Does anyone have any advice for seat out jumps? I can do 20-21" about half of the time, on other nights, I max out at 18" :(. I try and concentrate on bringing the uni up under me to get extra clearance, but that only goes so far. It’ feels like I’m only jumping about 16" and then trying to make up for the rest by lifting the uni. How do I get more power out of my hop. I already do a ~3 ft (lateral) prehop. I’m confused. How do people like Ryan and Kris jump 2.5’ without a prehop? Is it technique or just plain muscle? Thanks.
PS. I also feel like my pedal position changes when I try and hop over 20". I seem to land with my pedals vertical, even though I start the hop horizontally.
iahte to say it…but for me the biggest difference when i was hopping was when i started working my legs out at the gym. it was a pure muskle power issue for me. i went from 1’ hops to over 2 in a matter of weeks after i started trying to get my legs to bulk up…hope that helps
Bevan my main man, it’s all about the practice. Set a goal, reach it. Make another one, reach that one. Eventually you’ll be hopping as high as what right now seems impossible. It’s a combination of technique/skill that will come with practice, and also muscle that will come with practice. You can try my method, I made a desktop picture with all my unicycling goals on it and every time I make one I cross it off on the picture. It’s all about baby steps too. If you have something that you’re screwing up on every time, set a goal to do it right 10 times in a row. Then, as you accomplish that, do the next thing that you couldn’t do before because of that thing you were screwing up on. Your hops are way better then mine so I wouldn’t worry, just keep setting goals and accomplishing them.
Edit: Also, drop me an email about when I’ll be in San Fransisco: zachjucha@hotmail.com and if you have Mike’s email address send it to me or just tell him I want his email address .
Terrick: I went from an 8 in. hop to 16" hop within 4 weeks, and it was mostly from technique. It helped that I could hop from a standstill 3ft. (I mean when not on my uni) I will try, though. What excercises do you do? Plyometrics??
Zach: Thanks. I’ll definitely e-mail you. I don’t know mike’s e-mail, although I do know he uses the screenname “uniboros” here. Try PM-ing him there. Also, I’ve landed that 21" hop 12 times in a row before, but now I can’t, which is so very frustrating. I went through this with crankgrabs, too. Also, one problem I have is that once I get this 21" hop down, I’ll have to build some boxes, cuz the next largest hop in my neighborhood is about 34". We’ll see… One last thing, I’m doing over an hour of trials practice per day, and about 2hrs of total riding, so I’m thinking practice time isn’t an issue. Although I do wonder how much riders like Kris and Ryan practice…
You were asking about how when you hop high your cranks tend to go vertical.
When I max out at 2 ft hopping onto something (seat out), it’s hard to suck up your knees at the same time to get maximum height. So you tend to favor one leg more than the other. The way I hop seat out, is to the left, right hand gripping seat, with left crank in back. When I land my left crank is higher then my right. So therfore I favor my left leg.
When Ryan Atkins hops and lands, his cranks are pretty much vertical.
And nope, no real problems with crank grabs, I do think swinging the uni arround for pedal grabs is a bit tricky, but Im not sure if it really matters what foot is back .
Interesting…
Yesterday I went out to practice and couldn’t top 18", but then someone decided that the spot that I wanted to jump onto (20") was a good seat (it really is), so I went over and decided to just jump around on the play structure. Other than the first hop of about 16", it’s all about 15 st5eps of about 8 or 9", and just kinda boring. I did that for about 5 minutes, and then the person left, and I tried to jump it. And surprisingly enough, I landed it on my first try. And my second, third, fourth, and fifth. Then I biffed, and about 5 more 5-in-a-rows later, I did the jump 10 times in a row. It seems that a better warm up was the key, cuz I was getting up onto this even when I messed up my prehops. Now to go for 2ft. Also, once I was warmed up, I could jump 17" w/o a prehop, and I was landing the big jump everytime with my legs horizontal:) . Hopefully I’ll get to 24" before December, cuz then I’ll be down for a while, too much rain, and cold. Finally, I hop right foot back, right hand on the seat, if that makes any diff.
Well it seems to me that since i jump to the left with my right foot forwards and my right hand on seat, I would have to jump to the right to do pedal grabs which means all the practice I do to the left is worthless plus i have my RIGHT hand on the seat which means I don’t have much pulling power to yank the UNi up…just my thoughts(i do pedal grabs jumping to the right but it just doesn’t make sense to me)
i hop best the same way sabin does. though i always use my right side for grabs and stuff. i would practice all sides and variations though. i think using the foot that’s forward to grab and stuff is better but for hopping i am planning on practicing pretty much every variation there is. it seems like a really good way to just get all around good at trials.
Since we are on the subject of trials, I thought I would bring up pedal grabs. When I pedal grab, I land one footed with all my weight on the pedal grab pedal (my right foot). Just earlier today I was playing around with different pedal grab techniques. I tried landing with both feet on the pedals, opposed to landing on one foot. Doing pedal grabs like this sort of gives more control over the uni. Anyone ever try this technique?
about half of the time, on other nights, I max out at 18" :(. I try and concentrate on bringing the uni up under me to get extra clearance, but that only goes so far. It’ feels like I’m only jumping about 16" and then trying to make up for the rest by lifting the uni. How do I get more power out of my hop. I already do a ~3 ft (lateral) prehop. I’m confused. How do people like Ryan and Kris jump 2.5’ without a prehop? Is it technique or just plain muscle? Thanks.
iahte to say it…but for me the biggest difference when i was hopping was when i started working my legs out at the gym. it was a pure muskle power issue for me. i went from 1’ hops to over 2 in a matter of weeks after i started trying to get my legs to bulk up…hope that helps