TRANSITION BETWEEN THE JUMPS.

I as said before, I have received many emails with the question about the transition between the jumps, especially the transition from the hop in to the step. I have to say that almost 80% of triple jumpers have problem with that. For example, if you look at the American Triple jumper, the hop distance is +- between (6,50m - 6.70m) but the step distance is (+- 5.00m or 5.50m) and the final jump is almost (7 or 7m +)  - this one is the powerful jump. If you look at the Cuban jump between the hop and the step, their jump almost every time is 12m, i.e.  6m hop and 6m step, but the final jump is between (+- 5.00 or 5.50m).

I want to clarify that I take those countries as example because they are the most consistent for the last 10 years.  

I know that many coaches train athletes to make every jump equally, but according to my experience when you train in this way, the chance to achieve your gold is not realistic. There are many exercises’ to improve that problem, and of course it won`t be easy but as I said before each centimetre in Triple jump takes time and perseverance.

The problem with transition is that a lot of jumpers, especially young jumpers, make the hop too high instead of  jumping horizontally, so when they land to make the transition to the step, most of the time they breakdown and they start to lose  speed, and this causes the step falls short.  As a result, to end the final jump, they have to pass the 7m long jump to be able to make a jump between 15 or 16m, for men and between 12 or 13m for women. (Of course women don`t need to jump 7m)   

           

If an athlete has a transition problem especially from the hop to the step, the first thing that you have to do is work with coordination and rhythm exercises. The second is work with speed exercises to maintain the speed between the jumps. Third, work with plyometric exercises to improve the reaction time on the ground, and also work with exercises to improve time and space between the jumps. There is one more thing- The Approach. I've heard of many, even professional jumpers, that they only train with short approach even before the competition period ,and they use full approach just in competitions. Every coach has a different opinion about that ,and also respects that, but my opinion is that this is completely wrong.

When you train with short approach, of course it is easy to manage the exercises with control ,but the problem is when you want to jump over 14 or 15m women or 16.90 or 17.30m men, you will need a full competition approach. I know that everybody trains with short approach to improve technique, but you have to train regularly the full approach to be prepared for major competitions.

A lot of people asked me to put exercises in my blog to be able to use in training's. I want to clarify that each exercise is done for each individual athlete. There are athletes who are able to develop their technique with simple exercises. In the meantime if you use those same exercises with another athlete, many times instead of improving what it does with the athlete is to decrease the technique. By this I mean that if you have a good coach, he will always go to find the solution through the invention of new exercises to improve your development. If you as an athlete train with a coach for more than three years and you do not see any kind of improvement in your techniques and results, the first thing you have to do is talk to your coach and together make a deep analysis about the training program and what can be done to improve the situation.

I do not recommend to athletes to change coaches, as in triple jump that can bring bad consequences, but if after having analysed with your coach the problems, and  the problems are still there I think, it is better that you look for a new coach who has a lot of experience and knowledge of triple jump.