May 30, 2025 • 22 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
coaches for coaches powered by Gill Athletics.
Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
you grow as a coach. We'll bring in the once a year
track clinic straight to your ears daily.
Interested in creating your own episode?
Everyone's welcome to participate.
(00:21):
Check out the show notes below For more information.
Now let's get into today's topic.
Hi. My name is Jeremy Fisher, and
today we're going to talk a little bit about the jumps.
I think if you look on the A paradigm or you look at kind of
how the jumps are, they're all three distinguishable, but they
(00:45):
all have their own little idiosyncratic ways to train
them. I think you can see some coaches
who are good at the long jump, some coaches who tend to be a
little bit better at the triple jump and then some coaches who
are better at the high jump. And my goal is to just give
insight into the differences so that you could be successful.
(01:07):
All three. With the recent athletes we've
had, you think that long triple jump would be the common success
level on both sides, but it really isn't.
When Will Clay won his battles in 2012.
It was the first time I've been done in almost like 70 years and
over 100 years by an American. And then it was shortly followed
(01:30):
up in 2024 in Paris by Jasmine Moore, being the first female
American athlete to do it. And so it, it just shows kind of
how difficult it is, even though, you know, the jumps
would seem to have some similarities.
So if I'm looking at the three jumps, I definitely distinguish
(01:54):
the the difference in the three just by the demands of the
event. In the long jump, you're looking
somewhere between 6:00 to 8:00 times your body weight.
You're looking at foot contacts between .12 to .14 seconds.
You're looking at 99% of the time.
The fastest person on the runwayis also the person who's going
(02:15):
to jump the furthest and, and, and win.
And, you know, we're even getting a little bit of slack on
the male side because we're not jumping as far as they did in
the 80s and the 90s. And so I'll let you guys
determine why that's happening. I don't think it's the lack of
good athletes. I think that we need to create
(02:36):
better technical models, give the athletes the ability to keep
progressing beyond the sport. We look at and analyze the
athletes, and we know that the average medalist on the men's
side is about 26 years old and the women is about 27 years old.
So athletes are done with college at 22 to 23, and unless
(02:57):
they're right in medal contention, contracts are hard
to come by. There's very few training groups
that are outside of college. College can be good for a while
and you have some success, but again, that's you're asking a
college coach to do a lot from you're coaching their college
(03:18):
athletes all year and then working with the post collegiate
athletes and then just having a coach who's able to travel with
them internationally. I think that's one of the things
that was great when we had the residence program, the Olympic
Training Center. But since that there really
isn't a very many post collegiate groups.
There's a handful of them acrossthe country and so that's the
(03:43):
first thing that we tend to haveto fill the gap with the lack of
resources and the lack of placesto do that.
Then you also look at the athletes and you determine that
in the triple jump, it's going to be an athlete who is going to
need to hit the 15 to 18 times body weight.
(04:05):
Some say 25. I've not seen that.
It's more like 15 times to 18 times body weight on the single
support. So speed is not as crucial.
It is crucial, but it's not as crucial.
It is in the long jump. It really is the ability to
withstand those forces and have the ability and the attrition to
(04:27):
take the pounding and the training that goes along with
being a triple jumper. And in the high jump, obviously
they're at about 8 meters per second for the men, you're
looking at maybe 6 to 8 times your body weight, but you're
looking at a lot lesser horizontal velocity and the high
jump, but obviously you're really trying to take the event
(04:49):
vertical and propel your body over the bar.
So there's a lot of differences between those in, in regards to
training. And so as we look at training
100, a long jumper, they 100 meters, they tend to be very
good relationship there. And the ability for the athlete
(05:12):
to be fast and also be able to launch up far really is
critical. So being able to manage how much
you're doing with the sprinting and being able to also have the
ability to again hit with those forces off the ground.
Looking at, you know, vertical velocities of 3.4 to 3.8, you're
(05:33):
looking at horizontal velocitiesat for the women about 9 to 9
1/2 for the men 10 1/2 to 11. So those are critical and
important and then using form and technique.
