A coach began by teaching a girl how to do a-skips. It seemed like it was one of the first times working with her and she was new to track work. She was only about 13-14 if I had to guess. Next he tried to get her to jump over a stick that was right in front of him at about 10". She couldn’t do it, nor even get off the ground more than a few inches. So, logically he proceeded to uphill bounds. Well she obviously couldn’t do these, so he must have figured it was necessary for something a little more challenging to improve her jumping ability. So he decided to go over to the bleachers and have her do depth jumps from at least 30" onto uneven asphalt and then try to jump over the stick, this time at a higher height than it had been at before. She didn’t manage to get more than an inch off the ground so he decided that he would ease up a bit and make her jump off a bleacher that was 42" off the ground. Well, surprisingly enough, she couldn’t even get off the ground for these, so he decided that he would need to build her endurance up with some downhill running on uneven asphalt with jog back recoveries. After this I stopped paying attention, but they were still going about 45 minutes later when I left. It was scary as hell.
Lovely. I thought this was a local phenominon.
Rediculous… but the thing is this jerk probably didnt know any better. He thought he was actually helping her i bet. so sad.
Pete what would you have done in the same situation? I wonder since I have a woman who I coach who has a low vertical jump, not that it is important but I feel like if I could improve it her sprint would help her feel the explosion that she lacks on the bike.
Hard to give a specific example, but whatever you give must be effective towards the objective. It’s always possible to get SOME elastic response, if the tasks are kept within the capability of the athlete. Ideas on drills?
Well this probably sounds abit naff -
but my niece couldn’t jump either last year - so I started her of on light ‘pogo’s’ in groups of 5 on grass just to at least get the feel of jumping off the ground -
then proceeded gradually towards things like star jumps and verticals b4 finally moving onto small boxes .
Gradual improvements are better than none / injuries / feeling dispirited
Would you consider jumping rope the most first or basic plyometric-type exercise to start with to develop elasticity for young people?
I would go with no23’s advice( jump rope). You can do it for speed or slow it down and do it for height. Then there is always things like jumping-jacks or any other inplace jumps.
Originally posted by amos
Pete what would you have done in the same situation? I wonder since I have a woman who I coach who has a low vertical jump, not that it is important but I feel like if I could improve it her sprint would help her feel the explosion that she lacks on the bike.
Some possible alternatives:
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teach the athlete how to skip (can help teach posture, foot preparation and ankle stiffness, amortization, balance, summation of forces, coordination of arms and legs) forward, backward, left, right, for height, for distance
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do “in-place” or very small wavelength jumps. They’re very safe and produce elastic response. You can make up complexes w/these to address various general or specific needs.
While these are very basic they can go a long way toward establish the base of skills needed for many events in t&f.
Originally posted by amos
Pete what would you have done in the same situation? I wonder since I have a woman who I coach who has a low vertical jump, not that it is important but I feel like if I could improve it her sprint would help her feel the explosion that she lacks on the bike.
In my experience the best way to improve vertical is jumping. My vertical is the same as it was 2 years ago when I played a ton of basketball even though my strength and power have improved greatly.
I’m not sure what this girl was training for, but I’m guessing long jump or something like that. In her first weeks training I would just work on getting drills, rhythm, and fitness down then maybe introduce some jumping and technical work and keep with the general fitness for a long stretch of weeks.