Track & Field page | Intro
Sprinting | Long Jump | High Jump
Javelin

The High Jump is one of two vertical jumps in track & field. The purpose of the High Jump is to jump from one foot over a bar, without displacing it from its supports. Steve Patrick of SUNY Cobleskill has a good description of the different phases of the high jump. Actually, there's a pretty comprehensive description of jumps in general on this site, which you can view from the Jumps Main Page. And of course, if you'd like a description from a mechanical law perspective, look at Jim Kiefer's description!

If you read Jim Kiefer's description of the high jump, you can see that the energy from the horizontal velocity you create in your run can be stored in your muscles which then create a vertical component to help you clear the bar. Keep in mind that you still have horizontal velocity when you take off, so you really do want to think about jumping upwards rather than into the pit, since your momentum will carry you into it.

Remember what I said on the Long Jump page about your center of mass having a constant patch for a given set of take-off conditions? Well, that concept holds true for the high jump, too. So...what you do in the air in the high jump optimizes your body position to clear the bar. As an example, let's compare the straddle technique we did in class the first day to the Fosbury flop.

Jumper A and Jumper B have the same set of take-off conditions. Jumper A uses the straddle and B uses the flop. Their center of masses follow the same path, but Jumper A displaces the bar while Jumper B clears the bar.

Track & Field page | Intro
Sprinting | Long Jump | High Jump
Javelin