So we know that most of the longjumps for both the men and the
women use a hitch or a modified hitch to jump far compared to we
(05:59):
still have some success with thehang, but the the more the real
successful hangers were the Eastern Europeans back in the
80s. And so trying to get our
athletes back over those 86870 Marks and get our females over
730, you know, we really can't just make them stronger and
(06:20):
faster. We really do have to perfect
their technical model and make sure that we're adapting that
for the triple jumpers. Again, we're for the females,
we're looking 9 to 9 1/2. We've seen almost 15 meter
triple jumpers running at 8.8 meters per second.
Again, it's just being able to handle those forces on a single
leg, support the different techniques that are used.
(06:43):
Again, we say triple jumpers like skipping a rock on the
water, want to stay as low as possible and maintain as much
horizontal velocity through the phases as possible.
There's debates whether you go weak, weak, strong or strong,
strong, weak. Most of them great jumps in the
history are jump dominated, meaning the hop to step and the
(07:05):
jump tends to be if they're breaking down about 33 to 30 to
3637%. And if you face distribution and
then high jump again, trying to be in great models, one being
far enough away from the bar to be able to use the centrifugal
force. And obviously we're talking
(07:26):
about the Bosberry flop, not western roll, even though I feel
like the western roll or even the scissor kick, whatever you
want to call it, could still be used by some high jumpers who
could jump still, you know, pretty high using that
technique. Sometimes I feel like the
Catholics probably could with all their weight, maybe jump a
(07:46):
little bit higher using that technique, but there's very few
people who teach it anymore. So as I'm trying to look at the
athletes and how to build them, I look obviously at
periodization. We work from the elite meets and
we look back. I also look at a four year
window of training for the athletes.
(08:09):
Everything that I do, whether itis dealing with the sports
psychologist, dealing with nutrition, dealing with the
technical model, dealing with strength, I'm always using
progression and I'm always mindful of the different times
when we need different things tobe successful.
And so examples of that, like for nutrition.
(08:31):
So for early on the athletes, it's critical, especially when
they're in those early stages and we're building and we're
progressing and we are having more caloric expenditure because
our volume high, our intensity'slower to start to really modify
their diet to make sure that we're, you know, having things
like creatine. We're making sure that we're
(08:52):
having enough protein for the breakdown and stuff that's
happening. To make sure we have branched
chain amino acids that we're using a ZMAS to help with
recovery, to make sure that we're hydrating ourselves and,
and being hydrated. And just like we do testing, we
(09:12):
also do body testing as far as fat percentages and weight and
just looking at the total lean body mass and how much it
changes. And knowing that like later in
the year when intensity high is high and volume is low, that the
athletes are also conscious of the their caloric expenditure
can't be the same as when it wasearly in the season.
(09:34):
And this obviously is more of a factor for females than it would
be for the males. And so addressing those issues
and knowing that if sometimes there may need to be more volume
added to keep those hormonal balances, weight fluctuations
and everything to a minimum. And so from the strength aspect
(09:58):
of kind of the how I like to look at it, we go from general,
we go to a strength endurance, we go to a Max strength.
From Max strength we go to an eccentric, an isometric.
Then we start to incorporate eccentric with cross
potentiation, post active potentiation training.
(10:18):
We go from a power strength and a power speed and then we're
addressing all those things for about four to five weeks, never
longer than a six week block depending on the year.
And we're building through that and everything goes from general
to very specific. So I always look as far as
correlation if I'm trying to long jump, a squat may have a
(10:41):
40% correlation from a just a general butt on the floor squat,
which we have to do early on to make sure that we're going
through the right, right ranges.And then later on we may be
doing quarter pulse squats with you know about 100% of our
weight. And we're only moving the the
bars from a knee angle of 145 to180°, which would be kind of
(11:06):
right around the angle of the take off in the long jump or
maybe the high jump or somethinglike that.
Even from cleans, looking at theangle early on, we're doing
maybe full cleans. We're doing full cleans for part
of the year. And then we're doing cleans
where we're addressing those knee angles.
So those are things that I'm always addressing and looking at
from the specificity of the strength aspect, from the
(11:29):
technical aspect, we're always working very general rudimentary
things early on, the more specific and very high
correlated drills as we progressthrough the season.
And for speed, we're building that speed as the season goes
on. We're always addressing speed.
