Sports11 min
The Fosbury Flop and the jump that made every other technique obsolete
How Dick Fosbury's strange backwards leap at the 1968 Olympics overturned decades of high-jump orthodoxy almost overnight, and what it reveals about how innovations take over a sport.
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Show notes
Detailed breakdown of the 1968 Mexico City Olympic high jump finals.
Explanation of the physics of the center of mass in high jumping.
The role of foam landing mats in enabling athletic innovation.
The timeline of the straddle technique's extinction in professional sports.
In this episode
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Era of the Straddle and the Scissor2 min
- 03The Physics of the Flop3 min
- 04Mexico City and the Global Shock2 min
- 05The Great Extinction3 min
- 06Outro1 min
Sources
- 50 years since the day Dick Fosbury revolutionised the high jump | FEATURE | World Athletics
- Fosbury flop
- The Fosbury Flop—A Game-Changing Technique | Lemelson
- Flipping point | Nesta
- The Fosbury Flop: On analytics and strategic surprise - Underdog Intelligence
- An athlete uses physics to shatter world records - Asaf | TED-Ed
- Dick Fosbury - Wikipedia
- Fly High - The Fosbury Flop - Systematic Inventive Thinking
- Olympic Medalist Dick Fosbury and the Power of Being Unconventional
- Fosbury's golden moment - Men's High Jump | Mexico 1968 Highlights
- Dick Fosbury | Biography, Fosbury Flop, High Jump, & Facts | Britannica
- NSA_03_2009
- THE EVOLUTION OF HIGH JUMPING TECHNIQUE: BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS Jesus Dapena Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA INTRODUCTION: There was no high jumping event in the ancient Greek Olympic Games. This sport event seems to have its origin with the Celts (Tailteann Games). But modern high jumping began in Germany in the late 18 century. It started as a physical education activity for children 1). It developed into a competitive sport in England in the 19 century, and soon afterward spread to Canada and to the United States. Mechanical considerations: To clear a high jump bar, it is necessary to drive the center of mass (c.m.) of the athlete to the largest height possible. It is also necessary to move the body in the air in a way that will allow the athlete to clear a bar set as close as possible to the peak height reached by the c.m. For a given peak height reached by the c.m., lowering some parts of the body allows other parts to go higher. This is the mechanical principle that has improved the effectiveness of the bar clearance over the years. Evolution of the bar clearance: Techniques have progressed considerably since the beginning of modern high jumping in the late 18 th century. Every new technique was named after an improvement in the bar clearance. If a high jumper remains in a straight vertical position after taking off from the ground, the height of the bar that the feet will be able to clear will be far below the peak height of the c.m. The simplest improvement over this is a technique in which the athlete flexes at the hips and knees to adopt a squatting position at the peak of the jump (Figure 1). We could call this the "legs-up" technique. Since the peak height of the c.m. can't be changed after the athlete leaves the ground, the lifting of the legs is accompanied by a lowering of the trunk. This technique greatly increases the height of the bar that can be cleared. The next technique in the evolution of high jumping was the "scissors", in which the legs are lifted over the bar in alternation one after the other. The advantage of the scissors technique is that parts of both legs are below the level of the bar at the peak of the jump (Figure 2). This increases the height of the pelvis, and therefore the bar height that can be cleared. The scissors was followed by the "Eastern cut off' technique (sometimes called the Lewden scissors in Europe). In the Eastern cut-off the athlete rotates the trunk into a horizontal position at the peak of the jump (Figure 3). This lowers the trunk, and therefore lifts the pelvis higher than in the simple scissors technique. The result is a higher bar clearance. A disadvantage of the Eastern cut-off is that it requires tremendous flexibility.
- http://www.iaaf.org/download/downloadnsa?filename=d2ee14b6-b52c-47a6-8afd-95ccd0418a4d.pdf&urlslug=the-high-jump
- Straddle technique
- THE EVOLUTION OF HIGH JUMPING TECHNIQUE: BIOMECHANICAL ANALYSIS | ISBS - Conference Proceedings Archive
- Fosbury flop
- Trial and error: How Dick Fosbury revolutionized the high jump
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