Fitness and Training > General Fitness

Maximizing jumps and sprints -- the posterior chain

(1/11) > >>

Steve Low:
I feel the need to pull together a series of resources on the importance of the posterior chain in basically any explosive movement like sprinting and jumping. While it is true that the quads generate a large majority of the force in a jump or while sprinting (see olympic sprinters quads!), the posterior chain is basically the extra few gears on a car that makes it extremely fast and not just quick. The posterior chain is primarily composed of 4 muscle groups: the calves, the hamstrings, the glutes and the spinal erectors.

Most of the time when we focus on improving our jumps or sprinting ability, we focus on our calves. This is the most easily seen thing that we can improve, and it is relatively simple to do. You can do ankle jumps where you just use your calves and keep relatively straight legs. You can also do calf raises and other such exercises as well. I'm sure each one of us has done something in our lifetime to improve this ability. However, this is not what we are mainly after here. Neglecting the hamstrings, glutes and spinal erectors is one of the major reasons why people aren't getting the most out of their sprints and jumps as they want. And this is precisely the goal of this post.

First off there is an excellent resource online that CrossFit was so kind enough to post on its front page which you should all probably take a look at. The link is here (pdf). In this specific Parkour compendium, Jesse outlines proper jumping technique using photographs of Mark. We will take a look at two in particular. Here's Jesse's analysis of jumping:


--- Quote from: Jesse ---The basics of jumping technique and the concept behind the precision jump apply to nearly every jumping movement in parkour.

• Stand with your feet directly below your hips in the jumping position and bend at the hips and knees while swinging your arms back. Explode through the hips, knees and ankles as you swing your arms toward your path of travel.
• Tuck your knees toward your chest mid-jump to maximize the efficiency of travel while you’re in the air.
• For both the straight landing and the precision landing, you will extend from this tucked position toward the point of landing. In the precision jump, you will be jump at about a 45-degree angle and extend your legs in front of your torso to allow your momentum to carry you to your feet in balance as you absorb the impact.
--- End quote ---

Here's the picture (top image) that goes along with it, and then we have two stick figure images of the first phase of the jump which we can analyze on why the posterior chain is critical to jumping explosiveness:


First off, I noted four different angles in the photo:
1. Front of the hips
2. Back of the knees
3. Bend at the ankles
4. The "back" angle

Of course, it is the quads (in orange) that get the ball rolling. These are the muscles that are going to be your first and second gear which start the initial acceleration up through pictures 1 to about 3. However, after this, the posterior chain is going to take over most of the explosive force production that will give you the acceleration you need to jump high off of the ground. Through pictures 3 to 8, you see that quad force production is relatively nominal. For example, try holding out your leg with a slightly bent knee out in front of you at your computer; then straighten your leg from that slight bend to all the way straight. You will notice that you do not have much power at all and even the little that you did have was just against thin air -- no way is it going to be able to propel your bodyweight much more than a foot max off the ground! Thus, we come to our beloved posterior chain in all its glory, hehe. It is the main factor that is going to accelerate you through positions 3 to 8 giving you that explosive jump. Let's analyze it step by step:


3 to 4:
This is the phase where your butt is starting to come in while your legs straighten out. The quick arm swing is the main driving force behind your acceleration upwards at the moment as the posterior chain is kicking it into gear. The quad gears are at their highest, the clutch is being popped so that the acceleration can be transferred to the posterior chain gears.

4 to 5:
This is where it really becomes apparent that the posterior chain is starting to work to propel you upwards. Take a look at how angle 4 is trending towards vertical -- this is your spinal erectors contracting to bring your torso upright. Along with this angle 1 is starting to increase towards 180 degrees as is angle 2 -- this is your glutes pulling your hips forward. There is a slight trend towards vertical in angle 3 as well which is your calves gearing up to push through your toes.

5 to 6:
The spinal erectors (angle 4) have now pulled the torso upright with momentum and acceleration. The glutes (angle 1) have totally opened up the hips to totally straight. The hamstrings (angle 2) are now involved heavily in the extension of opening the angle through the knees up. The calves (angle 3) are obviously starting to propel the feet off of the ground.

6 to 7:
As we can see, this whole series is an extension and acceleration of all that happened in step 5 to step 6. The most noticable effect is that the calves are pushing the toes off the ground, but the FULL coordination of the hamstrings, glutes and spinal erectors contraction through the knees, hips and back respectively are the major component of the acceleration through the ankles. The calf push is really minor compared as I'm sure most of you know when you've tried jumping with straight legs and only your calves.

7 to 8:
This is mainly just a continuation to full contraction of the whole posterior chain as well as using the momentum from your arms to fully extend to maximize jump height. The arms have been helping you throughout this movement as well, but they are not the major component of overall acceleration.


Now that you know... What does this mean for you?

