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Is more approach speed always better for a high jumper?

Speed that cannot be converted into a fast, firm plant does not turn into height, it turns into a jumper running under the bar instead of over it.

It is tempting to treat a high jump approach like a sprint: faster is better, so build the fastest run-up the athlete can manage. It does not work that way, because speed on the curve is only useful if the plant can turn it into lift, and a plant has a limit on how fast it can do that.

What happens when the speed outruns the plant

Run the curve faster than the plant leg can handle and the most common result is not a bigger jump, it is a longer, softer plant: the foot stays on the ground longer, the lean carries past vertical, and the jumper ends up driving forward into the bar rather than up over it. From the stands it can look like a good, aggressive approach right up until the takeoff, where the speed simply has nowhere left to go.

Signs an athlete has more speed than technique

• The plant foot lands and the jumper takes visibly longer to leave the ground than on a controlled approach.
• Misses happen by going under or into the bar rather than clipping it on the way over.
• Hip rise looks small relative to how fast the approach looked, because the speed was never converted.

What the Film Room can tell you here

The high jump setting reads hip rise as a share of body height, takeoff angle, and knee fold and extension. An approach that looks fast on video but produces a low hip-rise number is a jumper whose speed is not showing up at takeoff, which is a more useful thing to coach than approach speed on its own.

A single 2D camera cannot measure how much force the plant leg put into the ground or how stiff that leg was at the moment of contact. It can only show the result, hip rise and takeoff angle, and leave the actual cause of a flat jump for you to work out from there.

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