Why Do Sprinters do Tuck Jumps before Starting Blocks

Watching 8 athletes line up in the 100 meters is interesting to watch.

You can see the various pre-race routines, including doing tuck jumps or simply doing an explosive vertical jump before settling into your blocks.

The reason is for Post-activation Potentiation (PAP), and it gets all the neurons and muscle fibers ready for an explosive event like the 100 meters.  (You can read more about Dynamic Warm-up, Static Stretching and Post-activation Potentiation in my 2012 podcast with James Zois.)

Back in 2011, I wrote a satirical piece on Jeremy Wariner, asking how high can he box jump?  This was followed by videos of Ato Bolden and Dwain Chambers doing at least a 60 inch running box jump.  Impressive.

Of course, the box jump numbers are much different compared to a vertical jump test, right Eric Lepine?

The unofficial World Records are 60″ for standing box jump, 73″ for running box jump, and 60″ of standing vertical jump off two feet.

Sample Tuck Jump

#Explosive pic.twitter.com/ziAYZk5AGc

— Jorge Carvajal (@carvperformance) May 15, 2014

Harry Aikines-Aryeetey

At the 2012 Eurpoean Championships, here is a great photo (courtesy of the IAAF) of France’s Christophe Lemaitre and UK’s Harry Aikines-Aryeetey.  It looks like a David Copperfield illusion where he has a hidden harness and invisible wires and he attempts a levitation trick.

This isn’t a trick, just good old fashion photography with a high speed camera and motor winder at several fps.

Based on the height of the Lane boxes, I would say his vertical jump is at least 30 inches, and that’s probably not a max vertical either.

So, how high can Harry Aikines-Aryeetey vertical jump?   I can tell you one thing, the only two numbers he cares about are 10.18 and 10.24, the IAAF A and B standards.  His PB is 10.10.

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