Chapter 28: Airborne Movement - The Practice of Natural Movement

“Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.”

 

—Ray Bradbury

 

Jumping is a very particular movement ability that enables us to propel ourselves into the air for a brief time. The human body doesn’t go airborne exclusively when jumping. Airborne movement also occurs when you’re running, and it may occasionally happen when you’re crawling fast or climbing. However, the most significant airborne movement does take place when you’re jumping.

Jumping can be viewed as a gait—just like running—in which the entire body is temporarily airborne, but there are several aspects that clearly distinguish jumping from running—for example, the momentary nature of jumping, the relatively long duration of the off-ground phase, the nonhorizontal angle of the launch, the parabolic trajectory before landing (in most cases), and the high diversity of possible jumping and landing patterns and surfaces. For all these reasons, I prefer to specifically categorize jumping as an airborne type of gait.

Humans jump for practical reasons to pass obstacles that are in their way—such as when there is no way around it, when finding an alternative path would take too long, or when clearing the obstacle using another movement would be more dangerous or slower. Jumping can be risky and energy-consuming, so for that reason it’s used only momentarily as a way of locomotion. However, when jumping is the only effective movement option in a given environment or situation—or when it’s the most efficient option—you need to be skillful at it. Jumping is occasionally used for combat, either as a defensive maneuver to avoid blows or as an offensive move that’s often combined with kicking or punching. Jumping also can be used in the form of sprawling (ground movement) to avoid projectiles.

Young humans practice jumping instinctively through movement play because it’s naturally exhilarating. Occasionally, children attempt jumps that are risky relative to their size to push their limits. This natural drive to jump has found many outlets for expression. Jumping was used extensively in many ancient activities, and it’s still used extensively in modern physical activities and contests ranging from highly specialized jumping patterns in athletics (the high, long, or triple jump and hurdling) to many team sports, such as basketball and volleyball. Martial arts and movement disciplines (such as gymnastics, dance, capoeira or parkour, and fitness programs) incorporate jumping. Regardless of pattern, activity, or cultural context, there is no doubt that jumping is highly rewarding for the performer and an impressive and entertaining feat for the viewer.

As with other skill categories, Natural Movement rejects cultural or sports conventions, or even aesthetic considerations, primarily emphasizing the practicality of jumping and how it adapts to highly diverse environmental variables. Whatever the form or purpose behind the movement, jumping is phenomenal at giving us intense sensations, especially with the airborne, weightless, “gravity-free” moment it provides.

Icarus had a dream of flying in the air, which humans can achieve only with the assistance of nonbiological technology external to the body. Jumping to propel oneself into the air and moving through space above ground, even for only a short distance and a brief duration, is the closest thing to flying humans can experience by natural means.

Even though we may use the term “flight” to name the phase where you’re off ground, jumping and flying are not technically the same. To jump, you need a surface that is solid or firm enough to create a reactive force so that you can apply power or transfer momentum to propel yourself away from it into an airborne moment. This is how we turn ourselves into living “projectiles” that follow a flight path or trajectory through space as a function of time. As you’re above ground, you’re not subject to significant aerodynamic forces for very long before you land, and you can’t change the direction, speed, distance, or duration of your trajectory; you can change only your body orientation.

The initial jump conditions fully dictate your trajectory, except when you can push off a surface while you’re airborne, such as in vaulting. Even flying squirrels don’t actually fly; they’re only using evolutionary anatomical adaptations to glide, extend the range of the jump post-launch, and change direction.

Comparatively, birds may initiate flight with a jump so that they push off a substrate (ground, water), but after they’re off ground, they’re able to modify not only their body orientation but also their direction, speed, the distance they cover, and the time they’re aloft. They even use aerodynamic forces to their advantage. Even the best human jumpers will never get close to what birds can do. Sorry, folks. Flying is a natural movement that belongs to other species—not humans. But jumping is an amazing Natural Movement skill, and you’re going to learn a lot about it.

Jumping Sequence

 

Regardless of the technique used, jumping is a sequence that’s always made of three components or phases that are closely related: the launching generates the airborne trajectory, which in turn ends up in a landing. Too often most of the attention goes to the airborne phase, and little or no attention is given to the landing. In Natural Movement, we are highly aware of how strongly these three phases influence each other.

The Launching

Except for the very particular case in which jumping is initiated by releasing one’s grip when hanging, launching is the movement that either produces power, transfers momentum, or combines both actions to create a takeoff. You can jump either from a steady position like a stand, Deep Knee Bend, Squat, or even a balancing position, or you can jump after a movement, such as walking, running, crawling, balancing, and even hanging or jumping.

A jump launched from a static position is done in a single movement that relies on power, gravity, or a combination of both. For instance, jumping downward with little or no horizontal distance involved requires little power at the launching and relies on gravity for most of the distance to be traveled. Such downward trajectory makes the launching quite easy and energy-efficient (with the landing that follows being usually more difficult and energy-costly in comparison). Conversely, an upward jump requires significant power to oppose gravity with an energy-costly launch (with the landing that follows being usually light and energy-efficient in comparison). A jump launched from a static standing position on the edge of an elevated surface aimed at reaching the greatest distance possible relies on both power and gravity. Jumping from a stationary stance is not always a choice; you might have to do it because there is no space before the launching surface to create momentum, because the launching surface is too challenging or not reliable enough to be used with additional momentum (such as with an unstable ground or when you’re balancing), or because the landing is technical and jumping from a static position helps you better control the landing.

Compared to a Power Jump launched from a static position, the amount of power necessary for a jump that follows forward momentum to cover an equal distance is not as great. This is because some of the velocity and kinetic energy produced before taking off, such as when you run fast, is transferred to the jumping action, which reduces the overall amount of muscular power required.

Velocity can be needed when you’re in a hurry or you’re being chased, if you don’t have a reason to come to a stop before jumping, or simply if the distance you need to jump exceeds that which muscular power alone could produce. You may want to create as much velocity as you can to jump as fast and as far as you can. But the presence of great velocity, or even any momentum at all prior to jumping, is not always necessary or even an advantage, and the lack of it might not be an issue or a disadvantage. It depends on the context. For instance, you might want to significantly decelerate your run before jumping to ensure a soft and accurate landing. When you don’t slow down, you sometimes land very heavily or even miss the surface where you should land, and there’s a clear risk of injury.

How much power you need to generate from static positions, and how much momentum and power you need to use from moving, has everything to do with the distance you need to cover, the direction you’re going, and how you will land. For instance, you need less power and/or momentum when you launch a jump from an elevated surface and land at a lower level than you do to cover the same distance with the launching and landing surfaces horizontally leveled. Conversely, you need more power and/or momentum when you launch a jump from a lower level and are going to a more elevated surface. I talk about this more in the next section about trajectory.

NOTE

 

Velocity and power can be combined to produce more significant jumping speeds and distances than jumps that rely solely on power generated from static positions.

 

Even though ultimately the trajectory of a jump can go in any direction—forward, upward, downward, sideways, and even backward—a certain level of vertical velocity must exist to elevate the body’s center of gravity upward and enable a takeoff. The combination of upward and forward velocity creates a launch angle. The launch angle of your jump also plays an important part in determining both your trajectory and how much power or momentum you need.

For instance, if you’re standing still on both feet and want to use a Power Jump (commonly known as a broad jump) to travel the maximum horizontal distance you can, then a 45-degree forward angle is the best (see the nearby Note), along with the maximum power output your muscles can generate.

You can lean forward only so far at launching; beyond a certain lean angle, you’re guaranteed to land in a Front Sprawl or Front Roll instead of landing on your feet. But if you want to use the exact same jumping technique and pattern vertically to reach as high as you can above where you stand, then you don’t want to lean forward at all and your launch angle is zero-degree (but you still want maximum power output).

NOTE

 

For a similar amount of power generated, a launch angle between roughly 40 and 50 degrees results in about 90 percent of the maximum horizontal distance traveled, with a 45-degree angle resulting in maximal distance.

 

You can create vertical and horizontal velocity from a static position by muscular power alone, but if horizontal velocity precedes the jump, such as when you run before the launch, then part of the horizontal velocity must be turned into vertical velocity to reach a greater distance.

The angle at which you launch a jump and the power and velocity you use to take off determine the height and distance you cover during the trajectory. On the other hand, it’s the trajectory necessary for the most efficient landing that dictates how much power you need to generate, how much velocity you want to transfer, and what angle you want to use. Last, but not least, the instability or slipperiness of the launching surface (or making a bad step when moving) can rob enormous power during the launch or make you lose balance, which renders the jump completely ineffective even in the presence of great velocity and power. At best it makes the jump much less efficient and challenges both the intended trajectory, the body position during the trajectory, and the landing.

The Trajectory

Once the launching is done, the takeoff occurs, which means you no longer have any points of support and initiate the airborne phase or “hang time.” While airborne, all your attention should be focused on optimally preparing for the landing. How you jump determines your “flight path” or airborne trajectory.

As I previously mentioned, once you’ve launched the jump, there is nothing you can do to alter the speed, distance, and duration of your trajectory unless you can push off a solid surface before landing, as when you vault. During the airborne phase, you can modify only your position. This is tremendously important to understand: The launching is entirely responsible for the trajectory that your body will follow and your speed, which in turn determines where and when you land. However, how you position your body during the “flight” also plays a part in how you land based on the surface where you land and/or the movement you want to immediately transition to upon landing. For instance, in a Downward Jump, you may want to be upright before you land on your feet to a balanced stand, or you might want to lean forward while airborne to facilitate a smooth transition to a Front Roll when you land. You might position your feet in a square fashion for a Square Landing or in a staggered manner for an “in-line” landing. You might fully extend your body upward to reach out with your arms and land in a hanging position. Depending on the context, you might have several options for how you land and consequently how you position your body while airborne, or you might have no options.

It’s often said that a jumping trajectory follows a parabolic path, which is mostly true when the launching and landing surfaces are horizontally leveled. Otherwise, the trajectory of a jump is, in most cases, curved—remember that the body must be propelled both forward and upward to elevate the body’s center of gravity and reach a greater distance—but not necessarily parabolic.