So even the first week we may doa 2 step accelerations, but
(11:52):
we're building into more Max speeds and higher intensity
speeds as the season goes on. So we look at correlation and
yes, fly 30s, fly 40s seem like they're very good.
They're good for increasing the Max velocity of the athlete.
But I tend to because in the long jump and triple jump
(12:14):
especially, we're looking at 97%of our Max velocity.
So they're kind of sub maximal speeds or we call them optimal
speeds that the athletes can handle.
But something like a 120, I feellike sometimes for some athletes
has a greater correlation for them as far as handling the
speed on the runway and maybe a family 30 or a family 40 or
(12:34):
flight 20 or something like that.
And so that is a lot of specification when it comes to
the athlete and trying to get asspecific as possible.
So for the high jump, I really it's about 10 in ligament
strength, muscle stiffness, things like that.
The speed factors, running them for two hundreds, one 50s.
I always joke that Patrick Show Bear used to smoke 2 packs of
(12:56):
cigarettes a day because he was more important for him was the
weight of how much he weighed. He felt like he could do all the
strength that he needed to do inthe weight room.
This is like 2 1/2 times body weight step UPS on like a 20
centimeter box. And that was more critical than
being able to run a, you know, 80 meters or 60 meters or 70
(13:20):
meters. And so, you know, kind of having
that frame of thought, I think as coaches, the bounding, the
Plios, the reactive strength things, the weight room and
things like that becomes much more critical for high jumpers
because of the fact that speed is not as critical.
(13:40):
But this muscle reaction, the muscle stiffness, the reactive
strength that is needed to jump super high.
So that's the thought process when you're designing training
and stuff and the variances between the different events.
Now for an athlete who does 3 events, which I've had in the
(14:02):
past in my college days and at avery high successful level,
that's some of the stuff you have to manage to be able to
still have the, you know, fine, the night ability to run fast,
but also have that muscle strength and stiffness to be
able to jump high or jump far, handle the forces in the triple
jump. And so being able to kind of
manage those things. And most of my stuff is written
(14:24):
in a four or five week cycle. But I will say that I've had
athletes, multi event athletes as well as multi event athletes.
Multi events meaning heptathlon,decathlon versus a person who
does a high jump, long triple jump or just half long triple
jump. I tend to look at more of a 14
(14:44):
day cycle then I do a seven day cycle so I can manage both the
events and getting as much work in for the athletes.
So those are things that I look at from just writing and
creativity as a coach. I think as a coach you have to
be creative. You have to, if an athlete early
on cannot get a certain concept,you as a coach have to reach
(15:09):
out, have a community or as yourself be creative of like
what drill or what thing can help this athlete achieve the
technical thing that I'm trying to have them accomplish.
And so there's not always a drill out there for that.
There's something that's going to be kind of crazy or kooky or
something else that allows the athlete to be successful and
(15:31):
that's your ability as a coach to figure those things out.
So as I get into it, I think I look at it from a standpoint I
was able to go through the coaching education things.
I learned the level 2, I learnedthe basics of coaching, did the
level threes, did the World Athletics level fives.
(15:52):
I was fortunate to then write coaching education for USA Track
and Field and World Athletics and you know, travel the world
and travel the country to be able to talk and the thing you
know, you have the basis of whatyou're trying to do.
But at that elite level, really trying to get specification and
(16:16):
individualization is, is the keyto I think metal performance and
medal winning. And sometimes it just, it breaks
out of the norm of the basics ofwhat you're taught and so forth
like that. But I think the basics are
important because when you're working with high school
athletes or developmental athletes, getting them to do
that is, is, is critical. I've seen great high school
(16:38):
coaches who teach that myself. When I'm able to fortunate to
work with a high school group ofathletes, we're working on basic
fundamentals and they show greatimprovement just by keeping it
simple. And then it's the college
coaches to keep improving them and getting them better, but
they'll at least have the basic technical models and stuff to
(16:59):
achieve when they get there. And and and that's kind of how I
look in in and address it. And so, you know, my journey, I
was an elite athlete, you know, 7-6 high jumper then was
fortunate to coach at Cal State Northridge, where national
champions there and then go to Oklahoma and national champions
(17:20):
there. And then, you know, I kind of
saw part of my family, my familywas sick.
