the board at pretty much the top speed that you can convert into lift. Doing the same in TJ will leave you pretty much collapsing on the first landing
• Nonetheless speed needs to be worked on (Edwards was a very competitive 100m runner) and a lot of generic speedwork is done with the sprint groups
• The position of body, arms and landing foot is very important and technical - one of the reasons I stay away from it - other than teaching the basics to beginners. We need more coaches!
• Winter training as with the sprinters, but I'd say that, later in the winter cycle some emphasis on plyometric work to build leg strength would pay dividends.

Slightly OT I watched the indoor World Champs in Birmingham in 2003. I forget which Brit athlete retired on that occasion but the whole stadium was on its feet cheering him - as was Edwards whose TJ clock was ticking down - he was next to jump. At 3 seconds to go he realised that no one was going to stop the clock for him so he just set off and put in a lovely 17m+ jump. What a star he was.

donothoponpop

RoyMcC wrote: »

Jumps aren't my speciality but I'm darned if I'm going to let a specialist T&F thread die so quickly.

Attaboy. There's no kid I'm coaching, I made him up to push T&F threads (joking, he's a LJ'er from last year):D

RoyMcC wrote: »

There was talk on here before of gathering together (on the Biki?) a body of expertise on various disciplines. TJ is just a case in point where d'pop's and ecoli's expertise just spins away down the plughole.

The Biki is a great idea in theory, (as are stickies and FAQ's), unfortunetly they get very little traffic.

RoyMcC wrote: »

My observations from watching good coaches.

• As d'pop says, in LJ you need to be hitting the board at pretty much the top speed that you can convert into lift. Doing the same in TJ will leave you pretty much collapsing on the first landing
• Nonetheless speed needs to be worked on (Edwards was a very competitive 100m runner) and a lot of generic speedwork is done with the sprint groups
• The position of body, arms and landing foot is very important and technical - one of the reasons I stay away from it - other than teaching the basics to beginners. We need more coaches!
• Winter training as with the sprinters, but I'd say that, later in the winter cycle some emphasis on plyometric work to build leg strength would pay dividends.

It's a very technical discipline, and I used (have to be) very disciplined in how my body operated throughout the runway. Now that I'm doing m*r*th*ns, that discipline is shot to pieces, I need to get back doing some basic form technique drills I used to do. Training for the kids starts in Jan, so time to brush up on winter training and core strength work for them.

thirtyfoot

Don't know much about TJ but it's a wrecker of an event. To think the care required in introducing plyos and that is quite safe in comparison to TJ. I would say if you are to get a kid doing TJ get them slowly introduced to plyos. Very very slowly. Will post a link later that I find is excellent for intro to plyos. It's such a demanding event you need to be well conflditioned to even just train for it. Even at that when you do train I'd imagine you can only do a limited amount if efforts due to the effect on the body.

Using the approach to plyos that I follow, you shouldnt even attempt TJ unless you can do a one legged hop on grass and stick. If you can't stick then you won't have the control for the successive jumps. That's laymans now and purely based on my experience of plyos. From doing the TJ I do know you require massive strength to be able to control your landings when running at close to top speed. Edwards was legendry in the power lifts he could do. I remember Dickenson and Storey on BBC would always rattle on about it. So ensure your kid is strong enough to do the event, otherwise stick to the LJ for the time being.

RoyMcC

Yes I know you need to be cautious with the younger athletes. But in my (elementary) experience it's almost self-governing. A youngster will hop and will generally put in only a short little step phase, simply for the reason that they're not yet strong enough. It's wrong to urge them to lengthen the step phase until they're physically capable of doing it safely.

Again that's where good coaching comes in - not driving the kids too hard.

At least it's accepted now that younger girls can handle the event without damage, and they often out-perform the boys!

donothoponpop

Very good post thirtyfoot, that brought back floods of memories of how we used to train, which I had forgotten about. Basically, you practice speed doing drills on the track, this for your run-up. You start practicing the three phases from a standing start, and do this often until you understand how and why gravity and momentum operate. Next (I'm talking over a few weeks, not in one day), the same with a striding start, jumping with about 60-70% of power. Technique technique technique. This builds up to the big day, by which time you are ready to jump further than you have done before. Worked for me in the past. From what I remember, we were cautioned about the impact stresses on teenage bones, something I'll bear in mind with my young charge. When I was doing it, it was one of the last few events considered far too dangerous for women to do, their weaker hearts might explode on jumping impact or something (thankfully as Roy says those days are over!)

I'd be grateful for links to your plyos.

thirtyfoot

I recall one of the reasons young women were advised not to do the event was it affected their reproductive organs:eek:

True, Roymc and I suppose the distances and impacts they will be having won't too great so risk is probably not as bad as I say.

Great event though. Strange we are so poor at it here. There probably aren't any coaches, great one in the midlands though, has a few high jumpers too.

longjump67

Being x-country season I have not been on the boards website as it is not my area of interest, so was delighted that someone has posted a thread on something I know a little about.

I am a level 2 coach specialising in the long & triple jump, have had over the last 5 years 6 athletes that have medaled at Irish underage championships including 2 Irish champions (1 in long and 1 in triple).

First of all I want to wish you every success in coaching, secondly in identifying that some of your athletes might be better suited to the triple rather than the long.

I don't know the ages of the athletes that you have and as other posts have rightly pointed out age and strength are very important factors in triple jump. My rule is I do not coach triple jump to athletes under 16 for there phsyical development hasn't reached a sufficient level to teach athletes safely, however there are athletes that are more advance than others so I would leave it up to each coach to make an informed opinion for the good of the athlete concerned.

