Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #22: Gill1918 presents Jeff Ondo "Fundamentals of High Jump"

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#22: Gill1918 presents Jeff Ondo "Fundamentals of High Jump" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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coaches, for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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Check out the show notes below For more information.
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Now let's get into today's topic.
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Hi everyone, my name is Jeff Ando.
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I'm the head boys track coach at Midview High School and I also
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am the owner of 0 Gravity Performance, which is a track
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and field training business where I specialize in jumps and
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sprints. Before I get any farther, I want
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to say thank you to Mike and everyone at Gill Athletics for
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creating this platform for coaches to learn from each other
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and help grow the sport. A little bit about me before I
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get started. I've been coaching for nine
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years now with a primary focus on the jumping events and
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sprints. During that time I've had the
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opportunity to coach multiple all state athletes, including
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our school's first ever state champion who happened to be a
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female high jumper. I was fortunate enough when I
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was competing to have a club coach that was very
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knowledgeable in high jump and get to practice and compete with
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a lot of high level high jumpers, a lot of state
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champions and Allstate athletes and future collegiate athletes.
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And high jump always was something that fascinated me,
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which is why I enjoyed doing it personally.
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But I learned a lot from my coach.
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So when I started getting into coaching, it was very apparent
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to me that most high school coaches do not actually
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understand the fundamentals of high jump.
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A lot of them are just either teachers that schools needed
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somebody. So they go out there and they do
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their best, but they don't truly understand what the fundamentals
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of the event are. So my goal today is to help
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coaches that may not know a ton about the event and change your
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advice to your kids from, hey, you need to arch your back a
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little more to actually understanding what causes a good
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rotation around the bar and the importance of everything we do
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on the ground. Especially because I think
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that's often overlooked for coaches that aren't very
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experienced in the event. So what I'm going to do is go
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over at a very introductory level, the different phases of
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the high jump so that hopefully you can understand them and
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relay them to your athletes. Or if you're an athlete, you can
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understand them and apply them to your jumps.
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The way I like to divide it up is the approach, which will
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encompass mostly everything you do on the ground and then the
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curve, the take off and over the bar.
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And all these phases will feed off the others.
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So you need to have a good approach plan that leads you to
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a good curve, which takes you into a good take off, which
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allows you to do the correct things over the bar.
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So what I'm going to do is go over these topics briefly,
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starting with the approach. So everything in high jump
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starts with your approach. 90% of what happens in the high jump
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is what you do on the ground and immediately following take off.
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It's very easy to get sucked into just working on the over
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the bar mechanics because it looks pretty and that's what
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jumpers see when they watch videos and they think that's
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what they need to work on. But most of your time as a jumps
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coach should be spent perfecting the approach as a whole as well
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as the take off, which I'll talk about later.
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As far as the approach goes, most jumpers will use either an
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8 or 10 step approach. That means if they're a left
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footed jumper they should start with their left foot forward.
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If they insist on starting opposite then it would be a 7 or
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a nine step. I prefer to use an 8 step with
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every new jumper I work with. My reasoning for this is that
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high jump is extremely technical as it is, and adding more speed
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and more steps can often times just confuse an athlete that is
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already trying their best to learn the event.
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So I tend to keep everybody at 8:00 until they show me that
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they're almost perfect at 8:00 and then we can think about
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moving to 10. And you can absolutely still
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jump high from 8 steps. The female high jumper I coach
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jump 5/9 was a state champion from 8 steps.
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I've coached multiple athletes males that were well over 6 foot
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from 8 steps. Additionally, you also don't
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need to do any very fancy things at the start of your approach.
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A lot of times you watch professional high jumpers it'll
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do something like a walk in or some like bound some skip stuff
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at the start of their approach. I would recommend for new
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jumpers start in a stationary position and get a nice routine,
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whether that's just a rock back or whatever it is to give you
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the most consistent possible start.
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As I said, high jump's very technical, so adding in any
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extra variables probably isn't a great idea.
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Whichever amount of steps you choose for your athletes to do,
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whether it's 8 or 10, the curve will always be 5 steps.
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So that means if you do an 8 step approach, your first three
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steps will be straight, and then your curve will start by turning
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your foot inwards and then you'll have 5 steps of the
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curve. The goal for your approach angle
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into the pit is to be roughly 30 to 40°.
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That gives your athletes the best chance to get over the bar,
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over the middle of the bar as efficiently as possible without
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traveling too long down the bar with too flat of an approach or
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being too steep and blowing right through their plant.
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Once you've decided how many steps you'd like to take, the
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next thing you need to know how to do is to find the approach
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for your jumpers. I will give guidelines for what
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I use for eight steps to try to give you some help.
