Athletics

Abstract

We investigated the immediate effects of the combined use of inclined and raised flat boards on the take‐off motion of the long jump. Eight male long jumpers were videotaped with two high‐speed video cameras (250 Hz) set perpendicular to the runway. The athletes jumped with three modified take‐off boards: upward‐inclined boards of two different inclinations (2.5 and 5.0°), and a raised flat board (50 mm high). The jumpers performed pre‐ and post‐jumps using their own techniques before and after use of the boards to test their effects. The post‐ jump revealed significantly less reduction in the horizontal velocity during the take‐off than the pre‐jump, and the effectiveness of converting the velocity from horizontal to vertical increased significantly in the post‐jump. The post‐jump demonstrated significantly less knee flexion of the take‐off leg during take‐off. The reduced knee flexion and slower extension velocity of the take‐off leg in the second phase of the post‐jump contributed to increasing the knee extension torque in the second phase and resulted in the increases in vertical ground reaction force and vertical velocity. These results suggest that the combined use of the inclined and raised flat boards induced immediate effective changes in the kinematics and kinetics of the take‐off motion and represent appropriate training tools for take‐off techniques of the long jump.

Keywords:

• immediate effect
• long jump
• modified take‐off boards
• motion analysis
• take‐off motion