My dad was sick, moved back to California to be with him.
I was at Oklahoma and I kind of took a step away.
I was still coaching a little bit, but I spent a year working
with NFL and Major League Baseball athletes.
(17:43):
From there I learned really likenot being a movement specialist
about, you know, the sports are somewhat similar.
And so I was able to work with high school athletes, NFL
athletes, Major League Baseball athletes.
I worked with a professional soccer player, I worked with a
couple volleyball players, I worked with some softball
players and really got to understand movement and success
(18:08):
in developing the athletes overall athleticism.
When I came back to track and field, I just had a a lot better
perspective on what it took to take those athletes and and
that's when it was really well it had the ability to take
athletes 2 at next level. Brittany Reese 11 medals, 8
(18:28):
cold, 3 silver. Will Clay 9 medals.
Wu Sang Wu. He's I think he's got four.
I was able to be there for threeof the four, you know, Brian
McBride, US champ, Ricky Robertson, high jumper who's
been on multiple teams, Chris Bernard, two time Olympian, you
know, on and on and on. And so couture orgy American
(18:50):
record holder in the triple jump.
I mean really working with athletes at a high level.
And now, you know, I've taken a step back with my family and I
created an online platform, MVA dot services and I used all that
information and all those videosthat I've just kind of gotten
over the years. And my goal with it was not only
to coach coaches and to almost be like a in your hand coach for
(19:15):
high jump, long jump, triple jump and sprints and hurdles.
Also with the strength training and the therapy and almost like
give everything I've learned andpeople I've been able to work
with to package it and put it in.
And so, you know, I made it available for athletes so that
they can pay monthly, they can keep learning, they can follow
it from anywhere in the world. I have clients from all over.
(19:37):
We have a Community Board that has over 500 people where I
share at least twice a week different things.
We talk about the sport, which is fantastic.
Also on MBA dot services, I do acoaching camp every summer where
we give scholarships away. You know, I made shirts, I think
the the basis for my MBA maximumVelocity athletics was driven
(20:02):
blessed and tenacity. And so we sell those shirts and
we use some of the proceeds actually to give back to the
foundation. So one of the things we're doing
the foundation this year is we're providing 2 track meets.
For athletes so that they qualify for Paralympic and World
Championships this summer. And, you know, we we want to
continue to do things and, and expound that so we can really
(20:27):
build up. So, you know, go to that NBA Max
velocity athletic shop and get your shirt because it it helps
the jumpers. And my big pie in the sky goal
is to, you know, keep moving forward, keep growing it.
And I would just want to keep giving back.
Our goal eventually down the road with the foundation is to
(20:47):
support some athletes financially so that they can
keep in the sport because there just isn't sponsorship and stuff
available for them. And, and you know, especially in
the high jump, long jump, triplejump, I, I'd love to be able to
sponsor at least 10 to 20 athletes during a quad so that
they can stay in the sport. So that's kind of what I've been
up to. You know, you can check it out.
(21:09):
I have a blog. Also you can go to Maximum
velocity Athletics calm and you can see everything that we're
doing from camps clinics, a toxic around the country using
the European coaches summit in November.
We do one in Atlanta in November.
We do a high annual clinic everyyear in Hawaii in in late
February and we stay busy and still got athletes.
(21:33):
I coach about four to five high jumpers and long jumper and
we're still work with Paralympicathletes.
So, you know, pretty fortunate, but yeah, please, you know,
reach out to me on any of those things, websites, links,
anything, if you ever have questions.
My my goal has always been to teach and educate.
(21:56):
So I think Gil podcast Mike, whoI've known forever, you know,
and talk to forever. I think we did coaching
education together way back in the early 2000s.
So we've known each other for about 25 years.
So I thank you for this opportunity and please check it
out. Maximum Velocity. athletics.com.
(22:17):
Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
amounts of value and I hope thisone hit the mark.
The Gil 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
(22:39):
heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
there. So please get a hold of me,
e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
and let's help create your episode of the Gill 1918
Project. Hope you enjoy the day, they
will see you tomorrow.
Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
coaches for coaches powered by Gill Athletics.
Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
you grow as a coach. We'll bring in the once a year
track clinic straight to your ears daily.
Interested in creating your own episode?
Everyone's welcome to participate.
(00:21):
Check out the show notes below For more information.
Now let's get into today's topic.
Hi. My name is Jeremy Fisher, and
today we're going to talk a little bit about the jumps.
I think if you look on the A paradigm or you look at kind of
how the jumps are, they're all three distinguishable, but they
(00:45):
all have their own little idiosyncratic ways to train
them. I think you can see some coaches
who are good at the long jump, some coaches who tend to be a
little bit better at the triple jump and then some coaches who
are better at the high jump. And my goal is to just give
insight into the differences so that you could be successful.
(01:07):
All three. With the recent athletes we've
had, you think that long triple jump would be the common success
level on both sides, but it really isn't.
When Will Clay won his battles in 2012.
It was the first time I've been done in almost like 70 years and
over 100 years by an American. And then it was shortly followed
(01:30):
up in 2024 in Paris by Jasmine Moore, being the first female
American athlete to do it. And so it, it just shows kind of
how difficult it is, even though, you know, the jumps
would seem to have some similarities.
So if I'm looking at the three jumps, I definitely distinguish
(01:54):
the the difference in the three just by the demands of the
event. In the long jump, you're looking
somewhere between 6:00 to 8:00 times your body weight.
You're looking at foot contacts between .12 to .14 seconds.
You're looking at 99% of the time.
The fastest person on the runwayis also the person who's going
(02:15):
to jump the furthest and, and, and win.
And, you know, we're even getting a little bit of slack on
the male side because we're not jumping as far as they did in
the 80s and the 90s. And so I'll let you guys
determine why that's happening. I don't think it's the lack of
good athletes. I think that we need to create
(02:36):
better technical models, give the athletes the ability to keep
progressing beyond the sport. We look at and analyze the
athletes, and we know that the average medalist on the men's
side is about 26 years old and the women is about 27 years old.
So athletes are done with college at 22 to 23, and unless
(02:57):
they're right in medal contention, contracts are hard
to come by. There's very few training groups
that are outside of college. College can be good for a while
and you have some success, but again, that's you're asking a
college coach to do a lot from you're coaching their college
(03:18):
athletes all year and then working with the post collegiate
athletes and then just having a coach who's able to travel with
them internationally. I think that's one of the things
that was great when we had the residence program, the Olympic
Training Center. But since that there really
isn't a very many post collegiate groups.
There's a handful of them acrossthe country and so that's the
(03:43):
first thing that we tend to haveto fill the gap with the lack of
resources and the lack of placesto do that.
Then you also look at the athletes and you determine that
in the triple jump, it's going to be an athlete who is going to
need to hit the 15 to 18 times body weight.
(04:05):
Some say 25. I've not seen that.
It's more like 15 times to 18 times body weight on the single
support. So speed is not as crucial.
It is crucial, but it's not as crucial.
It is in the long jump. It really is the ability to
withstand those forces and have the ability and the attrition to
(04:27):
take the pounding and the training that goes along with
being a triple jumper. And in the high jump, obviously
they're at about 8 meters per second for the men, you're
looking at maybe 6 to 8 times your body weight, but you're
looking at a lot lesser horizontal velocity and the high
jump, but obviously you're really trying to take the event
(04:49):
vertical and propel your body over the bar.
So there's a lot of differences between those in, in regards to
training. And so as we look at training
100, a long jumper, they 100 meters, they tend to be very
good relationship there. And the ability for the athlete
(05:12):
to be fast and also be able to launch up far really is
critical. So being able to manage how much
you're doing with the sprinting and being able to also have the
ability to again hit with those forces off the ground.
Looking at, you know, vertical velocities of 3.4 to 3.8, you're
(05:33):
looking at horizontal velocitiesat for the women about 9 to 9
1/2 for the men 10 1/2 to 11. So those are critical and
important and then using form and technique.
