Bring back the western roll

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I think you mean the straddle, which is distinct from the Western roll.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straddle_technique

Nobody has ever gone higher than 2.35 with the straddle. Dozens of guys have flopped higher than that. WR is 2.45

2.45 does not sound much higher than 2.35. I think the OP has a point!

10cm is four inches, which is quite a lot in the high jump.

The Western roll died out in the 50s. The straddle disappeared in the 70s. And with good reason.

The OP does not understand high jumping.

Evan Jager could hurdle 250 cm if he just trained for it.

If the Fosbury Flop was so clever an idea, why was it invented by a high school kid?

There has to be a cleverer way to jump high. Some engineer or physicist with a computer simulation could invent a better high jump method if there was any money in it. Like a million dollars.

Jumping backwards just doesn't make sense. That can't be the best possible way.

There is a better way, but the rule against a double leg takeoff precludes it.

With a round-off, back handspring (flip-flop) approach, you could see some huge jumps. Problem is they wouldn't be legal under current rules.

Bad Wigins wrote:

There has to be a cleverer way to jump high. Some engineer or physicist with a computer simulation could invent a better high jump method if there was any money in it. Like a million dollars.

JESUS IS THE WAY!

Jesus Dapena, that is:

He has some pretty cool animations:

From the looks of it, he\\\'s getting paid a lot to study high jump methods.

Tyrone T wrote:

10cm is four inches, which is quite a lot in the high jump.

The Western roll died out in the 50s. The straddle disappeared in the 70s. And with good reason.

The OP does not understand high jumping.

Brumel and others were up around 7'6 in the mid-sixties which would've looked pretty good yesterday and with the taller, stronger, faster, juiced athletes of today a few more inches is very, very likely along with more wins via fewer misses because that bottom, calves and heels would not be flicking the bar away so often.

Bring Back the 880 wrote:

There is a better way, but the rule against a double leg takeoff precludes it.

With a round-off, back handspring (flip-flop) approach, you could see some huge jumps. Problem is they wouldn't be legal under current rules.

The rules are therefore utter garbage. The idea of having a high jump competition is to see how high a human being can jump using their own body power without the assistance of a machine.

With the current rules, the high jump event is the equivalent of having a running race with competitors not being allowed to move their arms or something daft like that.

Ha, I'm not actually certain that a tumbling approach to the high jump would make higher heights possible, but it is a subject that I've contemplated as a former gymnast and track athlete.

There have been some threads in the TFN message board on this topic that have gone pretty deep.

I would love to see a tumbler try an experiment on a high jump apron, but I think they'd miss their spring floor too much.

I only like a Western Roll if it has some roasted red pepper aioli on it, a nice ripe tomato slice or two, some boston lettuce and either a thinly-sliced chicken breast or some beer battered fish.

Bring Back the 880 wrote:

There is a better way, but the rule against a double leg takeoff precludes it.

With a round-off, back handspring (flip-flop) approach, you could see some huge jumps. Problem is they wouldn't be legal under current rules.

Someone should do this as an exhibition and maybe fans will demand the rules change!

I seem to remember that up until the flop, the rule was that the head could not lead the body over the bar, else a disqualification for Diving.

I've never understood how that rule was simply waved for the flop because the head is face up when crossing the bar.

I'm reviving this thread after attending an indoor high school meet this weekend, watching countless participants struggle with learning the blind flying technique of the Fosbury Flop.

Knock it off with the bum, scrape the bar with shoulder, elbow, hand, heel, calf or just plain bang the bar on the way up or coming down after jumping too far from the target.

Fosbury never jumped higher than 7'4. A world record of over 7'8 was set using the straddle about 10 years after Fosbury's took the world by storm.

The world record has only improved by about 3% in the last 4 decades with only the flop being used.

Who knows how high the record would've gone if all coaches hadn't abandoned the straddle.

How many olympic and world medals would've been won if the jumpers were facing the bar and able to adjust the hands and feet to avoid a visualized bar rather than just missing a blind finish in the flop?

I'm convinced that kids would better reach their potential with the straddle; making more of their jumps while reaching nearly if not all of their potential.

The flop has become a faith, maybe even a fraud. I talked to a very smart coach this weekend who was monitoring each jumper using tablet video.

Even he was under the impression that the straddle had been abandoned because the physics of the technique had limited the record to about 7'1. Jumpers were hitting about 7'6 with the straddle fifty years ago, a height that would still be in the hunt for a medal at most recent Olympic games.

Bring Back the 880 wrote:

There is a better way, but the rule against a double leg takeoff precludes it.

With a round-off, back handspring (flip-flop) approach, you could see some huge jumps. Problem is they wouldn't be legal under current rules.

The current rules make the high jump about as ridiculous as speedwalking and the swiming strokes (except for the freestyle). The aim should be to just clear the highest height possible using your own body power and not restricting the technique by which the athlete does this.

10 CM is 4 inches, which is a lot in the high jump. But I challenge the the author who said there were dozens of floppers who have surpassed the best straddle of 2.35, 7 ft 8 3/4 in 1978.

Brumel cleared 7-5 3/4 on a dirt runway in 1963. He broke his leg before he had the opportunity to jump off of synthetic surfaces. Yaschenko cleared 7-8 3/4 at age 20. His career was also cut short by a serious leg injury.

With the flop the jumper can transfer more speed using a bent-leg takeoff and obtain a deeper parabola. The straddle, with a straight-leg takeoff has a shallower parabola, but exerts more force against the ground and can raise the jumper's center of mass higher.

I am prejudiced, but I think a straddler can go as high a a flopper.

Jason Meisler 7-2 straddler, 1975

On second thought, if this back-to-the-straddle movement means back-to-feet-and-inches, forget it.

I saw a Chinese guy straddling in the 84 games. He was their 2nd best. Jinhua was the WR holder at 7-10+ at the time with a flop. Mognburg WG and Sjoberg Sweeden, Stones of US were all floppers as well beating out the Chinese Roller.

The argument for force applied at takeoff and Center of Gravity for each style also has to take into account the individual jumpers attributes. A slower power jumper vs a faster speed jumper. I think the HJ community has overwhelmingly decided that the flop is a better technique based on the fact that the center of gravity is actually below the bar on rotation over the bar. I think this allows for greater speeds to be achieved and therefore greater force and resultant opposite gfr at takeoff regardless of which physical attributes the athlete has.

Barshem is an awesome example of how the jumpers have evolved over the last 15-20 years, light and fast. However, the downfall is stress on the takeoff leg over time. Sotomayor applied so much force he would break/shear spikes off. Makes one think that maybe the flop could allow more short approach drills per session than the roll and have less overall stress on the body.

Young beggining jumpers are hardly a control group to build any data around sinc they are most inconsistent. Its all in the approach. Once they leave the ground, their parabola has been determined. Bar mechanics takes time to develop in young people. Getting them to "feel" their positions and time everything can take years. A small percentage of kids actually get it by graduation.

So....should all SP athletes go back to the glide and reject the spin/rotation?