NOTE

 

A parabola is a mirror-symmetrical curve.

 

How deep and far or how high and far you need to reach while jumping creates a variety of ratios that change the shape of your flight path. If you’re jumping down and away from where you’re launching the jump, you have a depth-distance ratio; you’re traveling down and forward. You may jump down a little depth and try to jump as far forward as you can, or conversely you may jump down a deep distance without trying to reach forward by much.

If you’re jumping up and away from where you’re launching the jump, you have a height-distance ratio; you’re traveling upward and forward. You may have to jump nearly vertically to reach a high-elevated surface by launching the jump from close to the bottom of the obstacle, or you might bridge a broad gap while having to land just slightly higher than where you’re launching the jump from.

Other possibilities involve a certain distance-height-distance ratio, which occurs when you’re jumping over an elevated surface at a distance or want to touch something elevated with your hand(s) that is both above and away from you, before landing at a certain distance. In these cases, you create a certain elevation of your trajectory to reach high enough, and that’s greater than if you only had a horizontal distance to cover. If the landing surface also was below the launching one you’d have a distance-height-depth-distance ratio.

Consequently, your airborne trajectory always presents a curve (except for a purely linear, vertical trajectory in the case of a downward jump launched from a motionless hang or a strictly vertical upward jump), but it won’t necessarily be “mirror symmetrical.” Even when you’re taking off from an elevated surface to jump down or you’re jumping up to an elevated surface, your trajectory won’t be strictly linear, but it will be far from a symmetrical curve that resembles a parabola. This is another reason why you must absolutely consider these ratios of distance, height, and depth, as well as what the landing should be like, to give you a sense of what the shape of your airborne path should be even before takeoff.

To summarize, the following are true at equal launching power and velocity:

• When the takeoff and landing height are at the same horizontal level, the time between the takeoff and the peak of your trajectory (the highest vertical point it reaches) is identical to the time between the peak and the landing. The trajectory is parabolic.

• When the takeoff height is higher than the landing height, the overall airborne time and distance are greater (than when the takeoff and landing height are at the same horizontal level), with the time and distance between the peak and the landing greater than between the takeoff and peak. At equal power and/or velocity employed in a jump, a jump launched from an elevation and landing lower than the launching surface will travel a distance greater than when the takeoff and landing height are at the same horizontal level.

• When the takeoff height is lower than the landing height, the overall airborne time and distance are shorter (than when the takeoff and landing height are at the same horizontal level), with the time and distance between the takeoff and peak greater than between the peak and landing.

AIRBORNE MANEUVERS

 

Cats are famous for their ability to land on their feet even after falling upside down. This airborne balance reflex is known as air-righting reaction, and it can be trained for both intentional movements, such as jumps, and involuntary movements, such as falls. Although you cannot change the direction and speed of your trajectory, you can maneuver your body to modify its position and orientation while you’re airborne by moving your arms, head, hips, or legs. A simple example is to horizontally spin in the air while maintaining a vertical position so that you land standing but oriented facing a direction different than when you jumped. Many other maneuvers are possible, ranging from simple and practical to complex and acrobatic.

 

The Landing

The landing happens when you reconnect with a surface of support. Although it’s the last part of a jump, it’s the most important. Anyone can launch a jump with power, but not everyone is competent in regaining balance safely upon landing. The launching and positional control during the airborne phase create the best conditions for avoiding collision and landing efficiency, but the landing still can be inefficient. Knowing that, in Natural Movement, very few jumps will conveniently land in a soft sandpit, the efficiency of your landing is paramount. It doesn’t matter how powerful, technical, or stylish the launching was if it results in an unnecessarily hard landing or leads to a fall and injury. No jump is good if the landing is bad. It’s ultimately the quality of the landing that separates the skilled jumper from the unskilled one. How confident you are in your landing is what makes the very brief, “weightless,” airborne phase a moment of either pure bliss or pure fear.

NOTE

 

A collision is an uncontrolled landing with no positional control and very little or no dissipation of impact forces. Most of the time, a collision is damaging to the body.

 

While the launching precedes the landing, and in most cases plays a significant influence in the landing’s efficiency, it’s how you expect to land that has the most influence on how you launch the jump. In short, landing should not be dictated by how you launch the jump; how you launch the jump should be dictated by how you intend to land. Unless you’re going to rebound into another jump upon landing, landings are always “skill-to-skill” transitions from jumping to another position or a movement. The moment you reconnect to a firm surface, you’re exiting the airborne phase to be on a support again, which means you’re both exiting jumping and entering another type of position or movement.

The type of landing you use has a lot to do with the surface where you land, your technical ability, the level of impact forces, and the kind of movement you have to transition to upon landing. As always, the context is a big factor in determining landing, and there’s an enormous difference in the following situations:

• Landing in a stand on a stable, wide area when the launching and landing surfaces are horizontally level

• Landing in a Dive Roll after a jump involving depth-distance and preceded by a run

• Landing balanced on a narrow and unstable surface after a vertical jump

• Landing on your feet and hanging by your hands on a wall after a depth-distance trajectory

• Landing hanging from your hands after a distance-height trajectory

Another example is that although it’s best to land on the foot opposite the one you used for launching or to land on two feet, you might have to hop and land on the same foot and leg you used for launching to make a particular landing effective or to ensure a transition to stepping in a particular direction.

How much impact forces have to be dissipated when you land is a factor of several variables, including the following:

• Your own body weight plus additional weight you’re carrying with you.

• The trajectory’s velocity.

• The trajectory’s direction. The more upward you travel, the less the force of impact. Jumping from a greater height and going more downward increases the impact forces.

• The position or movement upon landing in relation to the landing surface.

• The firmness or softness of the landing surface as well as the type of footwear you’re wearing (if you’re not barefoot).

• The stability or instability of the landing surface.

How well you handle such impact forces has to do with all the listed variables as well as your technique, physical condition, specific training, and physical state when you land. The biological structures of your body—muscles and tendons and, to a lesser extent, ligaments, bones, and cartilage—possess properties for the storage and release of energy but also for its dissipation, which participate in absorbing impact forces upon landing. All other conditions being equal, how conditioned your tissues are to handle such levels of energy dissipation makes a very important difference in your ability to land efficiently.

Another element that plays a role in efficient landing is the “neurogenic effect,” which is the brain’s ability to anticipate the shock of impact and fire the muscles responsible for the dissipation of impact forces. Multiple variables play a role in assessing the impact, including the distance, depth, height, and speed of the airborne phase, the body position upon landing, the hardness of the landing surface or of your footwear, and the external weight you’re carrying. In other words, with practice your reflexes upon landing are both faster and more accurate at responding to the impact and make your landings more efficient, smoother, and more graceful, which is ideally what all landings should have in common.

Landing should be as light and stable (and even as silent) as possible, and, of course, you want all landings to be safe. Depending on the context, even the most skilled and seasoned natural mover doesn’t always land well. However, with consistent, technical, mindful practice that combines diverse ways of launching jumps, trajectories, and landing surfaces and strategies, anyone can vastly improve landing ability.

Putting It All Together

 

Regardless of how much power you possess, learning to use the right jumping technique at the right launch angle with the right amount of kinetic energy—whether from muscular power alone or a combination of power and velocity—in the appropriate way for the context (the type of launching surface, airborne trajectory, landing surface, and follow-up movement transition) is important to your jumping competency.

Your jumping ability can’t be learned through mental analysis or mathematical calculations. It’s developed by accumulating experience with a great variety of jumping patterns that launch from different surfaces, use different trajectories, and end with a landing on different surfaces. By practicing in many different situations, you’ll develop a quick eye that enables you to assess the situation and jump and land in the most efficient way possible without actively thinking about it. (That said, it’s a good idea to take your time before jumping whenever possible.)

So, if you ever thought that a single jumping pattern done on a single surface—such as jumping to and from a wooden box without much regard for technique—would prepare you for any of the limitless combination of variables, you’re unfortunately quite mistaken. You’re in no way prepared for any kind of launching and landing, and your sense of jumping competency is at best completely flawed. You have become adapted to doing many repetitions in a row of a specific, limited jumping and landing pattern, which isn’t applicable to any form of real-life jumping and landing pattern. What will happen if you have to perform a single jump that’s different from the way you’ve trained, especially if you know that you have only one shot at it? If you now understand this major difference in approach, I advise that you seriously reconsider the SAID principle (refer to principle 7, “Adaptable”) and immediately prepare to expand your jumping competency, starting with landing skills.

Once you have established fundamental techniques, keep expanding your jumping adaptability by exploring many combinations of launching, trajectories, and landings. You can launch from sitting, hanging, crawling, balancing, or in any awkward fashion. You can create variation in trajectory direction and body orientation while airborne. You can alternate landing patterns and surfaces. In addition, you could practice skill-mixes, such as carrying something as you jump or throwing or catching something while you’re airborne. A whole world of Natural Movement possibilities awaits!

Landing Techniques

 

It makes lots of sense to address essential landing patterns before shifting the focus to how to launch jumps. Too often in physical training the emphasis lies on the intensity of the jump, how far or high one can jump, and how to strengthen to develop more power to jump farther and higher, whereas landing is taken for granted and is usually done on a flat and stable surface without variability. Neglecting landing mechanics can create quite an issue because, if you can’t do it soundly, chances are that you’ll end up strained, in pain, or injured.

In this section, I cover several fundamental landing strategies: the Two-Step Square Landing, the Two-Step Split Landing, the Extended Two-Step Split Landing, the Square Landing, and the Foot-to-Hand Landing. Previously I described another important landing strategy—the Dive Roll—in Chapter 24, “Ground Movement 1.” The Back Roll also can be useful with downward trajectories when your body is oriented backward. I also address strategies to handle higher levels of impact forces, such as with downward trajectories (or Downward Jumps).

