Just wondering if someone could suggest some drills to help teach a jumper to jump high off the board? My athlete currentyl has a problem getting uo in the air, however his vert is huge, thats not the problems, he just seems to have troubles thinking about jumping up. Basically its a flat trajectory.
Jumping high off the board should not really be the focus. Reason being, if you intentionally try to just focus on jumping high off the board athletes have a tendency to slam there foot down and try to smash the board which causes them to lose a bit of momentum. Rather than jumping high off the boards they should be running off the board. However, in you case since your athlete is not getting any air time i would suggest you take a look at his or her knee drive. Not getting enough knee drive may be the reason their jumps are flat.
Having been a long jumper this season, one drill which really worked well was putting a low box (maybe 6 in.? i don’t know) where the board is, and jumping off of the box from about 8 steps out. i also found that focusing on a point on the wall keeps me from watching the board and lowering my angle of takeoff… to this end, thinking about throwing my head back slightly also kept me going up. a teammate of mine had a really flat trajectory despite great vert, which was helped by simply working the last 2 steps, especially the short one at the end for the pop.
the box was the greatest though.
Also just to add. Make sure you athlete is running tall with good posture throught their approach. Bad Posture on the approach is also a cause of athletes not getting up in the air. If you are bent over and or reaching for the board you cant get as much knee drive as if you were standing tall.
QUIKAZHELL,
regarding the knee drive, other then posture in the approach, what are other things that affect the knee drive? I dont understand how knee drive does not translate to ‘‘jumping off the board’’ atleast alittle bit…
port,
Im not really understading your question can you rephrase?
It’s not a drill, but our trainer used to make us jump to BB Net. You start with a shorter runup, an 7-8 feet from the BB Net you’re taking off an touching it with oune hand while doing a kind of LJ.
That teached me to jump far, but high, too.
But probably you know that exercise already…
QUIKAZHELL,
can you try and explain the difference between concentrating on knee drive, and simply jumping off the board. How do you run off the board while concentrating on knee drive, without jumping off of it?