At the moment my group are just coming up to there last week of base training and will be taking a rest week in which I will be doing evaluation tests to determine which event they my be best suited. In 4 or 5 of the athletes I have this is already known as they have been in competition for a few years and have settled on the events they like and are competent in. I expect that I will have around 6 athletes that will be training for long but don't really see any triple jumpers this year. Have a group of around 40 athletes of which 15 or so are new to T&F, 10 are in there 2nd or 3rd season and the rest are what i call social athletes, kids that as yet not engaged in competitive athletics are there because of friendships or just want to keep fit etc....

After evaluation the group will be divided into 3 groups sprinters/jumpers, throws and middle-distance, with myself and another coach taking the sprinter/jumpers. The age range that I will be dealing with are from 12 - 16 so thats why I would have any triple jumpers this year.

As stated by other posters we train the sprinters and jumpers together, the training involves at least 1 circuit session (including core exercises), speed endurance session (ranging from m to 300m in winter training), 1 pl-yo session ( including hurdle drills) and when getting closer to competition phase speed work ( flying 20's, 6x40m etc...), training at least 3 times per week with older more experienced athletes 5 times per week.

I find as you rightly pointed out that most athletes tend to put in a small step phase in there triple, what i use when teaching beginners is to place tape at equal distance apart to teach better rhythm, standing triple about 2.50m apart increasing in distance over time until athlete is comfortable with there technique, I then introduce small plastic hurdles they are about 30cm high and are easily knocked down but with no injury to the athlete.
The main issues with beginners is trying to contain the height off the board so that the athlete carry's forward momentum into the following phases, the technique i mentioned above should help when moving onto introducing the run-up into training. Start with 3 or 5 stride run-ups concentrating on flatting out the hop phase when comfortable move up to 7,9,11 etc....
With regards to arm technique I was always in favour of the double arm shift myself as I feel it has more benefits as regarding balance, however I have found that it is a very difficult movement to teach and have come to the realization that it is a personal preference as regards the athlete, whatever they fell more comfortable with is the best technique for them.

Sorry that is is a bit long winded and best of luck with your athletes this year and in the years to come.

ecoli

longjump67 wrote: »

At the moment my group are just coming up to there last week of base training and will be taking a rest week in which I will be doing evaluation tests to determine which event they my be best suited. In 4 or 5 of the athletes I have this is already known as they have been in competition for a few years and have settled on the events they like and are competent in. I expect that I will have around 6 athletes that will be training for long but don't really see any triple jumpers this year. Have a group of around 40 athletes of which 15 or so are new to T&F, 10 are in there 2nd or 3rd season and the rest are what i call social athletes, kids that as yet not engaged in competitive athletics are there because of friendships or just want to keep fit etc....

I have conducted alot of forms of evaluation for distance runners but dont have alot of experience with field eventers other than theory. Would be interested in what approaches you used for their evaluations. Would these be plyo evaluation tests or do you use other methods?

thirtyfoot

http://www.elitetrack.com/articles/read/2286/

Plyos - myths and misconceptions.

RoyMcC

ecoli wrote: »

I have conducted alot of forms of evaluation for distance runners but dont have alot of experience with field eventers other than theory. Would be interested in what approaches you used for their evaluations. Would these be plyo evaluation tests or do you use other methods?

I find simply that either an athlete is good at throwing or they're not. And even if they are it's often difficult to persuade them to train at it - it's often a cold and lonely business in the British Isles.

Conversley I've been able to successfully convert one or two less successful track runners to throws in the past.

longjump67

ecoli wrote: »

I have conducted alot of forms of evaluation for distance runners but dont have alot of experience with field eventers other than theory. Would be interested in what approaches you used for their evaluations. Would these be plyo evaluation tests or do you use other methods?

A good overall evaluation test for most T&F events

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/talent.htm

For jumpers

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/jumpsdec.htm

hope this helps

notsofast

Great thread for the time of year.

I bought a book on the interweb a while back called "Track & Field coache's survival guide" by Edward L. Wallace Jr. It has a chapter for every event (including TJ) , tips, techniques, training schedules etc. I find it very useful and recommend it for anyone coaching T&F.

RoyMcC

notsofast wrote: »

Great thread for the time of year.

I bought a book on the interweb a while back called "Track & Field coache's survival guide" by Edward L. Wallace Jr. It has a chapter for every event (including TJ) , tips, techniques, training schedules etc. I find it very useful and recommend it for anyone coaching T&F.

Pricey mind, showing at GBP37.04 on Amazon. There are a shortage of good T&F training guides, mainly I suppose because there's no money in it.

The old British Athletics Federation (pre. UK Athletics) used to issue booklets on each individual event written by top coaches. A crying shame that they were discontinued.

ecoli

RoyMcC wrote: »

Pricey mind, showing at GBP37.04 on Amazon. There are a shortage of good T&F training guides, mainly I suppose because there's no money in it.

The old British Athletics Federation (pre. UK Athletics) used to issue booklets on each individual event written by top coaches. A crying shame that they were discontinued.

Wonder is there anywhere to pick up old copies?

RoyMcC

ecoli wrote: »

Wonder is there anywhere to pick up old copies?

Reviving old thread, I'm pleased to say that some of these old BAF instruction manuals are still in print. Written by some stellar coaches like Frank Dick, John Trower, Max Jones and Bruce Longden. Here's the link http://www.ukathleticsbookcentre.co.uk/ and go to Official Publications.