Greater environmental complexity, such as landing on uneven or smaller surfaces, as well as particular skill-to-skill transitions—such as jumping to balancing or jumping to climbing—create specific landing demands that are beyond the scope of this book (although I do address the landing from Power Jump to climb up position later in this section).

Landing progressions—in terms of intensity (distance, height, depth), environmental complexity (wide/narrow, stable/unstable, even/uneven, flat/angled, soft/firm), and movement complexity (simple or complex technique)—must be approached carefully, gradually, and as a safely as possible after you’ve acquired enough competence with fundamental launching and landing techniques. Once you’ve acquired such fundamental landing competency, you need to expand your landing ability and repertoire by practicing the following progressions:

• Increasing the intensity of the landing with greater impact forces by increasing the intensity of the jump launching (aiming at and reaching greater distance, height or depth, or a combination of those, by adding power and/or velocity).

• Increasing the technicality of the launching, which might challenge the trajectory and consequently the landing.

• Increasing the complexity of the landing surface(s), which demands impeccable launching to ensure impeccable positional control during the trajectory.

• Improving your ability to combine and switch between varied launchings, trajectories, and landings, at diverse levels of launching intensity and landing intensity and complexity.

Let me give you an example with some of the progressions listed above applied to the Split Jump technique:

• Distance Standing Split Jump: Increase intensity to reach greater distance.

• Distance Standing Split Jump to Balancing Landing on a 2x4 board: Increase complexity by making the landing surface more challenging.

• Distance Standing Split Jump to Balancing Landing on a narrow and rounded surface: Increase complexity by making the landing surface more challenging.

• Distance-Depth Standing Split Jump to Balancing Landing on a 2x4 board: Increase intensity by adding depth to distance and increasing complexity by making the landing surface more challenging.

• Three-Step Distance-Depth Split Jump to Balancing Landing on a 2x4 board: Increase the intensity of the preceding jump by adding velocity to the launching, which adds intensity to the launching and landing.

• Distance-Depth Running Split Jump to Dive Roll: Increase the intensity of the jump by adding significant velocity and intensity to the launching and significant intensity and movement complexity upon landing.

I could provide many other examples that combine all three phases of the jump at diverse levels of intensity and complexity. Where you choose to practice and how you choose to practice—in terms of the intensity, volume, complexity, and frequency—affects the specificity of programming progressions while managing safety. It boils down to individual objectives, personal ability, and response to training.

Leg Swing Jump to Two-Step Square Landing

With this combination, you’re going to conveniently learn both a simple, low-intensity jumping technique and a landing technique that are a perfect match for each other (and they’re a perfect point of entry to jumping and landing techniques for the beginner natural mover). Practicing the Tiptoeing and Single-Leg balancing movements will greatly help your stability when you’re standing on a single foot and swinging your leg. That practice also will help your efficiency upon landing.

The Leg Swing Jump is a technique done from a standing position that relies equally on power from a single supporting leg and body-weight transfer generated from the swing action of the other leg. It’s useful for short distances when you’d have to step out too far or it’s too risky to step out; it helps you generate additional distance with the most accurate level of kinetic energy to ensure a smooth, light, and/or accurate landing. It’s perfectly combined with the Two-Step Square Landing for maximum lightness and accuracy upon landing, especially on small, narrow, or unstable landing surfaces, which makes it a great option when you’re landing in a balancing fashion. Of course, the Leg Swing Jump is not necessarily always followed by a Two-Step Square Landing, just as the Two-Step Square Landing can be preceded by any kind of jumping launch.

The Leg Swing Jump is a form of leaping, as you launch from one foot and land on the other foot, even though the trail foot immediately lands next to the front foot. Once you’re reaching the maximum distance that can be produced with this technique, you’ll find it very difficult to land in any other way than two-footed, which makes the jump an assemble jump (in which you launch from one foot and land on two feet). So, this technique is similar to (but not exactly like) a Stride Jump in which the trail leg travels forward upon landing instead of landing next to the front foot.

The Leg Swing Jump uses the momentum created by the free leg swinging forward as much as the power of the supporting leg, which enables you to reach a greater distance—or to use less energy to reach an equal distance—than if you push off a single leg. The distance gained is not enormous (because power is always the primary generator of distance); however, you can gain a solid foot of extra distance if you do the technique with enough velocity and amplitude when swinging the free leg.

Another significant advantage of the Leg Swing Jump compared to pushing off a single leg from a standing position is that you don’t need to lean forward as much to launch your jump and reach maximum distance, which allows you to decrease the launch lean and conserve a more erect position and better control of your landing. If you lean forward a lot to generate distance, you might end up landing on a single foot as in striding, and the landing of the trail foot is delayed, which makes the landing heavier and less balanced.

To start giving you a sense of relevance of using the Leg Swing Jump technique in relation to distance, you want to first draw a line on the ground or floor as a starting point.

While standing on a single-leg with the toes of your supporting foot placed just before that line, see how far you can step out in a controlled and safe manner (which means that you’re able to push off the front foot to a standing position). Immediately beyond that distance starts your leg swing “zone.”

 

1 Stand straight or slightly lean forward, as your body reflects your intention to move forward and cross a gap. Get a mental sense of how much energy you need to generate to be able to reach the landing surface without pushing too hard or landing heavily. Shift your body weight to a single foot, bend your knee slightly, and pull the other leg behind your body as your upper body leans forward with a slight bend at the hip. Maintain a straight posture, keep your arms relaxed, and look at your landing target. Your neck may very slightly extend forward for better visual input, but you should never stretch it forward in a “head-chasing” fashion.

 

2 Load your supporting leg by bending more at the knee and swiftly start swinging your trail leg forward in the direction of your landing surface to generate and transfer momentum to your whole body.

3 As your trail leg passes to the front of your supporting leg and extends forward, strongly push off your supporting foot and leg. Look at where your front foot is going to land. Your arms should stay to the front of your body; they might have a very gentle swing motion, but they shouldn’t have highly active movement in any direction.

 

4 While you’re airborne, rapidly pull your trail leg toward your front leg. Your front foot should land less than a second before your trail foot. You should feel a “tap-tap” vibration and rhythm in your feet as both feet land nearly simultaneously.

5 The landing of both feet takes place on the ball of your foot first, then your heels lower to a square, horizontal foot position if there is enough space for your heels to be supported by the landing surface. If the landing surface is big enough, always allow both feet to come flat after landing on the balls of your feet because it makes for a smoother landing and greater stability. As you land, bend your knees and hinge slightly at the hip to disperse impact forces, but make sure to keep a tall back.

6 If needed, you may ensure a stable landing by bending your legs a bit more to stabilize your body fully before you stand up. For the purpose of practice, don’t immediately step off the landing surface. Instead, come back to a fully erect standing position for a few seconds. This way you can assess whether you really have the ability to regain perfect balance upon landing.

Regressions

If the knee of your supporting leg is unstable, and you lack overall stability when swinging the free leg, you may limit the movement to the single-leg stand and swinging the free leg back and forth. First use just a little speed and amplitude so you can ensure positional control. Increase the speed and the amplitude of the leg swing while maintaining positional control until you feel ready to jump and land.

Progressions

First develop sufficient control and efficiency by working at ground level and jumping short distances (shorter than three feet). From there, progressively increase the distance. When you’ve reached the maximum distance you can reach with this technique, you shouldn’t try to modify your form and push to greater distances, as more powerful jumping techniques are available for greater distances. You can increase complexity by working with different elevations and narrower, uneven, or unstable surfaces. You also can land in an in-line fashion or practice the Leg Swing Jump sideways.

Square Landing

Because most jumps are launched and landed from a standing position, the Square Landing pattern is one of the most frequently used, and you should fully master it. It’s a preferred landing pattern when you have to stabilize to a standing position—for instance, when you’re landing on a relatively narrow surface and are at risk of falling off it, such as when you land on a rock surrounded by water, the ledge of a wall, or a fallen tree trunk. Choosing this option means that another landing option is not available, a fast transition to another movement or position is not necessary, or a transition is too risky to be done without establishing standing balance first.

The pattern of the Square Landing blends impeccable sequence and timing with great positional control and eccentric contraction power. Indeed, you will land standing on both feet simultaneously and bend your legs in a squatting fashion, which stretches your leg muscles and disperses impact forces through only your own power. Depending on the intensity of the jump—say you launched a Power Jump with maximum power output or used a fast run-up in the case of a Split Jump—the distance and speed of the trajectory might demand great eccentric power to be landed in this fashion. If depth is added to distance and speed, the eccentric power required to land might reach a level where you might have to choose landing alternatives—such as the Dive Roll—that help disperse greater impact forces. However, when you jump upward to land on surfaces more elevated than the launching surface, the amount of impact force to be dispersed is less, which makes the landing less energy-costly and lighter.

Doing the Square Landing efficiently is more demanding than it looks, and it requires great motor control. Although eccentric strength is required from your legs and lower body, the landing doesn’t rely only on leg flexion; it also requires hip hinging to deflect impact force.

I find it convenient to break the landing down into separate drills to ensure the progressive and effective acquisition of the right positional control, sequence, and timing. Don’t underestimate the value of these progressions. If you can’t perform such simple movement drills efficiently at low intensity, what do you think will happen when you attempt more difficult jumps? Your landing will likely look and feel horrible. Trust the process of progressive skill acquisition, and don’t skip elementary steps because you’re overconfident.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Find a piece of board that is thin and flat, about 2x1 feet. You can also tape a box on the floor, draw one in the dirt, or even make a simple straight line with a piece of tape. You can practice without this confined surface, but using a restricted area for launching and landing helps you assess your balance and accuracy.

You simply can’t learn to land well if you can’t Hip Hinge and Squat well.

 

Square Landing Drill 1

This first drill doesn’t involve an actual landing because your body is always grounded. However, its value relies on the swift elevation and lowering of your heels and the swift squatting-down motion, which have the potential to throw your balance off at first. This drill helps you start to get a feel of the deceleration and eccentric tension required in your lower body, starting in the feet, to prevent your rear from reaching your calves before your knees must absorb the impact, and it helps you have positional control despite the dynamic movement. You may practice this drill slowly first; then do it as dynamically as you can.

