What's up with the weird ritualistic posturing high jumpers do before starting their approach?

Gotta make sure the ballsack is in position first.

For women, not sure though.

They are mentally preparing for the jump

You often see them making some gestures with their hands practicing the run up

Fan of the Jam wrote:

Gotta make sure the ballsack is in position first.

For women, not sure though.

It's for warming up the muscles that hold the uterus so that it won't fall out.

This was covered--at some length--in Once a Runner[/]. Check it out.

I'm more concerned with the crowd being able to slow clap progressing to fast clap in unison.

I suppose the weird stuff before the approach is the same as mental prep and ritual, similar to golfers doing the wiggle-waggle (Garcia), or tennis players bouncing the ball and adjusting their clothing and hair (Nadal).

What I do not understand is the bounding on approach. You rarely see people steadily accelerate with normal running form, which makes sense because you are trying to convert horizontal speed abruptly into the vertical jump. But these stiff-legged hops that cover a lot of ground don't seem very energy-efficient.

czech locomotive wrote:

What I do not understand is the bounding on approach. You rarely see people steadily accelerate with normal running form, which makes sense because you are trying to convert horizontal speed abruptly into the vertical jump. But these stiff-legged hops that cover a lot of ground don't seem very energy-efficient.

Works for Derek Drouin.

The S.A. Fighter is back wrote:

czech locomotive wrote:

What I do not understand is the bounding on approach. You rarely see people steadily accelerate with normal running form, which makes sense because you are trying to convert horizontal speed abruptly into the vertical jump. But these stiff-legged hops that cover a lot of ground don't seem very energy-efficient.

Works for Derek Drouin.

+1

You beat me to it

czech locomotive wrote:

I suppose the weird stuff before the approach is the same as mental prep and ritual, similar to golfers doing the wiggle-waggle (Garcia), or tennis players bouncing the ball and adjusting their clothing and hair (Nadal).

What I do not understand is the bounding on approach. You rarely see people steadily accelerate with normal running form, which makes sense because you are trying to convert horizontal speed abruptly into the vertical jump. But these stiff-legged hops that cover a lot of ground don't seem very energy-efficient.

Yes! That is very odd-looking, and they all pretty much do it. Maybe it somehow "primes the pump" for the leap and arching motions to come?

high jump would be much more entertaining if they jumped through a little hoop

Hilarious, but seriously, yes!

...I see what ya mean:

https://youtu.be/YwaDBydYSIk

Interesting view. Very mesmerizing. It seems like there are two types of elite female jumpers; the ones with the powerful sprinter builds, and the ones with the super skinny, long torsos that appear to either have hypermobile vertebral joints or have an extra coupe of lumbar vertebrae. Regardless, both dichotomies of jumper are sexy as hell to watch do their thing.