Does Sprinting Make Your Approach Faster In Jumping
What's up, guys? Welcome back to the t three sharing podcast. On today's episode, we're gonna be answering a question about sprinting. Before we do that, my name is John Evans. I coach many of the highest jumpers in the world like this guy right here.
John:He's got a 50.5 inch vertical, and I've actually helped four athletes now of the top six get into that upper echelon. So if you're interested in coaching and you want, you know, the best of the best in the world, go to teachmestrength.com. If you purchase six months, you can get six months free. It's a great deal.
Isaiah:So let's get or pinned comment.
John:Right. Let's get, let's get into this here, Isaiah. So what was your question regarding this? You were getting a haircut. We should have podcasted during it.
John:We we talked about we could look like LeBron in his barbershop, but we didn't we didn't do it today.
Isaiah:So I posed a statement, and I asked John if it's a valid statement. And I thought about this last night. I actually told my wife, Christina, to text me this to remind me last night. I was literally in bed, and I would just remembered. I didn't have my phone near me.
Isaiah:I was like, Dee Dee, text me. It was inspired from a lot of comments I've seen on TikTok and YouTube because I put I post a lot of training content. And in those training videos, a lot of people will ask questions about their vertical jump training in the comments. And one of the most common, like, athlete archetypes are the guys that don't their approach vertical and standing vertical are pretty close to each other. That's one archetype.
Isaiah:And then the the comment I got most recently was because of my video where I jumped higher off a slow approach versus a fast approach. And a lot of people were saying, run faster or somebody doesn't jump approach or they'll they'll say, you know, sprint so that you can get a faster approach. So then the statement I was thinking about this and the statement that I told John, I was like, is this true? The benefit you get from sprinting to jumping does not come from having a faster approach. Let me repeat that one more time.
Isaiah:The reason you do sprints is not to have a faster approach. Because, logically, I think most people think that. They think I am slow during my approach. Therefore, I will do sprints, so I will get faster, and I'll jump higher as a result. But that's not that's not at all why we do sprints.
John:Yeah. So drum roll. That is false. So we do not do sprints for the approach speed. Even high jumpers, elite high jumpers, the fastest they're running is eight meters per second.
John:And we're talking guys off one foot. So off two foot.
Isaiah:For for comparison purposes, how fast is a 100 meter dash? Like, the fastest people on the planet?
John:The fastest people in the world are hitting 12.1 meters per second, maybe a little bit faster. Right? So you're hitting
Isaiah:And how fast would that high jumper run the 100 meter?
John:If they did a flying 100 if they did a flying 100, they would run twelve seconds. If they were to do it off a start, they run slower than that. Like, maybe What about what
Isaiah:about in terms of velocity, like, meters per second? How fast is
John:In terms of two foot jumping? Oh, no. They're 12.1. The 100 meter dash guy is hitting 12.1. Jumpers are hitting eight in a run
Isaiah:up. Okay. So that's They
John:could hit faster.
Isaiah:Reference. That's 33% faster
John:on 100 meters than what
Isaiah:your approach. And this is, like, one foot high jump. They're the fastest approaches on the planet.
John:Yeah. Like, eight meters per second is slow. Like, eight meters per second is slow. That's really slow. Like, Isaiah and I's fly times are, like, 10 meters per second.
John:So we're at 80 I mean, if I were an elite high jumper, I'd be at 80% of my run velocity.
Isaiah:And then what would you estimate, like, the fastest two foot approach guy? How fast are you running?
John:The fastest? The between it's probably in the sixes. I mean, we don't know for sure, but I'd say probably six, maybe slower. So let's say moving very fast.
Isaiah:Let's say mine's five and my bet fastest ever is 10. Like, I'm only using 50%. Mind you, this is untrained, not doing sprints.
John:Yeah.
Isaiah:I'm probably only accessing 50% of my full running speed.
John:Yeah. I would say on the penultimate step, you might hit six at maybe one moment in time because you gotta think it's like an acceleration step and you have some momentum. So maybe, yeah, maybe six probably. Yeah. May maybe a little faster.
John:Don't know. I'd have to see definitively during, like, toe off what you're actually at, but that's where you're probably moving the fastest. Most most people break on the penultimate step, but two foot jumpers are a little different because they're already moving so slow that that stride, they can really generate a lot of momentum. And so that's still really slow. Like, even if it's seven, that's still really slow.
John:Most people most anyone could hit seven meters per second in upright running, you know, past the age of, like, six you know, 16. Mhmm. So that's not much of a a limiter. Spurning, we do it because of the physiological adaptations that we get. You're getting something that's very high contraction velocities.
John:Muscles are turning on and off incredibly quickly. You have a unique muscular tenderness interaction where the muscle shortening and the tendon is lengthening potentially or the muscle staying the same length and the tendon's stretching. So you're getting a lot of elastic return from the tendon because of it. You're getting super short ground contact times, which can be specific for one foot jumpers for during acceleration, maybe two foot, but it's still it's still faster. So on the specificity side of things, it's relatively specific, but it's still far off from, you know, all out max jumping.
John:It's specific from a motor recruitment point of view. You're recruiting motor units as fast as you possibly can. There's high eccentric forces. You're in acceleration. You're in a lower knee position from a standstill.
John:Like, the first three steps are relatively specific. Past that, it starts to get less specific, but you're still getting, you know, stress shortening cycles. You're still doing something that's dynamic and fast. Like, it's specific in that regard. The intramuscular forces are not even close.
John:Like, the intramuscular forces in jumping are way, way, way higher. You're in a much more mechanically disadvantaged position. You have way more time to generate force. The muscle has to overcome that disadvantaged position and it has more time to generate that force. You're getting a different type of stretch running cycle where you have time to to preload way longer to to, like, preload the muscle, which is like an anticipatory response that happens before your foot hits the ground.
John:Happens in sprinting, mostly in the lower leg. It's not gonna be as crazy. The eccentric forces are a lot higher than in acceleration. And when the eccentric forces are high in sprinting, you're upright. So from a lower leg point of view, you know, the block foot is probably the most specific, but you're not you're shooting for different adaptations.
John:And then, you know, the other one is to move dynamically really fast, you've got to have good mass specific force, and that's the same thing as as jumping. You have to have good mass specific force. So it's and it's a good way to add volume. It's a good way to add intense volume that is kinda specific, kinda not, and can correct some of the deficits that we would see guys have. So, like, moving light loads really, really quickly.
John:Springing is a good way to to train that quality. And, for example, like, now, would fit nicely into what Isaiah's doing, which maybe we'll get into in tomorrow's podcast where he'll put up the YouTube video. So, yeah, that's the that's the video, guys. If you're interested in getting coaching from us, go to teachmestrength.com. Do your sprints.
John:They are good for you, but not because you're gonna run faster than the approach. They're good for you for a bunch of other reasons that we covered.
Isaiah:Train your muscle and nervous system.
John:That's right. And go to thpstrength.com if you want six months of coaching free when you purchase a six month package. We'll see you guys. Whole month package.