NOTE

 

Though it makes landing harder and stiffer, landing with flat feet isn’t going to make you fail your landing because 2 to 3 inches of ankle flexion alone aren’t responsible for the bulk of the deceleration necessary for an effective Square Landing.

   

1 Assume a tall, relaxed, focused standing position, and then swiftly elevate your heels while maintaining your tall posture and balance. Keep your arms relaxed on each side of your body.

2 Swiftly bring your heels down as you move your arms forward, hinge at hip level, and start flexing your legs. Enter a squatting movement the moment you feel that your heels are on the ground.

3 Keep moving your arms forward as you lower your center of gravity to a Half-Squat position with your legs bent at a 90-degree angle and your rear horizontally aligned with your knees, or slightly below. The moment your arms stop moving coincides with the moment you’ve reached your deepest position. A slight extension of your neck is not an issue at all; it’s better than looking down or letting your head slightly lean down, which holds the potential to make you go off balance forward. Mark a one- or two-second pause before you stand up and repeat the sequence.

Square Landing Drill 2

In this drill, you add a short vertical jump, but you’re keeping it low impact and focused on efficiency. The point here is twofold:

• The launching must be controlled so the landing is accurate and stable. If you’re off balance in any direction upon landing, it’s very likely that your launching is the culprit;

• You’re now dealing with an actual landing and need to disperse greater impact forces while you maintain positional control and balance.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

The reason for swinging your arms forward might not be apparent to you at this low-intensity stage, but it helps both with dispersing impact forces and stabilizing your body. If you try to do the same drill while keeping your arms in a set position from launching to landing, you should feel a difference. Rest assured that once you are jumping far forward and dealing with greater impact forces, you’ll want to use your arms to facilitate a smoother landing rather than keeping them in a set position.

   

1 Assume a tall, relaxed, focused standing position. Bend your knees, slightly Hip Hinge, and load your legs so you’re ready to jump up. Keep your arms down and relaxed.

2 Jump 1 to 2 inches high at first; don’t go higher than that. While launching and while airborne, keep your whole body vertically aligned and your arms relaxed. Any angle during the launch causes you to land in the same direction of the angle. Look straight ahead and refrain from looking down. Extend your ankles to present the balls of your feet toward the landing surface.

3 Your extended ankles enable you to land on the balls of your feet first and give you full range of motion at the ankles to start decelerating the body. This part is like the previous drill except that you’re connecting to the ground from an airborne position. Paying attention to the moment the balls of your feet connect with the ground is essential to have the best timing with this sequence. For practice purposes, don’t immediately step off the landing surface, but come back to a fully erect standing position for a moment. This way you can assess whether you regained perfect balance. Imagine that you’re landing within an environment that would not allow you to hold on to anything to secure your position and where stepping off the landing surface would mean falling from a great height.

Faults

Look at the photos below. You may identify some of your own issues. If you’re not sure, maybe you could film yourself to get a visual evidence of your current form. You might discover elements of inefficiency you did not even suspect you’re doing. Again, remember that unless inefficiencies are addressed at this stage, increased intensity or complexity will only magnify the issues rather than fixing them.

 

1 Landing on your heels first, which makes landing heavy and hard. Don’t bypass the balls of your feet if you want a soft landing. Landing with your feet flat is better but still not as good as landing on the balls of your feet.

2 Landing on the balls of your feet without allowing your heels to come down. This makes for a potentially harder and less stable landing for two reasons: letting your heels come down to the ground contributes to deceleration, and you’re more stable with your feet flat on the surface (when the landing surface is big enough, of course) than when you tiptoe.

3 Like photo 2, only you try to counterbalance with your arms. Instead, let your heels reach the ground and relax your arms.

 

4 Off target. Check out the perfect verticality of the launching and body position during the airborne phase.

5 Leaning forward during launching or while airborne—perhaps because you tried to look down before landing—and attempting to correct it upon landing, which isn’t possible. Your feet might land on target, but you’re pushed forward and must step out and forward.

6 Landing with staggered feet, either because you didn’t keep your feet assembled or you let your body rotate while airborne. Keep your legs assembled and your body’s orientation forward while airborne, and keep your feet square upon landing.

 

7 Off balance sideways. You leaned sideways during launching, while airborne, or upon landing (or all of that).

8 Knees cave in (knock-knees) upon landing, which generates a very weak position that might hurt your knees.

9 Like the preceding issue in terms of being a positional control issue except both knees move in the same direction.

10 Externally rotating your flexed legs to try to prevent your knees from caving in, which is not a strong landing position.

11 Using a too-wide stand. A wider stance makes you feel more stable, but it also reduces your range of motion and the depth of your squat, so when intensity goes up you feel very stiff when landing as more deceleration and dispersion of impact forces have to be achieved with less range of motion.

 

12 Lack of flexion at knee level, which makes the landing hard, heavy, and likely to be unstable.

13 Overall stiffness upon landing that’s visible in the tension in the arms. Perhaps your arms were already in the front of your body before the landing, and maybe you were holding your breath as well.

14 Not lowering your center of gravity enough and rounding your back.

15 Lack of tension or delayed reaction upon landing, which leads to a “collapsed” position upon landing with the potential of hurting your knees.

If you encounter any of these issues (or more), reset your movement and position pattern by reverting to lower intensity. Make sure that you’re barely taking off the ground at first and add height to your jump only if all aspects of efficiency are present at low intensity.

If all is going well (sequence, timing, balance, positional control, relaxation), then start adding more power to your jump. The higher you reach, the more time you spend airborne and the more challenging it gets to maintain balance while airborne. Also, it becomes more challenging to land in a balanced manner while conserving positional control. Always aim at the height that you can handle upon landing rather than going for the maximum height that you can jump.

Progressions

Progressions for becoming better at the Square Landing involve intensity with greater distance, which can be created with jumping techniques that can create broad distances, such as the Power Jump or the Stepping Split Jump. You can increase intensity when using the Square Landing after a downward trajectory, as you will see later when I discuss the Downward Jump. The same effect can be reproduced to some extent by jumping as high as possible on the spot. You can combine distance and depth to make it as challenging as possible. Last, you can add complexity with uneven, unstable, or smaller landing surfaces. Conversely, the Square Landing is made easier when reaching an elevated surface is the goal; significantly lower impact forces are involved in landing to an elevated surface when launching takes place below the landing surface, and you may land with your arms already to the front of your body.

 

NOTE

 

An increase in hardness of the landing surface is most noticeable after a Downward Jump. Also, a reduction in friction levels of the landing surface affects forward jumps the most.

 

Precision Square Landing

One of the major variations and progressions that you need to learn and practice is the Precision Square Landing, which is when you land standing on both feet on a surface that’s too small for the entire surface of your feet to come flat, such as on the edge of a rock, wall, or tree branch. There is a small yet essential technical detail here that makes landing on the edge safer. Because you land on a small surface with not even half of the surface of your foot, you’re dealing with two main risks. First, if you come a bit short and land on your toes, you won’t have the support you need to land, and your feet will slide down, which causes you to fall forward. Second, if you land a little too far back (on your midfoot or heel), and the surface is short (such as the edge of a wall), there might be too little friction to decelerate your feet, which causes your feet to slide forward and your body to fall backward. Even if you land with your feet right where they need to be but on a low-friction landing surface or with a low-friction footwear, the risk of forward slippage of your feet followed by a fall is high.

Immediately after your forefoot lands on the edge, you need to use ankle flexion the same way you do when you land on a bigger surface. The difference is that on the smaller surface you let your ankles flex so your heels go below the level of the surface of support, which enables your midfoot to act as a brake to the forward momentum and prevents slippage.

You also want to consider the two following risks:

• When the distance before landing is far and the trajectory goes downward, the risk of ankle hyperflexion is real. It causes pain in the front part of the ankle (the ankle crease with the upper foot). You want to strengthen your feet and ankles for this kind of landing by progressively increasing the intensity. Ankle hyperflexion can even make you bounce off and miss the landing so you fall.

• The risk of ankle sprain is much higher if you land on the edge of a surface that is unstable and can flip under your feet.

Downward Jumps

 

Downward Jumps are often referred to as Depth Jumps or Drop Jumps. Those terms are fine, too, but they indicate only that a jump follows a downward trajectory and no more. Indeed, you can enter a “Depth Jump” or jump downward in different ways, such as by stepping out, running, performing a Power Jump, pushing off your hands from a sit, sliding down a slope, sliding off a cliff that ends in the void, or releasing your grip from a Dead Hang or hanging swing. A downward trajectory can be intentional but totally reckless, or it can be an actual fall that leads to lethal consequences from which no landing technique or training could save you.

You can use several landing strategies, such as Square Landing, Split Landing, Foot-to-Hand Landing, and Dive Roll. You could go into water either feet or head first. You also could land in a Double-Hand Hang or a Foot-Hand Hang position; these types of landings normally follow a Downward Jump that’s launched from a position opposite to the direction where you’re jumping. With all the possible ways a downward trajectory can start and end, there are a lot of possible combinations. Which one is the Depth Jump? Clearly there is not a single Depth Jump—just many variations of it. “Depth Jump” doesn’t describe a technique; it describes a downward trajectory that can use diverse launching and landing strategies.

In the absence of the necessity to cover horizontal distance, downward trajectories require close to no strength to launch. A simple step forward, and you’re airborne and descending. Once you’re airborne, if the vertical distance before landing is sufficient, your speed continues accelerating until it reaches “terminal velocity,” which is the highest speed attainable by an object falling through air: about 122 miles per hour or 54 meters per second. Such speed is attained in 15 seconds, and I hope you never reach it unless you are equipped with a parachute and have enough time and height to open it to decelerate fully before contacting the earth again. You reach half that speed after only 3 seconds in the air. The airborne duration of a jump from a height of 2 meters is only 0.6 second, and only 0.9 second from 4 meters because velocity increases exponentially with height, which explains why a fall from 100 meters of elevation lasts only 4.5 seconds before you land.

