Fosbury flop – Wikipedia

2024-03-07 14:55:48

Excessive bounce approach

The Fosbury flop is a leaping type used within the monitor and subject sport of high jump. It was popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury, whose gold medal within the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City introduced it to the world’s consideration.^[1] The flop grew to become the dominant type of the occasion; earlier than Fosbury, most elite jumpers used the straddle technique, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off, or scissors jump to clear the bar. Although the backwards flop approach had been recognized for years earlier than Fosbury,^[2] touchdown surfaces had been sandpits or low piles of matting and excessive jumpers needed to land on their ft or no less than land fastidiously to stop damage. With the appearance of deep foam matting, excessive jumpers have been in a position to be extra adventurous of their touchdown kinds and therefore extra experimental with leaping kinds.

Approach[edit]

Ending of **Fosbury Flop** carried out by Yelena Slesarenko

The center of gravity stays below the bar.

The method (or run-up) within the Fosbury flop is characterised by (no less than) the ultimate 4 or 5 steps being run in a curve, permitting the athlete to lean in to the flip, away from the bar. This permits the middle of gravity to be lowered even earlier than knee flexion, giving an extended time interval for the take-off thrust. Moreover, on take-off, the sudden transfer from inward lean to outwards produces a rotation of the jumper’s physique alongside the bar’s axis, aiding clearance.

Mixed with the rotation across the jumper’s vertical axis (heart across the waist, which rotates) produced by the drive leg (much like an ice skater spinning round on one spot), the ensuing physique place on bar clearance is laid out supine with the physique at ninety levels to the bar with the top and shoulders crossing the bar earlier than the trunk and legs. This offers the Flop its attribute “backward over the bar” look, with the athlete touchdown on the mat on their shoulders and again.

Whereas in flight, the athlete can progressively arch shoulders, again, and legs in a rolling movement, protecting as a lot of the physique as attainable beneath the bar. It’s theoretically attainable for the center of mass to cross below the bar.^[3]^[4]

Whereas the straddle type required energy within the takeoff knee and might be utilized by comparatively burly athletes (cf. Valeriy Brumel), the Flop allowed athletes of a slender construct to make use of their co-ordination to larger impact and never threat knee accidents, which they’d beforehand suffered from different kinds.^{[citation needed]}

Predominantly, athletes utilizing the flop use a J formed method, the place the primary three-to-five strides head in a straight line at ninety levels to the bar, with the ultimate four-to-five being run in a curve (famous above).

Fosbury himself cleared the bar along with his fingers by his sides, whereas some athletes cross the bar with their arms held out to the aspect and even above their heads, optimizing their mass-distribution. Research present that variations in method, arm approach, and different elements will be adjusted to attain every athlete’s finest efficiency.^[5]

For causes much like these famous as drawbacks to the J formed method, the Flop’s optimum velocity of method just isn’t a full-out dash. Equally, rising the variety of strides past eight or ten just isn’t advisable except the athlete has achieved excessive consistency within the method and may deal with the elevated velocity.^{[citation needed]} The angle of take-off in the direction of the bar is normally someplace between fifteen and thirty levels. The angle should not be too shallow, or the jumper jumps too far alongside the bar, touchdown on it. If the angle is just too vast, there may be not sufficient time to “format” within the air.^{[citation needed]}

The “damaged” leg (which is thrust into the air first at take-off) is all the time the nearer leg to the bar. Thus somebody who makes use of a left foot take-off (the place the left foot transmits the bounce power and is the latter to depart the bottom) will method the bar from its right-hand aspect, curving to their left to method their proper shoulder. The appropriate leg will drive into the air, and the jumper’s physique rotates anti-clockwise across the vertical axis to current their again to the bar in flight.

In addition to driving the leg and hips at take-off, the athlete ought to drive and even swing one or each arms into the air, contributing to the upwards momentum.