Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "TED-Ed" channel.

  1.  @truthseeker7815  Fosbury evolved his technique from the scissors. He wasn't competitive with the straddle so, against the advice of his high school coaches, he persisted with the scissors. His technique evolved over the next two or three years to pretty much what it was in Mexico City. What he didn't do was sit down with a pencil and paper and use physics to work out a new technique. That is simply wrong. Fosbury just did what his body told him worked for him. As it happens, it works pretty well for a lot of others.
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  2. The flop. Fosbury evolved his method through years of experimentation. There are many videos of him explaining how he did it. They are all better than this rubbish.
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  3. Speaking as a qualified sports science teacher and former high jump coach for about ten years, I can say that this is simply wrong. First let’s clear the air of a few assumptions made by this video. 1) Fosbury’s technique is revolutionary because of centre of gravity advantages not found in other techniques and 2) That the performance increases were due to those advantages. The centre of gravity issue is massively overstated here. Anyone who saw a competent dive straddle jumper like Valeri Brumel or Vladimir Yashchenko (the last straddler to hold the world record) or roll straddlers like Rolf Beilschmidt or Stefan Junge could not help but notice that, in terms of bar clearance, the CoG advantage of a well executed flop jump is marginal. The difference is not what happens in the air but what happens on the ground. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zdDeu-RWtQ This is where the differences lie. A straddle jumper normally uses a slower run up but has a deeper gather in the final stride, giving a longer foot contact time. The swinging free leg generates a lot of momentum and at the time the jumper leaves the ground, the jumper’s foot will probably be above the level of their head. This requires exceptional hip and thigh flexibility but places the CoG well above that for a flop takeoff. The flop approach is completely different. It is a sprint approach with a short foot contact time, the jumper increasing the height of their CoG with vigorous arm swings. Some use both arms. Others, like Fosbury himself, use only a single arm. Once the jumper leaves the ground, the path of the CoG is determined and nothing can be done to change it. On to the second point. There are several advantages to the flop technique. The main one is that it is easier to learn and new jumpers will achieve results more quickly than with other techniques. The second advantage is that it does not require the extreme levels of hip and leg flexibility that the straddle does. Taken together, the straddle has a more efficient takeoff but the flop has a more efficient bar clearance. I am also of the opinion that, with new pits and bars, flop jumpers are probably less likely to suffer injuries than straddle jumpers. Most important of all is understanding that the actual jumping part is the most important bit. I don’t care which technique you use. If you don’t get off the ground, you won’t clear big heights. At least 90% of the work is done on the ground.
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  4.  @tousifhabib7868  Why don't you watch an interview with him? He did nothing of a sort. He just kept doing what his body told him to do until he came up with the style he's known for. That's what he says in his interviews. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGqQXDkpgss This happened when he was about 16, well before he became an engineer.
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  5.  @godsinbox  Port A Pits were very expensive and not every venue had them. The foam-filled bags were potentially quite dangerous because it was always possible to land between the bags. They were still in common use as late as the mid 1980s. Added to the hazard of landing on a triangular metal bar, there were always dangers. I actually missed to pit altogether once but lived to tell the tale. I actually went on to win that competition, believe it or not (I wasn't any good). So, the point of all of this is that there was no sudden change from sawdust to the pits we know today. It took a long time and while there may well have been a chicken and egg thing going on, as you put it, the change took at least as long as the change in techniques. Hopefully that puts a kind of perspective on it.
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  6. InterlinkKnight That was the principle behind the dive straddle, used by the great Soviet jumpers Brumel and Yashchenko. But the most important thing to remember is that bar clearance technique is a distraction. Ninety percent of the work is done on the ground. https://youtu.be/_zdDeu-RWtQ
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  7. It was impossible in the days of sawdust pits.
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  8. I sort of got that and didn't get it at the same time...
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  9.  @jrjwalton  Not true at all. Both Fosbury and Debbie Brill came up with their techniques independently and neither one of them questions the fact. There is an interview Atto Bolden did with Fosbury where he talks about this exact point. Secondly, Fosbury is almost exactly six years older than Debbie Brill. By the time he won his gold medal in 1968, Debbie Brill was all of 15 years old. The likelihood of Fosbury copying Brill is too silly to even contemplate.