The speed of your body falling and the acceleration rate are not affected by your mass (body weight), so a heavy person doesn’t fall more rapidly than a lighter one. However, the greater the height from which you jump and the heavier you are, the higher the energy at impact (or the greater the impact forces upon landing). For example, jumping from a height of 2 meters generates twice the impact forces of jumping from 1 meter, and a person who weighs 200 pounds will have to handle twice the impact forces compared to a person who weighs 100 pounds. Although it might take little effort to initiate a big drop, the forces necessary to dissipate impact forces can become rapidly enormous. Obviously, jumping from heights must be taken very seriously.

 

When you jump from this height…	Your speed at impact is…
5 feet	12 miles per hour
10 feet	17 miles per hour
15 feet	21 miles per hour
20 feet	24 miles per hour
25 feet	27 miles per hour
30 feet	30 miles per hour

 

As long as you jump from a sustainable height (that is, one that won’t kill you) and you are sufficiently healthy and functional, how well you handle the dispersion of impact forces when landing vertically on your feet in a Square Landing relates mostly to your strength with eccentric contractions and your body mass index. Being overweight clearly doesn’t help, but even someone who’s not overweight will suffer if untrained to this specific kind of physical demand and response compared to someone who might be a little overweight but who is specifically trained for such landings. The only variables that might decrease impact forces are the softness of the landing surface and of your footwear (if you wear any). In any case, it’s just best to learn to handle impact forces through technique and physical conditioning rather than moonboots and crash pads

If you don’t land correctly, even diving in water will feel like you’re diving into concrete. With practice, it becomes easier to anticipate how much impact forces you will have to handle for a given height, even though it’s always a better mindset to anticipate greater impact forces upon landing than to under-estimate them.

Downward Jump to Square Landing

A Downward Jump that lands in a Square Landing is what is commonly considered the Depth Jump. The most typical way is to launch forward, but you also can launch sideways and even backward before the path turns downward. It’s a convenient strategy when the height from which it’s launched isn’t high, and it becomes a costly but fast strategy when climbing down a relatively high surface or finding an alternative route would take too long; sometimes it’s just faster and simpler to use gravity to travel downward fast.

Unless you must go fast or must clear horizontal distance in addition to going down, you normally want to reduce your speed as much as possible before you jump down to reduce forward momentum and impact forces upon landing. If you’re standing still, you use just enough kinetic energy to step in the void, so there’s no need to swing your arms forward. If you need or want to reduce impact forces a little more, you may even do a Deep Knee Bend first so that your center of gravity is closer to the ground compared to a standing launch. While in a Deep Knee Bend, you could even drive your hips forward to bring your knees forward and downward before you launch the jump, which makes the landing a little bit softer. However, with greater heights, these minor strategies become less relevant.

The vertical downward trajectory combined with a Square Landing is a phenomenal way to develop eccentric power in your legs and lower body. (Also, developing greater lower-body strength, such as through heavy loaded squats, supports a better ability to dissipate impact forces.) Part of the benefit to strength is because such practice shocks and excites muscles, which makes eccentric contraction (and even plyometric contractions, if you bounce off after absorbing the impact) much faster and more reflexive.

However, the Square Landing after a downward trajectory involves significant eccentric-contraction effort, which stresses your muscles and joints. It’s not recommended that you train downward jumps too frequently, unless you employ techniques such as the Dive Roll. I also don’t recommend high volumes (more than ten to twenty repetitions), but how sustainable a given volume is depends on many variables beyond height. Trained natural movers can handle many repetitions if they train for this specific type of endurance.

Knowing what depth a beginner can handle requires safe trial and error “from the bottom up.” The best progression is to step on top of a surface that’s 1 foot high, jump, land, and assess form and sensations before you carefully and progressively increase the height (and consequently the depth of your jump). If you don’t want to measure the height you jump from, you can start with a height as tall as your knees, move to hip height, and then increase to chest height. The ability to land an efficient downward jump from a height that’s equivalent to your shoulders or the top of your head is a good goal, though the depth you should be ultimately able to handle is a very individual consideration. Although you can train to land a Depth Jump from higher than your shoulder height, as height increases it becomes less and less sustainable to use the Square Landing, and you’ll have to start using other landing strategies.

 

1 Start in a Deep Knee Bend on top of an object. Stand as close to the edge as possible. Fix your gaze on your landing target (if there is one).

2 Shift your weight forward and gently push off with your feet to create sufficient clearance without generating too much forward momentum. Immediately extend your legs with your feet pointing downward as you reach with your forefeet. In the photo, you’ll notice my feet are horizontally slightly in front of my hips, and thus in front of my center of gravity; that’s because a little forward distance is involved. Otherwise I would keep my feet straight under my center of gravity. Compared to a forward Square Landing, the downward Square Landing requires an extremely fast muscular response, so while I’m airborne I’m highly focused on the “trigger signal,” which is feeling my feet contact the ground. You may also keep looking down with your head up or slightly tilted forward, your chin in, and your eyes looking down.

3 The landing is like the Square Landing except that the levels and rate of force development of eccentric strength are much higher. If you’re landing on a narrow surface where your heels cannot come flat to the ground, then the levels of foot strength and ankle stability required are also much higher.

Progressions

Beginners should start without a target and use low heights. However, once efficient technique has been established, using a target for landing precision provides an additional challenge and benefit for a similar amount of training time and energy. An interesting progression is to immediately bounce upward upon landing, which helps you develop great plyometric strength and is quite useful when you need to immediately bounce to a standing movement transition after landing rather than sticking in a balanced position.

Faults

Even from low heights, beginners tend to lack consistent positional control during the downward trajectory, which throws your balance off while you are airborne and results in faulty landing.

 

1 Leaning forward with your center of gravity forward of your feet. Beginners frequently do this when they lean forward with their heads down because they’re trying too hard to look where they’ll be landing, or they unnecessarily put too much forward power in the launch. You may save the landing with a Foot-to-Hand Landing if there’s enough surface in front of you; otherwise, you fall off. Keep your center of gravity above your feet, or slightly to the back if there’s a little forward distance. Spot your landing before launching; do not lean forward to look at your feet.

 

2 Leaning backward with your center of gravity behind your feet. In the absence of forward distance, leaning backward even slightly upon launching might result in landing off balance backward, potentially landing hard on your heels, your rear, your back, and sometimes your head. It also can make your rear travel all the way down, causing a full and hard knee flexion that is harmful to your knee joints. Keep your feet directly under your center of gravity from beginning to end. In the presence of forward distance along with the downward path, your feet should more or less extend to the front of the center of gravity, but not overly so.

 

3 Leaning sideways with the center of gravity to the side of your feet. You will land harder on one foot and fall toward that side. Again, keep your feet directly under your center of gravity.

4 Keeping the knees in a slight flexion while airborne reduces the range of motion needed for optimal deceleration upon landing (not shown). You should keep your legs fully extended.

Foot-to-Hand Landing

The Foot-to-Hand Landing is a form of two-step landing in a quadrupedal fashion, even though you might be on all fours very briefly. This landing converts some of the downward momentum into forward momentum by enabling your feet and legs to absorb only part of the impact forces; you lean forward so that some of it can be distributed toward your arms and upper body.

The landing surface must be big enough to allow space for your hands to land to the front of your feet, of course. You use the Foot-to-Hand Landing when the Square Landing is not sustainable or is too energy-costly, if there’s additional forward momentum upon launching, or if the intended transition upon landing is sprinting or crawling and the body position should be leaning forward to facilitate a quick transition.

 

1 Begin in a relaxed stance on top of an object. Fix your gaze on your landing target. Step off the object with your torso leaning forward slightly. Keep your legs extended below your hips, and reach with the balls of your feet.

2 As your feet contact the ground, shift your center of gravity beyond your base of support to the front and start dispersing the impact by entering a Deep Knee Bend, bending at the hips with your torso leaning forward and your heels off the ground. Keep your hands to the front and look down at where your hands are going to land.

3 As your hands contact the ground, they should be vertically aligned with your shoulders. Keep your elbows inside your legs between your knees as you absorb the impact through your arms and upper body. Bending your arms may push your elbows out to help keep your knees out rather than going straight down. Your back is naturally slightly rounded. Depending on the transition, either stay low in a crawling position or immediately push off the ground with your hands to come back to a standing position or movement, using the elastic energy stored in your legs and arms upon landing.

Downward-Forward Trajectory

Sometimes with a downward trajectory, you might also want to travel forward a certain distance. You may use power, forward momentum, or a combination of both to achieve the additional distance. It’s important to remember that the laws of physics enable the jumper to reach a greater forward distance when landing at a level below the height at which launching is done compared to a jump done with the same kinetic energy and the launching and landing occurring at the same horizontal level. Knowing this is important because the depth-distance ratio of your jump determines how you need to launch it, how much velocity you need, and at what angle you should take off.

For instance, if your maximum distance in a Forward Power Jump is 8 feet at ground level using maximum power, you know that if you jump from some elevation with an equal amount of power, you’ll reach a greater distance, which implies that if you want to reach a distance of 8 feet from the same elevation, you need to use less than maximum power.

LANDING QUICK SUMMARY

 

Use the Square Landing as long as it is sustainable for you (you have the ability to handle impact forces in that manner) or if there is no ground in front of you to use for a Foot-to-Hand Landing or a Dive Roll.

Use the Two-Step Square Landing or Split Landing if the landing surface is narrow, small, or unstable or if you’re not confident in a Square Landing.

Use the Foot-to-Hand Landing if the Square Landing is not sustainable for you or is too energy-costly. You also can use it if you have additional forward momentum upon launching or your transition move is sprinting or crawling. Of course, always make sure there’s enough surface to the front to accommodate this type of landing.

Use the Dive Roll if you are launching the jump from a significant height or if there’s a lot of forward velocity added to a downward trajectory. This is another landing that requires adequate ground distance in front of you.

 

Launching Techniques

 

This section covers the diverse techniques employed to travel greater airborne distances. First you learn how to generate power from standing positions. Second, you learn to convert forward momentum and combine it with power to create even greater levels of velocity.

