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Should a high jumper's last two steps speed up or slow down?

Neither sprinting flat through the plant nor stomping on the brakes works, and film is one of the few ways to actually see which one is happening.

This is one of the more common arguments between a jumper and a coach watching the same approach, because both sides are half right.

What actually has to happen

The curve approach builds horizontal speed, but a takeoff needs some of that speed converted into vertical lift rather than carried straight through. In a well-run approach, the penultimate step gets longer and lowers the hips slightly, and the final step is quicker and shorter. The jumper does not slam on the brakes. Speed is being converted, not thrown away.

Two ways it goes wrong

• Sprinting flat through the last two steps leaves no time to lower the hips and load the plant leg, so the jumper runs under the bar instead of driving up into it.
• Visibly braking in the last two steps kills the speed the whole approach was built to create, and the jump turns into a standing effort instead of a running one.

On film, the correct version looks continuous: a clearly longer, lower penultimate step followed by a quicker last one, with no stutter and no dead stop.

What the Film Room can and cannot confirm here

The Film Room's high jump setting reports hip rise, takeoff angle and knee fold from the plant onward. If those numbers hold steady jump to jump, that is consistent with a last two steps that is being run the same way every time. What it does not do is give a speed reading for this event: there is no timing mark placed on the high jump approach the way there is for a sprint.

A single 2D camera does not measure the speed lost or kept across the last two steps on its own. That would need stride-by-stride timing marks the high jump setup does not place, so judging the last two steps by eye alongside the clip is still part of the coach's job, not the app's.

Related

Try it: Long jump takeoff analysis from a phone video