This means a whole hell of a lot to those who want to increase their vertical jump and sprints (since these two are related in posterior chain strength). First of all, exercises that are quad dominant and hamstring and glute minimal are awful for developing the power you need to have an explosive jump. The following are a list of exercises that will help you a lot:

~squats -- full range of motion (ALL the way down, not just parallel; NO smith machine or leg pressing)
~deadlifts (both regular, straight leg, sumo high pulls)
~good mornings (oly lifter style; be careful with these as well)
~olympic high pulls
~cleans (and versions thereof)
~snatches
~glute-ham raise
~back extensions
~plyometrics
~practicing maximum vertical jumps

The most important ones are obviously the ones that will require you to FULLY extend the hips in an explosive movement -- e.g. the olympic lifts -- cleans, snatches, olympic high pulls and variations thereof. The second most important are the ones that will help you in the department of getting stronger in the posterior chain which includes the squats, DLs, good mornings, glute-ham raises and other weightlifting exercises. Obviously, other exercises that you can do are plyometrics which train your slow twitch muscle fibers to function like fast twitch fibers and practicing maximum vertical leaps. All of these are good ideas.

If you have access to an olympic bar or even DBs or kettlebells, try to get someone who knows how to do any of the olympic lifts to help you out to learn them. If you are doing a heavy amount of Parkour training, you also need adequate time to recover from working out as well. This means that if you are doing Parkour for a few hours 3 times a week, your body will probably only have enough recovery ability to workout building your strength 1-2 times per week. Conversely, if you're only doing Parkour for 1-2 hour sessions for 1-2 times per week, then you can have a training schedule of 2-3 times a week for training.

Training for maximum power and strength in the gym is often what you want to do. For lifting, Mark Rippetoe (from CrossFit Wichita Falls) has a great program for beginners looking to increase their strength and muscular mass called Starting Strength. If you don't want to increase your muscular mass, then it is as simple as not eating to be big. Mass is a component of mainly diet and not training protocol. Anyway, here is the link to his site if you want to buy the book (and a link to a write-up for it on a BBing forum):

http://startingstrength.com
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=712752

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is a handy resource after you finish Starting Strength (or if you don't want to do Starting Strength) from the actual book if you want a general guide on what repetition ranges to use to create strength and power in your body. Generally you are going to keep your weights heavy and your repetitions in the 1-3 range or the 3-6ish range. This will create the most applicable hypertrophy -- myofibrillar hypertrophy -- which is increase in muscle size through enlargement of the muscle fibers, and it will help you develop strength and power depending on your training. Remember, the MORE strength you have, the higher your potential power output which means a higher potential jump if you train your strength right.

http://www.startingstrength.com/files/sample200.pdf

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some good resources (along with training programs if you so desire):
http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/articles.html
http://www.higher-faster-sports.com/jumphigher.html
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1175186
http://www.e-lacrosse.com/yeager2.html
http://www.infinityfitness.com/articles/backside.html

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, in conclusion I hope you all have learned at least SOMETHING from this thread... well, something in terms of JUMPING, hehe. I wrote this in hopes that you, my fellow traceurs, would be able to KNOW how to train well, and improving your jumping ability is a great way to start. After reading these fitness forums for a while as well as the post Jesse made on the front page about competition (and the ensuing debates in the thread), I have realized that there is generally not enough information for those who want to learn how to train effectively and seriously to improve themselves quickly.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or any other members who know a lot like Jesse/gear.

P.S. I am also getting starting on putting together something for rings training if anyone has access to rings. :)

Kipup:
I was about to meet up with some people and train - and I saw this.
Didn't finish, but I like what I've read so far.  Will definately finish reading tonight.

Nice Job!

Gearsighted:
Damn straight! From what I've found, I've been able to increase people's jumping power as much if not more through properly incorporated deadlifts, squats, cleans and snatches as I have through jump-specific plyometrics. I'll read all the way through this in a bit...do you mind if I post it on the main site? We can always use in-depth content like this!

Tsumaru:
I can say without a doubt, that full squats rock. I've always gone to parallel, but the other day I went ass to grass and I can vouch for the fact that my hamstrings were in pain the next day. Though I deadlift a lot (my favourite lift =P), I've just never put my hammies under that kind of stress before. Definitely a part of my training arsenal now. =D

Anyway, enough of my rant about full squats. Great post Steven. Can't say I've ever seen someone go into that much depth about the muscle mechanics of jumping before. I might have to start adding the cleans and snatches to my training soon.

Steve Low:
Sure Jesse go for it.

Yeah, I feel like explosive movements like the oly lifts are THE most important factor in developing explosive posterior chain power. Plyometrics only trains explosiveness, but oly lifts will train explosiveness AND strong hip extension at the same time. It's quite obvious why world class olympic lifters have the highest verticals of ANY athletes, and they NEVER train specifically at all for vertical leaps. I wonder how high many of these olympic lifters would be able jump if they did some specific vertical training...

The core strength lifts like DLs, full range squats, good mornings, etc. will help extensively in building up a good base from which to develop explosive power. The more strength you have, the more potential you have to jump. For relatively new people who haven't come from a training background where strong legs and backs are needed (which seems to be a lot of the case for the relatively new traceurs), it seems that strengthening the posterior chain should be emphasized more over the development of explosive power. Of course, both can be trained at the same time, but emphasis on strength especially will lend itself towards longer goals which do include more explosive jumps and a better conditioning level.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page