Power Jump

For the Power Jump technique, you first must Hip Hinge and then powerfully “triple extend,” which means you extend your hip, knees, and ankles. The triple-extension is a fundamental, powerful pattern employed in lifting techniques as well. Acquiring this pattern through power jumping supports learning the lifting techniques that use the same pattern, and the power gained through training this pattern in heavy lifting supports greater force production in jumping. It’s a win-win combination. When you use the triple extension for jumping, all body segments that are not grounded are accelerated upward to generate velocity and takeoff.

Arm Swing

Additional, segmental momentum (or body-weight transfer) from the arms contributes to whole-body momentum and increased ground reaction force, and overall acceleration and velocity contributes significantly to the total force produced at takeoff, which increases the maximum distance that can be jumped. The arm swing is a fundamental part of the Power Jump technique.

Like other forms of body-weight transfer, the arm swing occurs briefly before the primary movers (the main muscles producing force) extend. If the goal is to reach the greatest distance, the greatest momentum is generated with maximum amplitude (range of motion at the shoulders) and velocity in the arms. It’s also important to fully extend your arms and keep them straight instead of keeping them bent (which is a common mistake in athletic people) because straight arms generate more segmental momentum. The more you flex at the elbows and the closer your arms are to the body’s center of mass, the less acceleration and momentum you produce.

Zero Arm Motion Drill

 

To get a sense of the importance of the arm swing upon launching, it’s a good idea to experiment with power jumping without using your arms so you can feel how awkward it is. Choose a medium distance that you feel you can comfortably jump and land, wrap your arms across your chest or clasp your hands behind your lower back, and then jump. Jumping with zero arm motion should naturally feel very counterintuitive; you instinctively want to use your arms. (If you did the drills for the Square Landing, you probably already experienced the awkwardness of landing without arm motion.)

NOTE

 

A very effective way to experience the importance of the arm motion in jumping is to try the Downward-Upward Rebound Jump.

 

Back-Front-Back-Front Arm Swing Sequence Drill

I’ve discussed that you want to swing your arms forward upon launching as well as upon landing if you’re using a Square Landing, which is often the case after a Power Jump. But what happens between swinging your arms forward for the launching and bringing them forward again for the landing? Clearly, a piece is missing.

You need to pull your arms back down and to the back while airborne to make it possible to swing your arms forward a second time for the landing. You are reloading your arms for a second forward swing. If your arms stay stuck to the front, then they can’t participate in efficient Square Landing. The complete arm sequence, especially doing it with perfect timing, can be really confusing at first, especially if you’re entirely absorbed in generating the most powerful takeoff without thinking too much of the landing and what your arms must do while airborne.

The pattern of this drill is a “mini” Power Jump that replicates the entire Power Jump–to–Square Landing sequence on the spot, which teaches you perfect arm sequence and timing without the intensity normally attached to the Power Jump. It’s a great entry drill for learning the actual Power Jump because all you must do is increase flexion, acceleration, and forward lean to Power Jump.

 

1 Assume a tall, relaxed, and focused standing position. Bend your knees and slightly Hip Hinge, loading your legs as if you’re ready to jump upward. Pull your arms behind you, hands level with your rear or a bit higher.

2 Start swinging your arms forward, aiming for a 45-degree angle, and immediately push off your legs. The arm motion slightly precedes the action of your legs and hips even though the time difference is barely perceptible at first. Jump about 2 to 4 inches high at first. Your arms should reach a 45-degree angle at the same time your feet reach their maximum elevation.

3 While you’re still airborne and your body is descending with gravity, quickly pull your arms back just behind your rear and have them ready to move forward upon landing, as you have done in earlier drills. Keep your whole body vertically aligned. From there, you’re ready for a Square Landing, with your arms starting to swing forward again the moment the balls of your feet connect with the ground.

The lower you jump, the less high you need to swing your arms, which means that they travel less distance, but you also have less time to pull them back. The higher you jump, the farther your arms travel, and the more time you have to pull them back. This is a sequence that demands perfect timing. Issues that usually occur are that you don’t pull your arms back fast enough while you’re airborne (or don’t pull them back at all), so upon landing you either swing them forward partially or can’t swing them forward at all. You also might be so focused on pulling your arms back while you’re airborne that you start swinging them forward only after you have reached the Squat position, which is too late.

Forward Power Jump

The first progression to the Forward Power Jump is done at ground level. You do it at low intensity like you just did the Back-Front-Back-Front Arm Swing Sequence Drill.

All you need to create forward distance is a bit of lean (launching angle). Resist the natural temptation to attempt to jump far right away. Instead, make sure that the power and distance that you produce matches your ability to land efficiently.

Start with a very slight angle at launching and jump at most one or two feet forward; assess your technique, positional control, and landing efficiency. If you encounter any issue, you haven’t earned greater intensity, even if you have the physical potential for it. Aim at three successful, efficient repetitions in a row before you increase intensity and distance by a half-foot or so. When your progressions are going well, you may use large pieces of board, tape rectangles on the floor, or draw a target in the dirt to create a more realistic sense of context with visible distance and landing accuracy. Keep increasing the distance progressively, making sure to always stay within the limit of efficiency based on how your body responds and feels with the increased intensity and volume.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

There are several technical aspects you want to pay attention to if you want to increase intensity and distance:

• Generate the maximum power output you can, including from your feet. You generate a significant amount of power by the forward hip drive.

• The farther the distance, the greater the launching angle. A 45-degree angle generates the greatest distance. A 35- or 55-degree angle, however, allows you to reach 90 percent of your maximum distance for the same power output. Beyond 55 degrees, it becomes more and more challenging to be able to land on your feet, and you will start sprawling.

• Swing your arms forward more vigorously to add to whole-body momentum.

• Pull your heels toward your rear and drive your knees forward explosively immediately after taking off.

A nontechnical way to increase power and distance (regardless of the direction of your Power Jump) involves resistance training, which is done with specific manipulative movements such as explosive lifts.

 

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

After a Forward Power Jump in which you land on a surface with low friction and there’s a risk that you’ll slide forward, you may make your trajectory reach a little more upward than you otherwise would need to as long as the distance you need to jump across is shorter than the maximum distance you can jump. Increasing the upward trajectory helps you land from a more vertical point, which reduces your forward momentum and the risk of slipping.

 

The following photos show the positional sequence of a Forward Power Jump from launching to airborne trajectory to Square Landing.

 

1 Stand tall and relaxed. (Experimenting with diverse launching positions has shown me that the distance that can be covered with a Power Jump is relatively the same regardless of the positional set employed.)

2 Hip Hinge with bent legs and pull your arms behind your back with full extension and internal rotation, so your palms are facing up. If you aim at reaching maximum distance, you may increase the stretch reflex by swiftly swinging your arms backward, which helps make the forward arm swing swifter and adds a little velocity to your jump.

3 Start swinging your arms forward as you bend your legs more to load your legs and feet. Lean forward at a 45-degree angle. Your heels start to slightly elevate off the ground.

4 Your arms have swung to the front of the body and are pointing down at about a 45-degree angle while your legs and hips start to forcefully extend to generate power. Your feet and calves must participate through a solid, powerful ankle extension.

 

5 Your arms continue to swing forward and are now close to parallel to the ground. Your legs and hips are now about halfway to full extension.

6 Your arms have reached maximum amplitude, so they’re pointing slightly above horizontal. Your legs, hips, and feet are fully extended. The launching part of the sequence is over as your whole body is about to become airborne.

 

7 At the moment of takeoff, your feet are leaving the ground and beginning the “flight” phase or parabolic trajectory. Your hamstrings fire to swiftly pull to kick your heels toward your rear, which supports the hip motion and abdominal effort that drives your knees forward and up. Sometimes one leg kicks a little before the other, which often has to do with the level of friction or foot position at launching. Symmetry is best.

8 About midway through the trajectory, your body has reached its maximum elevation and maintains impeccable positional control and balance while airborne. Your heels have kicked up enough to bring your knees slightly to the front of your body with both legs bent and perfectly assembled. Your feet and knees are close to level.

 

9 As your body starts descending during the second half of the parabolic path, your hips have moved forward, which allows the body to position itself more upright. Your head, torso, hips, and knees are nearly in vertical alignment. Your feet and arms start moving down.

10 Your hips have continued moving forward slightly to the front of your body with a slight backward lean. Your arms are fully pulled back, and your legs are extending to bring your feet forward and downward. Your feet are pointing down ahead of the rest of your body, preparing the balls of your feet to contact the ground.

11 The balls of your feet have landed. Your heels immediately land next, and your legs are bending. Your arms are swiftly starting to swing forward the moment you feel the balls of your feet connect to the ground. Your upper body has regained a vertical position as it keeps moving forward toward the base of support.

12 Your body finishes landing and disperses impact forces by decelerating through a squatting movement. Your arms fully swing to the front of your body, and your center of gravity moves forward until it’s vertically aligned with the base of support.

Alternatively, you can use diverse bipedal positions to launch the Power Jump, such as the Deep Squat or the Deep Knee Bend, as well as modified standing stances. Through experimentation, I’ve observed that using varied modifications of the standing stance (examples are given in the following list) with maximum power output doesn’t reduce the maximum distance reached.

 

• “Sumo” stance with feet a bit broader than shoulder width

• Narrow base (feet/ankles touching)

• Narrow base with feet pointing out at 45 degrees; heels touching each other

• Narrow base with feet pointing out at 45 degrees; heels touching each other and knees outside vertical line with the feet

• Having a rounded back

• Using too much or not enough power output in relation to the trajectory intended.

Faults

Inefficiencies can occur during a Power Jump at any of the three stages of the jump. I previously described some landing issues; other issues relate to launching and positional control during the trajectory.

Common launching issues include the following:

• Starting in the Hip Hinge position rather than standing reduces power output because the stretch reflex in the lower body can’t be generated in a swift transition from standing to the Hip Hinge position, which enables the lower-body musculature to recruit more total muscle fibers during the eccentric loading phase, and that leads to more power output. This phase could also produce extra stored elastic energy thanks to ground force reaction because of the downward force in the feet when you Hip Hinge.