So we know that most of the longjumps for both the men and the
women use a hitch or a modified hitch to jump far compared to we
(05:59):
still have some success with thehang, but the the more the real
successful hangers were the Eastern Europeans back in the
80s. And so trying to get our
athletes back over those 86870 Marks and get our females over
730, you know, we really can't just make them stronger and
(06:20):
faster. We really do have to perfect
their technical model and make sure that we're adapting that
for the triple jumpers. Again, we're for the females,
we're looking 9 to 9 1/2. We've seen almost 15 meter
triple jumpers running at 8.8 meters per second.
Again, it's just being able to handle those forces on a single
leg, support the different techniques that are used.
(06:43):
Again, we say triple jumpers like skipping a rock on the
water, want to stay as low as possible and maintain as much
horizontal velocity through the phases as possible.
There's debates whether you go weak, weak, strong or strong,
strong, weak. Most of them great jumps in the
history are jump dominated, meaning the hop to step and the
(07:05):
jump tends to be if they're breaking down about 33 to 30 to
3637%. And if you face distribution and
then high jump again, trying to be in great models, one being
far enough away from the bar to be able to use the centrifugal
force. And obviously we're talking
(07:26):
about the Bosberry flop, not western roll, even though I feel
like the western roll or even the scissor kick, whatever you
want to call it, could still be used by some high jumpers who
could jump still, you know, pretty high using that
technique. Sometimes I feel like the
Catholics probably could with all their weight, maybe jump a
(07:46):
little bit higher using that technique, but there's very few
people who teach it anymore. So as I'm trying to look at the
athletes and how to build them, I look obviously at
periodization. We work from the elite meets and
we look back. I also look at a four year
window of training for the athletes.
(08:09):
Everything that I do, whether itis dealing with the sports
psychologist, dealing with nutrition, dealing with the
technical model, dealing with strength, I'm always using
progression and I'm always mindful of the different times
when we need different things tobe successful.
And so examples of that, like for nutrition.
(08:31):
So for early on the athletes, it's critical, especially when
they're in those early stages and we're building and we're
progressing and we are having more caloric expenditure because
our volume high, our intensity'slower to start to really modify
their diet to make sure that we're, you know, having things
like creatine. We're making sure that we're
(08:52):
having enough protein for the breakdown and stuff that's
happening. To make sure we have branched
chain amino acids that we're using a ZMAS to help with
recovery, to make sure that we're hydrating ourselves and,
and being hydrated. And just like we do testing, we
(09:12):
also do body testing as far as fat percentages and weight and
just looking at the total lean body mass and how much it
changes. And knowing that like later in
the year when intensity high is high and volume is low, that the
athletes are also conscious of the their caloric expenditure
can't be the same as when it wasearly in the season.
(09:34):
And this obviously is more of a factor for females than it would
be for the males. And so addressing those issues
and knowing that if sometimes there may need to be more volume
added to keep those hormonal balances, weight fluctuations
and everything to a minimum. And so from the strength aspect
(09:58):
of kind of the how I like to look at it, we go from general,
we go to a strength endurance, we go to a Max strength.
From Max strength we go to an eccentric, an isometric.
Then we start to incorporate eccentric with cross
potentiation, post active potentiation training.
(10:18):
We go from a power strength and a power speed and then we're
addressing all those things for about four to five weeks, never
longer than a six week block depending on the year.
And we're building through that and everything goes from general
to very specific. So I always look as far as
correlation if I'm trying to long jump, a squat may have a
(10:41):
40% correlation from a just a general butt on the floor squat,
which we have to do early on to make sure that we're going
through the right, right ranges.And then later on we may be
doing quarter pulse squats with you know about 100% of our
weight. And we're only moving the the
bars from a knee angle of 145 to180°, which would be kind of
(11:06):
right around the angle of the take off in the long jump or
maybe the high jump or somethinglike that.
Even from cleans, looking at theangle early on, we're doing
maybe full cleans. We're doing full cleans for part
of the year. And then we're doing cleans
where we're addressing those knee angles.
So those are things that I'm always addressing and looking at
from the specificity of the strength aspect, from the
(11:29):
technical aspect, we're always working very general rudimentary
things early on, the more specific and very high
correlated drills as we progressthrough the season.
And for speed, we're building that speed as the season goes
on. We're always addressing speed.
