Jump Far, Sprint Fast: Could it be that simple?

I recently noticed a particular question asked by an individual on the forum of Nigel Lewis' long jump site. The questioned, posed by a 100m sprinter, was relating to the use of the standing long jump. The athlete wanted to know what sort of distance he should be aiming for in this exercise.

A quick look through the book 'Transfer of Training in Sports' by Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk resulted in me finding a table of 'Model Characteristics of Speed-Strength Preparation of 100m Runners'. From this table it appears that the following standing long jump performances are characteristic of specific levels of 100m performance:

Standing Long Jump Perfromance (Correlating 100m performance)
3.10-3.30 (10.00-10.20)
3.00-3.20 (10.20-10.40)
2.90-3.10 (10.40-10.60)
2.80-3.00 (10.60-10.80)
2.70-2.90 (10.80-11.00)

It would appear that an athlete targetting a sub 10 second performance in the 100 metre sprint would require the ability to achieve an absolute minimum on 3.10 metres in the standing long jump.

However, the work of Bondarchuk has also shown that a positive interrelationship between performance levels in the two activites of standing long jump and 100m sprinting only exists in lower level athletes.

There will still be a strong positive correlation between 100m and standing long jump performance in a heterogenous (widely varying levels of ability) group of athletes. But if you take a group of closely matched elite sprinters, there will be no relationship whatsoever between their performance level in the 100m and the standing long jump. In contrast, if you take a group of closely matched lower level athletes, say 11.10-11.40 second sprinters, there will be a positive relationship between standing long jump performance and sprinting performance within this group.

Does this mean that once an athlete reaches a certain standard they should no longer worry about developing their standing long jump ability? Not so fast.

We have established that standing long jump performance does not directly explain differences in 100m sprint performance amongst elite athletes. However, there will be other exercises in which there exists a positive relationship between performance level in the activity and 100m sprint performance. In turn, it may well be that performance in this activity is related to performance level in the standing long jump. In such a situation the standing long jump would be an indirect method of improving sprinting speed in elite athletes.

As you can probably see, it would be possible to develop a hierarchy of exercises in this way, and the next question would be which other exercises have the strongest positive relationship with the standing long jump exercise.

STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING CONSULTANCY - TIM EGERTON HIGH PERFORMANCE COACHING SERVICES