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I personally don't do any run backs where you just start at
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the mat and run a reverse J basically.
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If you absolutely have to do that, like a short on time, make
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sure you give your athletes A width barrier because it's very
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easy for them to run back and approach and end up 20 feet wide
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because they don't, if they're brand new, they don't know what
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it should look like either. What I prefer to do with my new
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jumpers is I will make basically a grid of marks around where I
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think they will be and then I will have them start in that
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area. So for female jumpers, I'm
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roughly 9 to 11 feet wide off the standard and then somewhere
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between 34 and 42 feet back depending on the athlete.
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And then boys, usually 10 to 13 feet wide and 36 to 45 feet
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back. Again, these can vary slightly
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if you have a very tall, very fast athlete or a very short
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athlete who's got very tiny steps.
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Every athletes going to be different, so there's no perfect
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starting spot, but if you can get in those areas from 8 steps,
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you're usually going to be in a pretty good spot.
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Once you get your grid marked out, just have the athlete try
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to run some approaches. Explain to them you want them to
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go 3 steps straight, 5 steps of a curve and then adjust from
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there. Once you find the spot that you
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like, write that down in your phone or have your athlete write
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it down in their phone. So make sure you don't forget it
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and that will be your starting point at every meet.
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You don't want to go into every meet trying to find a new
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approach. You want to be very consistent
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and have a solid starting spot that maybe we move a foot One
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Direction or the other because of wind or other factors.
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As far as measuring out your approach, I always measure mine
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from the inside front of the standard.
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Typically the uprights have 4 screws that screw it into the
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base of the standard. I go from the front inside
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screw. If it doesn't have a screw, you
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can go just from the front inside of the standard, right
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below where the bar ends. As long as you're consistent and
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where you're measuring from, that's the most important part.
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You don't want to measure one day from the inside, the
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standard one day from the outside, or anything like that.
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The other issue you can run into when measuring approaches is
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make sure when you measure out you go straight, and then
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especially when you measure your distance back, you're going
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straight. If you have your athletes
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measure, make sure they are checking for this too.
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If you want to be extra accurate, you can do a triangle.
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Use a Pythagorean theorem. A simple triangle you can use is
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12 feet wide, 16 feet back, and then 20 feet on your diagonal to
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that same inside screw on the standard.
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And then you put a little chalk mark or tape mark at that point
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where the tape measures pulled taut.
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And then you pull your tape measure through that line and
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you know you'll be straight to 12 feet at that point, and you
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can adjust in or out once you're back there.
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So once you get all that sorted out, your approach should read
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something like 11 feet wide, 38 feet back.
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That's an example of what an approach distance would be.
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Now that we've got a general idea of the overview of the
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approach, we're going to talk about the later parts of the
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approach, specifically the curve.
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The curve is extremely important in high jump and I don't think
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most coaches know why. I think they just know they're
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supposed to run a curve and that if you're running AJ, it's
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probably good enough. What we want to get out of the
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curve is a good lean inward lean away from the bar, which sets us
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up in the optimal position for take off to allow us to rise and
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rotate around the bar correctly. To start your curve, all you
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want to do is slightly turn your inside foot in.
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So if you're a left footed jumper on your 4th step, your
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left foot slightly turns in. That's it.
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You don't want to kick your right foot out super wide and
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run a post route like your receiver.
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That's not what we're looking for.
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We just want a gradual turn. And then every step on your
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curve should land on an imaginary line in the center of
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your body. So pretend there's a line right
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down the middle of your body and you're stepping on that, as
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opposed to kicking way out with our outside foot, which is a big
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issue that typically arises in new jumpers.
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In order to get a very good inward lean with your curve,
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your athletes have to be forceful.
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They have to put a lot of force into the ground.
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The lean starts from the ankle up.
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What I mean by that is you can't just tilt your upper body and
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get into a good take off position.
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You may feel like you're leaning, but you're not truly
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leaning. You want to push hard down and
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away while staying on that center line and that will help
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you get into a true lean position.
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I like to tell my athletes, especially the ones that have
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high jump spikes, which I encourage them to get, try to
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feel like you're coming out of your shoes or try to feel like
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you're putting holes into the track.
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Be forceful in your curve and then you have to carry that all
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the way into take off. It's very common for athletes to
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do 3 forceful steps and they get to take off and they end up
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vertical. We want to enforce that they
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need to run hard and aggressive all the way through into their
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take off. Once we've got them running the
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curve well, the next step is the take off.
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So when I talk about take off, I consider it the last two steps,
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your penultimate and your take off step, as well as what
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happens as soon as you leave the ground.