So even the first week we may doa 2 step accelerations, but
(11:52):
we're building into more Max speeds and higher intensity
speeds as the season goes on. So we look at correlation and
yes, fly 30s, fly 40s seem like they're very good.
They're good for increasing the Max velocity of the athlete.
But I tend to because in the long jump and triple jump
(12:14):
especially, we're looking at 97%of our Max velocity.
So they're kind of sub maximal speeds or we call them optimal
speeds that the athletes can handle.
But something like a 120, I feellike sometimes for some athletes
has a greater correlation for them as far as handling the
speed on the runway and maybe a family 30 or a family 40 or
(12:34):
flight 20 or something like that.
And so that is a lot of specification when it comes to
the athlete and trying to get asspecific as possible.
So for the high jump, I really it's about 10 in ligament
strength, muscle stiffness, things like that.
The speed factors, running them for two hundreds, one 50s.
I always joke that Patrick Show Bear used to smoke 2 packs of
(12:56):
cigarettes a day because he was more important for him was the
weight of how much he weighed. He felt like he could do all the
strength that he needed to do inthe weight room.
This is like 2 1/2 times body weight step UPS on like a 20
centimeter box. And that was more critical than
being able to run a, you know, 80 meters or 60 meters or 70
(13:20):
meters. And so, you know, kind of having
that frame of thought, I think as coaches, the bounding, the
Plios, the reactive strength things, the weight room and
things like that becomes much more critical for high jumpers
because of the fact that speed is not as critical.
(13:40):
But this muscle reaction, the muscle stiffness, the reactive
strength that is needed to jump super high.
So that's the thought process when you're designing training
and stuff and the variances between the different events.
Now for an athlete who does 3 events, which I've had in the
(14:02):
past in my college days and at avery high successful level,
that's some of the stuff you have to manage to be able to
still have the, you know, fine, the night ability to run fast,
but also have that muscle strength and stiffness to be
able to jump high or jump far, handle the forces in the triple
jump. And so being able to kind of
manage those things. And most of my stuff is written
(14:24):
in a four or five week cycle. But I will say that I've had
athletes, multi event athletes as well as multi event athletes.
Multi events meaning heptathlon,decathlon versus a person who
does a high jump, long triple jump or just half long triple
jump. I tend to look at more of a 14
(14:44):
day cycle then I do a seven day cycle so I can manage both the
events and getting as much work in for the athletes.
So those are things that I look at from just writing and
creativity as a coach. I think as a coach you have to
be creative. You have to, if an athlete early
on cannot get a certain concept,you as a coach have to reach
(15:09):
out, have a community or as yourself be creative of like
what drill or what thing can help this athlete achieve the
technical thing that I'm trying to have them accomplish.
And so there's not always a drill out there for that.
There's something that's going to be kind of crazy or kooky or
something else that allows the athlete to be successful and
(15:31):
that's your ability as a coach to figure those things out.
So as I get into it, I think I look at it from a standpoint I
was able to go through the coaching education things.
I learned the level 2, I learnedthe basics of coaching, did the
level threes, did the World Athletics level fives.
(15:52):
I was fortunate to then write coaching education for USA Track
and Field and World Athletics and you know, travel the world
and travel the country to be able to talk and the thing you
know, you have the basis of whatyou're trying to do.
But at that elite level, really trying to get specification and
(16:16):
individualization is, is the keyto I think metal performance and
medal winning. And sometimes it just, it breaks
out of the norm of the basics ofwhat you're taught and so forth
like that. But I think the basics are
important because when you're working with high school
athletes or developmental athletes, getting them to do
that is, is, is critical. I've seen great high school
(16:38):
coaches who teach that myself. When I'm able to fortunate to
work with a high school group ofathletes, we're working on basic
fundamentals and they show greatimprovement just by keeping it
simple. And then it's the college
coaches to keep improving them and getting them better, but
they'll at least have the basic technical models and stuff to
(16:59):
achieve when they get there. And and and that's kind of how I
look in in and address it. And so, you know, my journey, I
was an elite athlete, you know, 7-6 high jumper then was
fortunate to coach at Cal State Northridge, where national
champions there and then go to Oklahoma and national champions
(17:20):
there. And then, you know, I kind of
saw part of my family, my familywas sick.