• Lack of Hip Hinge amplitude or velocity reduces power output.

• Lack of leg flexion reduces power output

• Keeping your feet flat until take off and not loading the feet reduces the power output. The only exception is if the support surface is unreliable and keeping your flat feet ensures stability and power output.

• Loose, repeated back-and-forth arm swing before takeoff, which usually disturbs your upper-body position.

• Using too much or not enough speed or amplitude in your arm swing in relation to the power generated or to the trajectory intended. Tense arms may prevent your arm swing from being swift enough or ample enough.

Common trajectory issues include the following:

• Leaning sideways, even slightly, makes you land off balance sideways.

• Swinging arms all the way upward. For a Forward Power Jump, your arms don’t need to be elevated much beyond horizontal. Swinging your arms too much also makes it difficult to pull your arms all the way down and back before you land.

• Flailing your arms around, usually to the outside and in backward circles. This issue often has to do with either attempting to keep your body balanced while airborne or exerting too much power at launching, so you vainly try to decelerate using your arms to avoid landing beyond a targeted landing surface. Moving your arms changes your trajectory, but it prevents you from pulling your arms back before you land.

• Keeping your arms completely to the front during the whole airborne phase or pulling them back too slowly and partially before landing.

 

1-2 “Freezing” fault: This issue occurs when the whole body is kept fully extended and in an almost completely vertical position with your legs hanging and your feet staying low. Your arms aren’t following the swing sequence. It’s as if your body freezes after takeoff. This pattern can appear independently of the arm sequence being done correctly, but often there’s also a lack of amplitude in the arms and rigidity in the whole body. This issue can happen even when the launching position, sequence, timing, and angle are on point. This issue might have to do with the jumper’s nervousness, an inability to mentally follow through with the parts of the sequence following the launching, or an inability to fire the hamstrings and abs to lift the feet and tuck the knees forward. There are two negative consequences to this issue. First, the body doesn’t reach a slight backward lean during the second half of the airborne phase, which means the feet are straight below the body until landing instead of moving forward past the body and to the front, which makes the feet land not as far as they should. Second, the center of gravity is already vertically above the base of support the moment the feet reach the ground while there is still some forward momentum going on, and the legs are already extended. This usually makes for a shorter, stiffer, and less stable landing. Pulling your feet higher gives you more time and latitude to place your feet accurately upon landing. If the Power Jump is new to you and you’re doing several of them for maximum distance, keeping your hips and abs working properly and explosively to tuck your knees “blasts” your abdominal muscles, and they should be on fire the next day!

3 Self-correcting fix: Place a slightly elevated obstacle midway through the intended trajectory. It shouldn’t be high enough for your feet to hit it, but unconsciously you will make sure to pick up your feet to avoid it. To make your feet go over the obstacle, you pull your heels toward your rear and bend your knees, which also brings your knees to the front of the body and helps drive your hips forward enough to create a slight backward lean starting after the midpoint of the trajectory. This gives you the most efficient position for a smooth landing. Another alternative is to practice a few upward Power Jumps to an elevated landing at a medium height, which inherently forces you to tuck your knees forward and up and to lift your feet high.

Power Jump Variations and Progressions

Aside from adding intensity to your Power Jumps (making them more explosive, travel farther, and go higher), some progressions to the Power Jump include both movement and environmental complexity. Practicing such variations as part of practicing progressions challenges and stimulates motor control and helps to expand your jumping repertoire and competency. You will learn all the minor positional adjustments required to be effective and efficient and develop the “eye” necessary for your brain to determine the adequate and optimum movement for a given set of environmental variables.

Launching Variations

• Start from a Deep Squat or Deep Knee Bend position

• Start from a standing balancing position or Deep Knee Bend

• Start from diverse surfaces (uneven, angled, or slightly unstable)

• Move from stepping to Power Jump

Trajectory Variations

• Vary distances and angles.

• Add slight height or depth to have forward-downward and forward-upward trajectories. These variations help you realize that for the same power output you travel more or less distance depending on whether the greater elevation is at launching or landing.

• Put an elevated obstacle in the middle of your flight at varying distances from the launching or landing spots, so you must jump not only far, but a bit higher than you would normally need (photo 1).

• Change position while you’re airborne.

Landing Variations

• Precision Square Landing (small surfaces, edge of the support surface).

• Landing on diverse surfaces (uneven, angled, or slightly unstable), which makes landing riskier so you must approach it mindfully, wisely, and progressively. Make sure that the landing surfaces won’t slide forward or flip under your feet as you land (unstable rocks, rotten bark, spinning surfaces, and so on). To avoid making your ankle unstable and suffering an ankle sprain, it’s sometimes safer to use a heel-first landing on slippery surfaces (or land on your midfoot) rather than landing on the forefoot first.

• Land in a Deep Knee Bend, Deep Squat, Foot-Hand Crawl position, and so on.

• Perform skill-to-skill transitions from the Power Jump to balancing, climbing, and so on.

 

A fantastic training strategy is to vary launching position, surfaces, distances, angles, and trajectories as well as landing positions and surfaces with each jump (see photo 2 on age 370). These variations develop your ability to spontaneously adjust your movement in terms of launching, trajectory, and angle. It helps you develop a faster ability to adapt to changing environmental variables.

You’ll certainly be able to figure out more variations than I can possibly list. If you feel like challenging yourself at an even higher level, don’t control your practice environment and get outside to confront yourself with real obstacles that may involve greater elevations and danger, slippery surfaces, lack of light, wind, and harsh weather conditions. You can even do it barefoot. But make sure you have established competency and efficiency at lower levels of intensity and complexity. (This is a MovNat/Natural Movement golden rule; it should be your golden rule as well.)

Split Jump

The Split Jump is a single-footed jumping technique that uses power, body-weight shifting, body-weight transfer, and, in most cases, velocity. It usually ends in a Square Landing. The interest of this technique lies in achieving greater forward or upward distances by adding forward velocity to the launching with either wide and swift walking steps or fast running strides. Another advantage of this technique is that you don’t have to come to a stop before the takeoff, which saves energy and time.

Because this jump launches on a single leg—with a hinge at the hips unless the forward velocity is high—with the free leg swiftly swinging forward, balance and coordination can be easily challenged and greatly reduce the efficiency of the pattern. This is why it’s best to begin practicing at ground level from a stationary Split Standing position, as shown in the photos.

If you launch from a stationary Split Standing stance with good technique, you generate as much forward distance as the Forward Power Jump. Achieving equal distance with the Forward Power Jump is an effective way to assess the efficiency of your Split Jump technique before you add stepping or running.

Although you may begin practicing without a launching and landing surface, it’s a good idea to use them as long as they present very little elevation (no higher than an inch).

 

1 Begin in a Split Stand with your forward foot accurately positioned on the surface you’re launching from. Shift your body weight backward onto your rear foot with a slight backward lean of your torso.

2 Quickly shift your body weight forward onto your front foot to initiate body-weight shifting momentum and greater ground force reaction while you swing your arms backward. Also hinge at the hip.

 

3 Immediately swing your arms and free leg forward to generate body-weight transfer momentum, and then immediately drive your hip forward and push off with your supporting leg to generate power. Your free leg is flexed with your knee tucked forward, and your torso regains a close-to-upright position.

4 Bring your trail leg forward toward your front leg to assemble them, and extend both legs toward the front so that both your feet are side by side as you approach the landing surface. Depending on the length and duration of the trajectory, assembling legs and feet fully may take place after mid-distance—and even just before landing. Also, pull your arms back to prepare for a Square Landing.

Faults

 

1 Distributing your body weight evenly between both feet in a Split Squat and bending your knees excessively to push off both legs simultaneously.

2 Swinging your free leg while leaning backward. You’re fighting your own momentum, which will make the jump short with the possibility of losing balance backward.

3 Not assembling your legs while airborne and leaving the rear leg trailing. If you let your rear leg trail, you leave the absorption of impact forces entirely to the front leg, which makes landing heavy and difficult. There’s also a risk that you might initiate a rotation of your body while airborne toward the inside of your front leg, which makes the landing very unstable and potentially unsafe.

Other faults include the following:

• Keeping your torso strictly vertical in the absence of significant forward velocity. The Hip Hinge allows your hips to powerfully drive forward at launching, which adds to momentum.

• Stepping with the front foot aligned with the back foot, which is unstable and might make the launching directionally veer off toward the inside of the front leg.

• Overstepping the launching surface, which causes you to topple forward and fall.

• Swinging your arms too early or too late, rendering the motion useless.

• Leaning sideways upon launching or while airborne, which creates an imbalance upon landing.

After you’ve mastered the Split Jump from a stationary Split Standing position, you can add one step at a time. Learning to use spatial awareness and peripheral vision to step faster and with more accuracy has been addressed in Chapter 27, “Gait Movement.” The principle here is similar, but its importance is even greater because overstepping means you immediately fall forward and down. Because of the inherent risk and danger, it’s best to train stepping accuracy at ground level; take a single step at first, use a small launching surface, go at a slow pace, and watch the placement of your foot as you step.

If you must perform this jump in real conditions, it’s best to stay on the safe side and make sure to not step on your midfoot or with your toes reaching beyond the edge of the launching surface. If you do that, the result is that as you intend to shift body weight to your forefoot (the ball of your foot), it will find no support, and you’ll topple and fall forward because you’re unable to transfer momentum, produce force, and conserve balance.