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This is where you'll find a lot of errors with athletes will
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occur. Even if they have a good
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approach, if they're doing something wrong just after take
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off, it can throw it all away and the approach won't matter.
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Like I said before, we want a nice inward lean and a slightly
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backwards lean away from the bar at takeoff.
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The reason for this is because of momentum.
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If we plant leaning away, our body will move to vertical at
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takeoff and then it will be able to go straight upwards.
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If we plant in a straight up vertical position, our body will
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rotate into the bar before we even get off the ground, and
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then we will be jumping directly into the bar, which we obviously
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do not want a good aiming point for.
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Your take off location is about one to two feet inside of the
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standard and about 3 to 5 feet away from the bar, depending on
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the level of your athlete. The higher your athletes are
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jumping, the farther they will likely need to be away from the
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bar, which is why you'll often see professional jumpers taking
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off from much farther away than your high school or middle
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school jumper is taking off from.
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The biggest issue that you'll see involving the take off is an
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athlete throwing their head or shoulder or arm directly into
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the bar, often times before they've even left the ground.
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You have to reinforce that they need to go vertical first.
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You want to rise up and rotate your back towards the bar.
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Before our head truly encounters the bar, our body follows our
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head. So as soon as our head goes in,
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everything's going to stop rising.
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We're going to start working our way into the bar.
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So you have to enforce patients with your athletes and cue them
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to drive up first. Not in a cue I like to use is
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drive the inside knee towards the outside shoulder.
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So a left footed jumper, take the right knee, drive it to your
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left shoulder. That will help you rise and
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rotate. Once we get into a good take
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off, we are then into the portion of being over top of the
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bar. I spend honestly not a lot of
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time coaching this aspect of the jump because what we do on the
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ground dictates what this is going to look like.
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As long as they're not sitting like they're in a chair or
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laying down with throwing their head back like they're in a
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hammock, we shouldn't have a ton of issues over the bar.
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Not saying you should totally neglect it, but you shouldn't
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spend your whole practice doing back overs and trying to get
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really good at being bendy. Some athletes are very naturally
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bendy and that's great and you can use that, but some athletes
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aren't. But if they hit proper rotations
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and positions on the ground, then they can still be
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successful jumpers. An ideal over the bar position.
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It looks almost like a glute bridge, so your hips end up
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above your head and you rotate around the bar, kind of like a
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backward somersault. This is why leaning in the
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takeoff, which comes from a proper curve is very important
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because that puts your body in the position to rotate around
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the bar effectively. Something you'll commonly see
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with athletes who don't rotate around the bar effectively is it
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looks like their back is way, way, way over the bar and they
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could jump a foot higher than they are at the moment.
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And you and you hear coaches going, now you just need to arch
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a little more and you'll have it.
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But in reality, they're not rotating around the bar, so
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they're not actually going to get the height that you think
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they will. What will happen is their back
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will get really high, their knees will never rotate over top
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and their legs will always drag across the bar.
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And sometimes you can get lucky and if you time it perfectly
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that can work. But I don't really care to rely
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on timing like that with my jumpers.
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I'd rather have them rotate around the bar correctly.
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So as a quick run through of everything we just went over,
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the approach encompasses everything that your athletes do
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on the ground. We want to dial in the approach
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so that it is consistent and you can go to a meet and know that
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your athletes know their steps and are comfortable.
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Next comes the curve part of the approach, which is where we're
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putting force into the ground, creating a good lean,
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transitioning that into our take off, where we take off, lean
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away, we drive up, we rise and rotate, and then we get to the
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over the bar position where our head goes back.
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Our hips end up over our head, and then we tuck our chin down
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and that snaps the legs through and the athletes end up ideally
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on their shoulder blades on the mat.
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That's a good indication that you have rotated around the bar
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correctly. So that is my quick overview of
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the fundamentals and phases of the Hydro.
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I hope to do a future episode or multiple future episodes where I
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can dive deeper into the approach itself, dive deeper
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into the curve, dive deeper into the take off.
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If you're interested in more details, I did write a 50 page
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high jump handbook. It can be found on Gum Road or
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if you go to my Twitter bio at Coach Ondo Ondo, there is the
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link to it there and it's a very in simple terms, how to coach
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the high jump with these phases, but more details, a library of
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drills with video examples and things like that that can help
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you out. I also try to post informational
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content on my Twitter. So if you are looking for more
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content, you give me a follow there.
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I want to again thank Mike and everyone at Gill Athletics for
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giving coaches a platform like this to share our knowledge and
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learn from coaches who are actually coaching high school
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athletes every single day. Thank you all for listening and
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I wish you all good luck with the remainder of your season.
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Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
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episode of the Gill 1918 Project series.
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It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
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amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
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The Gill 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
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E-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
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