My dad was sick, moved back to California to be with him.
I was at Oklahoma and I kind of took a step away.
I was still coaching a little bit, but I spent a year working
with NFL and Major League Baseball athletes.
(17:43):
From there I learned really likenot being a movement specialist
about, you know, the sports are somewhat similar.
And so I was able to work with high school athletes, NFL
athletes, Major League Baseball athletes.
I worked with a professional soccer player, I worked with a
couple volleyball players, I worked with some softball
players and really got to understand movement and success
(18:08):
in developing the athletes overall athleticism.
When I came back to track and field, I just had a a lot better
perspective on what it took to take those athletes and and
that's when it was really well it had the ability to take
athletes 2 at next level. Brittany Reese 11 medals, 8
(18:28):
cold, 3 silver. Will Clay 9 medals.
Wu Sang Wu. He's I think he's got four.
I was able to be there for threeof the four, you know, Brian
McBride, US champ, Ricky Robertson, high jumper who's
been on multiple teams, Chris Bernard, two time Olympian, you
know, on and on and on. And so couture orgy American
(18:50):
record holder in the triple jump.
I mean really working with athletes at a high level.
And now, you know, I've taken a step back with my family and I
created an online platform, MVA dot services and I used all that
information and all those videosthat I've just kind of gotten
over the years. And my goal with it was not only
to coach coaches and to almost be like a in your hand coach for
(19:15):
high jump, long jump, triple jump and sprints and hurdles.
Also with the strength training and the therapy and almost like
give everything I've learned andpeople I've been able to work
with to package it and put it in.
And so, you know, I made it available for athletes so that
they can pay monthly, they can keep learning, they can follow
it from anywhere in the world. I have clients from all over.
(19:37):
We have a Community Board that has over 500 people where I
share at least twice a week different things.
We talk about the sport, which is fantastic.
Also on MBA dot services, I do acoaching camp every summer where
we give scholarships away. You know, I made shirts, I think
the the basis for my MBA maximumVelocity athletics was driven
(20:02):
blessed and tenacity. And so we sell those shirts and
we use some of the proceeds actually to give back to the
foundation. So one of the things we're doing
the foundation this year is we're providing 2 track meets.
For athletes so that they qualify for Paralympic and World
Championships this summer. And, you know, we we want to
continue to do things and, and expound that so we can really
(20:27):
build up. So, you know, go to that NBA Max
velocity athletic shop and get your shirt because it it helps
the jumpers. And my big pie in the sky goal
is to, you know, keep moving forward, keep growing it.
And I would just want to keep giving back.
Our goal eventually down the road with the foundation is to
(20:47):
support some athletes financially so that they can
keep in the sport because there just isn't sponsorship and stuff
available for them. And, and you know, especially in
the high jump, long jump, triplejump, I, I'd love to be able to
sponsor at least 10 to 20 athletes during a quad so that
they can stay in the sport. So that's kind of what I've been
up to. You know, you can check it out.
(21:09):
I have a blog. Also you can go to Maximum
velocity Athletics calm and you can see everything that we're
doing from camps clinics, a toxic around the country using
the European coaches summit in November.
We do one in Atlanta in November.
We do a high annual clinic everyyear in Hawaii in in late
February and we stay busy and still got athletes.
(21:33):
I coach about four to five high jumpers and long jumper and
we're still work with Paralympicathletes.
So, you know, pretty fortunate, but yeah, please, you know,
reach out to me on any of those things, websites, links,
anything, if you ever have questions.
My my goal has always been to teach and educate.
(21:56):
So I think Gil podcast Mike, whoI've known forever, you know,
and talk to forever. I think we did coaching
education together way back in the early 2000s.
So we've known each other for about 25 years.
So I thank you for this opportunity and please check it
out. Maximum Velocity. athletics.com.
(22:17):
Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
amounts of value and I hope thisone hit the mark.
The Gil 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
(22:39):
heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
there. So please get a hold of me,
e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
and let's help create your episode of the Gill 1918
Project. Hope you enjoy the day, they
will see you tomorrow.
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