After reading over the “Helium in tyres…” thread, I went out to practice some high jump over a bar just like in the competitions. I was all prepared having stretched well (which I’ve decided is important), put on the lightest clothes I could find with no socks or extra gear apart from shoes, and gone to the toilet (read the other thread :)). I set the tyre of the Onza I’m borrowing at a nice cushy pressure, and the seat height low enough.
I’ve now got a great little high jump setup with a nice straight yet flexible wooden bar and a height-measuring stick (or a rule if you will).
Before today, my high jump PB was 45cm and that was just jumping straight up and not over a bar. I worked my way up to jumping over a bar resting on a crate and two bricks on either side. I focussed really hard on my technique and was delighted to jump cleanly over a 51cm bar.
I took videos to analyse my technique and from them, I’ve decided that the key to this improvement was pulling the uni up higher by flexing at the legs. An interesting thing I could see from the videos was that my head only rises about 15-20cm when I jump. The rest of the height comes from the flexing of the legs.
I’ve still got a lot of improvements to make, but I’m finally starting to figure out high jumping. I’ve had to work hard at training myself to think about technique when jumping.
Unfortunately, my training session was cut a bit short because I got a little cut on my hand after celebrating (doing a rolling mount to 1 foot extended and falling on the road)
At one stage I thought I was doing 61cm hops because the ‘50’ marker looks like the ‘60’ one. That was a bit disappointing.
Anyway, I had fun. If you’re trying to improve your hopping you should try to take videos of yourself and have a look at them. It works for me.
I find I can jump a lot higher onto things than I can over a bar; I guess when jumping a ledge you don’t have to move sideways quite as far, and the landing is much easier. More practice is required…
I find jumping onto high things isn’t intimidating, because if you miss, you just fall onto your crank. however, there is possibility for injury on pedal grabs. also, the hopping over the bar is harder, since you need to clear your pedals, and tire, for jumping onto things, you simply need about 1" of tire to make it onto the the object.
Thanks for the photo Ryan, it’s a really helpful one. I’ll have to try to do what you seem to be doing and hold the seat out the front more when tucking the wheel in. Does Kris still hold the world record? At 91cm? Thanks a lot Klaas, but I’ve got a long way to go…look at Ryan’s photo!
Great work. Have you got any photos? I’m going to start to collect a bunch of high jump photos of people who are good at it and compare the techniques to decide what suits me best.
In that case you definately need a picture of Arne Tilgen doing a high jump. A movie would be better, I don’t think a photo can really do it justice. Here is a web page about Arne, but no high jump pictures. <http://www.einart.de/>
I have seen a few pictures of Arne doing a high jump, but I can’t find them. Anyone have a link to pictures of Arne doing a high jump?
He does get a lot of height. He’s up there with Kris Holm with his high jump height. Here is a thread that mentions he cleared 85cm at Eurocycle. <http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18344> He also has an unconventional style (and not just his hair style). He jumps with two hands on the seat.
