Plyometrics

Yesterday I took a look at the standing long jump. According to the work of Dr. Anatoliy Bondarchuk, no positive relationship between standing long jump performance and 100m performance can be found in elite sprinters.

If you check out my post on the standing long jump you will see why I still make a case for the inclusion of this exercise in the training programmes of speed based athletes.

It is also interesting to note that there is actually a positive relationship between performance levels in the two activities amongst lower level athletes (even though this relationship breaks down amongst elite athletes). With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some real life examples.

In Britain, during the winter months, young athletes compete in a type of track & field known as sportshall athletics. One of the events included in sportshall athletics is the standing long jump. I have taken the results from the 2009 UK final in the under 15 boys standing long jump. Every athlete from this event who has a 100m time to their name from the 2009 outdoor track & field season has been included in the list below.

Their definately apprears to be a positive relationship between standing long jump ability and 100m sprint performance in these young athletes. It does not appear to be a very strong relationship though. If this data was subjected to the appropriate statistical analysis I have strong doubts as to whether the correlation between the two activities would prove to be significant.

Athlete - SLJ(m) - 100m(s)
C. Smith - 2.82 - 10.91
T. Johnson - 2.66 - 11.7
A. Lawal - 2.53 - 11.9
M. Chambers - 2.50 - 11.67
J. Weir - 2.50 - 12.0
J. Oyedele - 2.45 - 12.5
J. Ingham - 2.40 - 12.14
R. Newton - 2.38 - 11.50
N. Facey - 2.38 - 12.0
B. Free - 2.38 - 11.9
C. Hanson - 2.38 - 12.6
A. Aldridge - 2.36 - 11.5
J. Randall - 2.32 - 11.78
D. Howells - 2.32 - 12.3
K. Afolabi - 2.30 - 11.4
C. Edwards - 2.28 - 11.9
T. Bridge - 2.24 - 13.21
W. Davies - 1.84 - 12.0

So what does all this tell us?

I can now confidently state that the standing long jump should definately NOT be used as a stand alone test to predict sprinting performance. It could possibly be used to monitor the effectiveness of training programmes, but only as part of a comprehensive and well thought out battery of other tests.

The standing long jump may well be useful plyometric training for the speed based athlete. In particular it will be of use when introducing athletes to plyometric type training as it is of lower intensity than more traditional plyometric exercises.

Take a look at Linford Christie plyometric training for examples of higher intensity exercises that athletes would progress towards.

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