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  10.  @kuddos  It's not true.
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  11. For all the information in it, it might as well be. The creator knows nothing about the high jump or why Fosbury did what he did.
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  12. I suppose it would be if it was true but it’s not.
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  13. That’s how dive straddle jumpers did it: https://youtu.be/_zdDeu-RWtQ But 90% of the work is done on the ground. Bar clearance technique is not nearly as important.
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  14. Pity it’s mostly wrong.
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  15. Tilek Mamutov That’s how dive straddle jumpers did it. There wasn’t really much difference in clearance efficiency between the two styles. Certainly not as much as is made out here. https://youtu.be/_zdDeu-RWtQ
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  16. Helen Van Cougat She was probably on the sauce.
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  17. The dive straddle sort of did. https://youtu.be/_zdDeu-RWtQ
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  18. Paul Hsieh How so?
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  19. Pity it’s mostly wrong.
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  20. Georgia There are other ways of getting around that.
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  21. 240 Subscribers and no Videos found? Look at the boomerang.
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  22.  @joelkarlstrom2992  Funny how often people get things wrong and try to pass it off as a joke, haha. To be a joke, it has to be funny.
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  23.  @Ok-fu5yi  The video doesn’t even get the “why” part right. Pretty much everything in it is wrong.
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  24.  @Ok-fu5yi  Which is totally the wrong way to look at the flop technique. The difference between what Fosbury did and what the straddle jumpers did started with the first step of his run up and not with him going backwards over the bar. I am a sports science graduate, a former jumper and former high jump coach. The most important phase in the high jump is the ground phase. Everything else is just icing on the cake and there’s very little difference between the efficiency of the flop clearance and a well executed dive straddle (which is actually a variation on a forward roll). The straddle has a more efficient take off but the flop evens that out with a sprint approach.
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  25.  @Ok-fu5yi  That’s not even 5% of the jump. The centre of mass issue has become this silly internet thing where Fosbury has been granted the status of official “genius” and everyone is convinced that the flop technique will get you higher than the straddle because of some fluff about bar clearance technique. They’re even inventing stories about him using engineering principles to work out the best technique. Fosbury is a man I have always admired but even he didn’t say this. Have you considered that the straddle take off has two great advantages over the flop? The first is the longer foot contact time and the second is the centre of mass advantage when the jumper leaves the ground? Sorry to get so riled about this but it’s as though the person who made this video knew nothing at all about the high jump. In fact, I suspect he didn’t. It’s as though it was made by some “internet expert” who does widget reviews based on spec sheet performance figures. The fact is that if you don’t jump high in the first place, the flop will not suddenly make you a good high jumper.
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  26.  @parafraceren  "But if you think the straddle is better, why haven't we seen you with your superior technique at the olympics?" I didn’t say the straddle was better. Can’t you read? I said the difference in efficiency is virtually non-existent. The video makes a big fuss about the centre of gravity passing under the bar. That is entirely dependent on how much arch the jumper can achieve. Rotation around the axis of the bar and angular momentum are more important. But you are ignoring the fact that the straddle cancels this advantage out by having a higher centre of mass at take off. The reason people don’t use the straddle any more is that it takes much longer to learn and achieve results with.
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  27.  @parafraceren  "That's what you, with your limited understanding of the point of the video, have concluded on your own as to being the point." I have been around athletics all my life. I am a former jumper (flop) who spent ten years coaching. The highest jumper I ever coached jumped 2.18 metres. I have a degree in sport science and am going for my Level 3 high jump specialisation. What's your experience? BTW, this is not just my point. It is pretty much universally accepted in the coaching fraternity. Furthermore, you should look up the biomechanical analysis done by Dr Jesus Dapena on this. He's retired now but he was pretty much considered the world authority on the event. His conclusions are the same as mine but he has a weight of research evidence behind him. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me about an event I’ve been involved with for three quarters of my life?
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  28.  @godsinbox  There is video out there of Fosbury jumping into plane shavings and sawdust. You just have to look for it but it's there.
