The importance of combining Core with Flexibility exercises for Triple Jumpers

 

Why is flexibility important for an athlete?

Flexibility is an important component of physical fitness and has many positive effects on the body-for instance, it improves mobility, posture, muscle coordination, reduces the risk of injuries and muscle soreness. It even leads to a better overall performance.

It mainly increases your range of motion and makes it easier for you to perform certain exercises. Basically, stretching before working out increases blood flow in the muscles. If you don’t work on your flexibility regularly, muscles shorten with time: best example is the hip flexor because we’re sitting too much. Limited flexibility feels like ‘stiffness,’and restricts you in your daily life and when you’re exercising.

For a triple jumper is essential to maintain an upright position and also to lock the pendulums  during the transition from Hop-step and jump, for example as you can see in these pictures.

                                                  

 

 Flexibility and Core play the most significant role in maintaining this position.

As I commented in my last blog, Core Stability enables athletes to control their body position, generate optimum power, and transfer force along the kinetic chain. Core stability is often needed in rotational movements, which is a fundamental requirement for a long jumper or triple jumper. By strengthening core stabilizers, jumpers can maximize strength in their arms and leg.

When an athlete is available to brings those exercises in balance, the jump quality will improve gradually to a great success. Also it is going to be easy to work with the plyometrics exercises with hard impact on the ground, and the plyometrics exercises with hurdles will be even more effective.

One of the major problems for a jumper is a lack of flexibility of the Hip flexor- precisely the one that keeps the pendulum in the right position during the flight phases.  

The power that you will generate to project yourself horizontally will come from your hip flexors. You will need to train them to explode horizontal power. A few exercises that you can do include:

Bulgarian split squat with dumbbells with arms in the front, with either double arms or single arms kept in front during the exercise.  Make sure that you explode upwards in the movement.

Hopping exercises (add hurdles or cones, placed for distance)

Hip thrusts (add enough resistance weight and focus on pushing with your heels)

Remember all exercises are not suitable for all athletes, that is why that you have to have a good training program and control regularly your progress every month.

Next, I want to talk about something important especially for triple jumpers- please protect yourself from injury.

One of the most common injuries that triple jumpers get is a bruised heel. Once you get this, it makes it more difficult to improve your triple jump performance since you will get pain every time you land on your foot, and it will knock your confidence.

To help minimize the risk of getting a bruised heel, you can get heel protection insoles for your shoes.

Specialized triple jump shoes will give you added protection and comfort on your foot and especially around your heel. If you are doing triple jumps that require you to handle a lot of force on your jumps (Typically when you start jumping over 13 metres women or 15m men), then you will need to invest in triple jump spikes.