Similarities Of Long Jump And High Jump

Long and High jump events in track and field are by far the best known of all events.

The long jump also called the "broad jump" is a very simple event in which the competitors run down a pitch called a runway and jumps over a marked point usually a board as far as they can horizontally into a sand filled area to cushion the landing and make it easy to measure the distance jumped.

However with the high jump, competitors run to gather speed to throw themselves vertically over a horizontal bar placed at increasing heights. The winner is the athlete who jumps the highest bar, which must be still in place until the athlete has left the pit area. One important rule to remember is jumpers have to take off from one foot. High jump styles are straddle, scissors, western roll and the Flosbury flop.

Although both are considered a specialty field of activity, both activities have in common an almost matching arrangement of delivery. Here are the essential mechanism for both these events:
Start with a Run - gathering momentum for the launch, providing enough compulsion
Lift- off - changing from running to impulsion.
Flight - the athlete has left the ground; minute automatic corrections guarantee accurate course for the long jump, as well as clearing of the bar for the high jump.
Touchdown - the landing area where measurements are taken, or for high jump the point at which it is safe to say the bar will not fall, when the jumper has left the pit. As the competition process is very similar in all aspects, skills required, training, safety are also very similar.

As a rule high jump athletes are very tall and slim. Tallness matters as taller people have a higher center of gravity even before they start their jump than short people do. Long jumpers on the other hand are aiming for distance and tallness of the athlete is not as important. With both high jump and long jump the run up to - approaching the jump is probably more decisively significant than the actual take off. Should a jumper's run be poorly timed, have mixed up stepping lengths or not enough forcefulness, the chance of a good jump are severely diminished. During practice sessions, jumpers will quite often place tape markers, marking out the landing site of each step and getting accustomed to stepping out their accurate run length.

Nearly all famous straddle jumpers need to run at angle of incidence near enough to 30 to 40 degrees. The duration of a run is determined by the velocity from the athlete's approach. In the case of J type approach, preferred by Fosbury flopper's, will allow for horizontal velocity, the capacity to twist in the air - like centrifugal force, and good take-off positioning.

Some Flotsbury jump problems usually are due to insufficient amounts of somersault or twist rotation after takeoff. An inadequate amount of somersault rotation makes it difficult for the legs to clear the bar; an insufficient amount of twist rotation produces a tilted position of the athlete at the summit of that jump, along with the hip of the front leg below the the hip of the rear leg. That is to say, the rotation over the bar is produced, by the angular momentum of the athlete. To understand the nature of the problems that can occur in the bar clearance, it is necessary to have "a clear concept of what angular momentum is, and how it affects the rotation.

Both pole vault and high jump have a greater amount technological requirements than some other track and field activities, since they are both vertical jumps plus there is greater amount of superior and expensive safety equipment required for both activities.

Safety? Where high jumpers are looking for training and their take off points can be established with reasonable certainty and a teacher or coach is qualified and experienced in the event. Make sure individual pit units are being fastened together to reduce the risk of athletes going through joins between two sections. All foam landing areas should be capable of preventing the athlete from bottoming. Good manufacturers will give guarantees in this respect. Soft landing areas do deteriorate. They should be regularly inspected and maintained. Some artificial surfaces and grass make it necessary for the athlete to wear spikes to get enough traction so they are not really suitable surfaces.

Both high and long jump rules and conditions have changed considerably since they started in olden times before the first Olympic Games in ancient Greece this was where they were first contested on a national level, and both sports have been fiercely contested ever since.