Make sure to alternate your front foot with each repetition to develop equal skill on both sides. Depending on efficiency, you may add one, two, three, or more steps. The more steps you add, the wider and faster the steps need to be. Learn to keep your steps equal in distance and pace, and to predict what leg will become the supporting one and which one will be the swinging one at launching. You may ultimately run toward the jump at greater speeds, with the challenge of turning horizontal momentum into vertical momentum to reach greater distance (hence this jump usually being called the “long jump”). In the real world, a fast run-up doesn’t necessarily imply that you’ll launch with full power for maximum distance. For instance, if the distance of the particular gap you must clear is shorter than the maximum distance you could jump over, you won’t decelerate during the run-up because you’re in a hurry, but you will decrease the velocity you transfer to the jump at launching to reduce the distance you reach. With running and the velocity produced, arm-swinging and Hip Hinging become less relevant because the distance traveled will be mainly generated by the velocity you’re able to generate with the run-up. You may conserve a more erect position and keep both arms to the front upon launching.

Vaulting

 

Vaulting is a way to jump when you use one or more points of support on a firm surface during the trajectory to modify its direction, orientation, distance, duration, or speed. In most cases it happens while your feet, legs, and whole body (except your hands) are airborne. The support (on one or both hands, plus sometimes one or two feet) may be so light and brief that it looks like your body is bouncing like a ball off the support; alternatively, the support from the surface can be more pronounced and the time spent on support a bit longer, with the body briefly balanced above the surface. The mid-trajectory support, even when it’s short and light, could be seen as a form of rebound that uses the existing momentum to launch another jump.

There are multiple ways to vault; the method you choose depends on the context, the way a jump is launched before the trajectory, whether there is an airborne phase before the vault itself, the surface used for support, the position used during support, and the direction and body orientation intended for landing. The fastest vaults that have a long airborne phase before you contact the support are the most challenging, impressive, and intimidating.

Vaults are highly practical (and there are more types than I can cover in this book), but it’s important to know when and how to employ them. For instance, the Front Vault is a vaulting technique where the body is facing the obstacle straightforward; the arms land apart on the support while feet and legs pass through the arms over the obstacle to land on the other side. This technique is effective and definitely worth learning, but it’s also technical and risky to beginners because you can clip your toes on the surface and fall forward over the obstacle head first. Unless the space to vault through is very narrow, you can achieve the same effective result with other vaulting strategies than the Front Vault, without the risks.

NOTE

 

When you practice, you can involve the type of blind vault I just described because you’ll know what’s on the other side of the obstacle, but in real-world situations you can’t be sure what’s on the other side.

 

Once you have committed to a vault, you can’t change your trajectory at all. Therefore, when the height of an obstacle is too low to actually justify vaulting over it, simply stepping up onto the same surface and continuing to run would be as fast, safer, and much more energy-efficient, and you’d still be able to change speed or direction at any time while on the obstacle.

Let’s focus on the most practical ways to vault, starting with a relatively easy technique called the Tripod Vault, which is the best vault technique for those unfamiliar with vaults because it uses the support of a leg, can be done very slowly, and is easy to break down.

Tripod Vault

The pattern of the Tripod Vault is like the Tripod Get-Up I cover in Chapter 25, “Ground Movement 2,” except you apply it dynamically to an elevated surface. This vault is mostly used to pass over a low to moderately tall obstacle that is either horizontal or at an angle. The Tripod Vault is particularly safe because you can perform it at a slow, controlled speed, and you can remain stable, even when the obstacle is not.

The Tripod Vault is the vault of choice if stepping on the top surface of the obstacle or down on the other side of it is potentially unsafe. You also might use it when you’re carrying a relatively heavy load behind you or if one arm is busy holding an object.

The real convenience of this technique is how you can control speed (except in the presence of great velocity before launching) and how you can pause by balancing on top of the surface to check out the landing area before you jump off. What differentiates the Tripod Vault from the Tripod Get-Up is that in the vault there is a moment after launching where the whole body is airborne before the foot and hand land on the obstacle, or at least both feet are off the ground with one hand on support on the obstacle. Without that airborne moment, you just have a Tripod Get-Up applied with a vertical and horizontal distance over an obstacle.

 

1 Approach the obstacle at an angle (or straight on) by stepping toward it with your front leg closest to the obstacle. Your front hand and trail foot become your points of support for the vault. If the edge of the obstacle is inclined, your supporting hand should be higher than your supporting foot.

2 A safe but slow option is to first place the hand that’s on the same side as your lead leg on the surface; then push off with your lead leg to pull your trail leg forward and up so you can place your trail foot on top of the obstacle. A more dynamic option is to transfer the stepping momentum to a jump with an airborne phase before your lead hand and trail foot land on top of the surface. With the more dynamic option, your hand lands just a little before your foot does. With either option, your upper body leans sideways toward the lead hand. If the obstacle isn’t too high, your supporting arm is already in the locked-out position; otherwise, enough elevation must be attained through momentum to allow your supporting arm to lock out.

3 Place the ball of your foot on the surface for better positional control and safety, and lock out your arm (if it isn’t already locked out) to establish a stable base of support between the hand and foot.

4 With all your body weight on your supporting hand and foot, begin pushing off your supporting leg to elevate your hips and center of gravity, creating clearance so that you can bend and pull your trail leg up and through the space between your points of support. Use your other arm for balance if necessary; otherwise, keep it relaxed.

5 Push off the supporting leg to release the support foot and propel your body forward and down while you extend your free leg in the direction where you want to land. Your supporting arm keeps pushing and guiding your body while ensuring clearance with the obstacle, which is now behind your body. Your hand may stay in the same position from beginning to end, or it might slightly pivot before your body moves to the other side of the obstacle.

6 Bring both legs together and transition into a Square Landing. (Other types of landings and transitions are possible, of course.)

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

When the obstacle is high, you need to generate upward momentum, with both hands extending toward the upper surface of the obstacle to start pressing up as soon as they reach it, which assists with the elevation of your center of gravity until the knee of one leg can tuck up and your foot can reach the top. When your foot is established on the surface, you can release your inner hand in a position similar to the Tripod Get-Up.

 

Faults

 

1 Incorrect foot position. Placing your foot flat gives little range of motion to change the position of your foot as needed for balance or direction. Your foot also might slide sideways and lower your base of support.

2 Incorrect foot position. By placing your heel on the surface, it’s very likely it will slide forward and place you in an uncomfortable or unsafe position.

3 Incorrect foot position. If your foot is too short with only the toes on support, it might slide back with the same result.

 

4 You place your foot, or let it slide, too far from your hand with a very wide and low base of support. This position makes it impossible to elevate your hips sufficiently to bring your trailing leg through. Conversely, you could place your foot too close to your hand, making the position compact, narrow, and less stable. Another issue arises when your supporting arm is not in the lockout position, which lowers the base of support and makes it unstable as well.

5 Improper position of your hand. Your fingers, instead of your palm, are on top of the surface, and your wrist isn’t aligned with your palm, which compromises the position of your wrist and turns your hand into a weak point of support.

NOTE

 

The photos show the faults being performed with two hands on the support, but the faults are the same with a single arm.

 

Tripod Vault Beginner Drills

Warm up with the Tripod Get-Up on the floor to start getting a good feel for base and points of support, joint alignment, and shoulder stability. If the vault is new to you and intimidating, choose a practice surface that’s relatively low and has a flat top, such as a wood box. First perform a regular Tripod Get-Up from standing, slowly stepping down on the other side, which you may do with two arms instead of one.

 

1 Begin standing facing the box; your feet should be together. Place both hands on top of the box and decide which foot will move up as you shift your body weight to the opposite hand.

2 Using assistance from your hands, jump up and replace one supporting hand with the foot on the same side. This places you in a Single-Leg Deep Knee Bend assisted with the opposite arm in the lockout; your trail leg is extended down.

3 Push off the supporting foot on top of the box to elevate your hips enough to bring your trailing leg up and place it on the box, between your supporting foot and hand.

4 Release your supporting hand and transition into a Deep Knee Bend. From here, you may get back down in a Tripod Get-Up fashion or jump down either on the side where you started or on the other side of the box.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

Practice the complete movement as described, but do it more dynamically. Then practice the movement on slightly higher and more narrow surfaces. Eventually approach the obstacle at increasingly greater speed.

 

Double-Handed Side Vault

The Double-Handed Side Vault doesn’t use any support from your foot, and it enables you to clear similar obstacles as the Tripod Vault but with more speed. The Single-Handed Side Vault enables you to be even faster still.

As with the Tripod Vault, you can do this vault slowly from a stationary standing position, but you must have sufficient momentum to do it, and you can’t stabilize and pause above the obstacle. You can do this vault during a run so that you clear the obstacle and resume running upon landing.

Using both arms provides a strong base of support, and it maximizes the use of upper-body strength to support the elevation of your center of gravity and the effective passing of the obstacle, which is especially useful if the obstacle is much above your center of gravity and there is little to no momentum at launching. If the obstacle is about level with your center of gravity, you can use greater speed during the run-up, and your body will clear the obstacle with brief and light support from a single hand.

 

1 Face the obstacle straight on with your hands shoulder width apart on the top surface. In the photo, the obstacle stands well above my center of gravity; in that case, you must elevate your center of gravity high enough to generate enough power with your legs to launch an upward jump before transferring your body weight to your hands.

2 Push off with your lead foot and swing your trailing leg up and to the side to generate additional momentum. Optionally, you can start with your feet squared to the obstacle, in which case you push off both legs simultaneously. Your feet are airborne, your center of gravity is above the top of the surface, and you’re shifting body weight to your arms.

 

3 Extend both arms by pushing down on the supporting surface to keep transferring and generating more upward momentum. You’re elevating your center of gravity to create clearance for your legs. Bring both legs out to the side with your knees bent.

4 Release your inside hand (the one that’s on the same side as the legs) to allow your legs to pass over the obstacle; push off the surface with your other hand to push your body away from the obstacle and guide it in the direction where you want to land. As your legs pass over the obstacle, extend them to the ground.

TECHNIQUE TIP

 

As you increase the speed of the vault, you may generate a take-off and airborne phase with both feet and hands off the ground while your body and arms are extending toward the surface of support. You may also modify your support to the Single-Handed Side Vault. The technique is the same as the Double-Handed Side Vault, but you do it with only the arm that’s opposite to where your legs are going. Use this variation when power and momentum are greater, which reduces the need for strong support with both arms.