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  29.  @godsinbox  "Did he have the balls to 'invent' this to land on sawdust or did it 'evolve' on a soft little cushion. I know what a man would do. grow a beard, top and bottom, and land on some burrs out in a field somewhere." Even if there was a chicken and egg thing going on, as you put it, if you look far enough, you'll see that plenty of straddlers landed on their shoulders and backs. Dive straddlers and particularly roll straddlers frequently landed in a way that might be considered dangerous. By 1964, jumpers were landing in of loose foam. I think that's what they used in 1964 when Brumel won. Fosbury started out using the scissors and that evolved, over about two years, into the technique he used to win the gold medal at the '68 Olympics. During that time, pits changed again into hessian bags stuffed full of foam
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  30. Except that this was not the product of someone working it out with physics. Fosbury evolved his technique from the scissors because he was not successful with the straddle. It took five years of evolution and training to get to where he was in Mexico City in 1968. There are lots of videos on YouTube of Fosbury explaining how he arrived at his technique and they are all better than this. Furthermore, Fosbury is a civil engineer, not a physicist. Most importantly, high jumping starts with the run up and takeoff and not with bar clearance technique. Almost all the work is done on the ground and that is the most important part, despite what this video claims.
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  31. BariumCobaltNitrog3n Get with the program. Nobody uses imperial measurements any more, not even the British who invented them.
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  32. Nobody calls it the Fosbury Flop any more. That belongs to the late 60s. It's become so mainstream that the name is no longer used.
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  33. Yes. Definitely. The reason it isn’t used is that it is harder for most people to learn. The flop is easier and results usually come more quickly.
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  34.  @gordonwaldner9792  I think there are some jumpers out there who should probably be using the straddle. It’s one of those things where a person’s physiology comes into it. But it’s certainly true that most will find the flop easier to learn.
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  35.  @gordonwaldner9792  BTW, I doubt if there are many people left who have the skills to teach the straddle anymore. The high jump is one of the more misunderstood events.
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  36. YES!! This happened to me many, many times.
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  37.  @TheMilkManCow  There's a line at 100 kms or about 330,000 feet. above that is considered space.
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  38. It’s also very misleading.
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  39. Too bad the information is either invented or wrong.
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  40. Not necessarily. This has been massively overstated. The most important work - at least 90% - is done on the ground.
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  41. That's because this video is nonsense. Anyone who knows anything about high jumping knows that the vast majority of the work is done on the ground. So the CoG difference, compared with a competently executed dive straddle is minimal. The single greatest asset of the flop is that it is much easier to learn and results come much more quickly. That is why it is the only method currently in use.
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  42.  @BS-bt4dg  For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter.
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  43. FistDaMonkey No, he’s right. That animation is rubbish. Don’t take the CoG thing too seriously. Dive straddle jumpers like Yashchenko could do it too, albeit slightly less efficiently. https://youtu.be/_zdDeu-RWtQ
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  44. 2.45 metres - Javier Sotomajor (Cuba), 1994.
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  45. First of all, high jump is not about flopping into a pit and hoping your CoM passes under the bar. The clue is in the name: the object is to jump high. After that, it really doesn't matter. Secondly, if you look at a competent roll straddler, you can quite easily see that the jumper, while having their lead leg stuck out parralel to the bar, is actually performing a forward roll around it. But the most important aspect is to jump high first.
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  46. True dat.
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  47. He finished THIRD in the 1968 US trials.
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  48. Not much higher at all. The back arch makes little difference if you can't jump high in the first place. This video is complete nonsense.
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  49. Mostly true. There are advantages and disadvantages to both techniques.
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  50. I was just experiencing a mild episode of tinnitus and this video popped up in my feed…
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  51. Not with modern pits. I have never seen a neck injury - much less a broken neck - in over 45 years.
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  52. You get a dive straddle. Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zdDeu-RWtQ
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  53. No, you were trained that way because the flop is much easier to teach and learn. The straddle is arguably every bit as efficient but more demanding.
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  54. Too bad it's mostly wrong.
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