Partyka 1996 OG

[nbonaddio]

Great series of clips here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFtY04KR ... re=related

For once the YouTube commentary is spot on, he is *way* over on all of these, including the miss at 2.39! If he had just tweaked that form a little bit (excuse the layspeak, I'm no HJ technician), who knows what he could have topped out at..

[Powell]

I remembered he was in the form of his life in Atlanta, but - WOW - I forgot how huge the 2.37 clearance was. That was a WR caliber jump, ot very close to it :shock:

[Dietmar239]

I remembered he was in the form of his life in Atlanta, but - WOW - I forgot how huge the 2.37 clearance was. That was a WR caliber jump, ot very close to it :shock:

Partyka struggled with being too far away from the bar throughout his career it seems. His 2.41m jump in Atlanta had at least 2.45m in front of the bar, but as often happened with him, he came down on it. One to two inches closer to the bar and he would have had daylight under him. Such a beautiful flopper to watch!

[marknhj]

Wow, indeed! I'd forgotten how huge a clearance that was too!

But, which was the higher jump? That one or Troy Kemp's 2.37m at Eberstadt in 1995? This clip has been posted here before, but is worth another look. Those were the days...

(the 2.37m clearance is 2:10 mins in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSaGZOdrjtM

[kuha]

(the 2.37m clearance is 2:10 mins in):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSaGZOdrjtM

Un-freakin-real!

[Stafanitus]

Hello.

Im sorry to speak controversal on this great jump, but those who mentioned it are right. Distance is a part of jumping. According to Partykas 2,37, when he pushed down his "backside" it came near the bar. I think even a 2,40m would fall here. No chance of making wr.

Greetings.

[nbonaddio]

Hello.

Im sorry to speak controversal on this great jump, but those who mentioned it are right. Distance is a part of jumping. According to Partykas 2,37, when he pushed down his "backside" it came near the bar. I think even a 2,40m would fall here. No chance of making wr.

Greetings.

Here's what I don't understand - it sounds like from a few of the commentaries that it was a persistent problem for him, so why didn't he and his coach work to correct that? I'm not a jumper myself so I don't want to sound glib, but it would involve simply resetting the run-up, correct?

I can understand that perhaps a real-time adjustment between attempts is infeasible, but still, in terms of maximum height and *potential* clearance, I don't know if I've seen any jump more impressive than that, personally.

[Stafanitus]

Hello.

Im not in that detailed for partyka, but its not that easy. It depends on peoples distance perceptions and coordination. bringing him closer to the bar maybe make him shorten his strides or jump too much vertical. it looks like he felt confortable with this distance. its the same with horizontal jumpers. some are allways good on the board and some never learn.
I once coached one decathlete that nearly never placed his foot on the board. getting him nearer made him shorten the strides, as long as he never could handle it and totally stepped over. i can count my fingers for jumps on the board in 2 years.
all tricks i played on him, that worked well with other athletes did not work here.
also i heard many stories of horizontal jumpers making pbs because of a missguided runup distance, that forced them to adapt the stridelenght to the board and bettered their jumps.

greetings.

[Dietmar239]

There are also biomechanical differences to how everyone performs the flop. Hollis Coway typically planted very close to the bar and seemed to float straight up in the air. Of course with that type of technique there is a smaller window to get into position over the bar and kick. Other jumpers, like Carlo Thranhardt, had serious glide time which enabled them to plant farther away from the bar. This also gave him a wider arc (time between arching and kicking) than someone like Partyka, who seemed to plant close and thrust his hips up and kick in one quick motion. The latter technique requires impeccable timing and so the plant location is all the more crucial.

[nbonaddio]

There are also biomechanical differences to how everyone performs the flop. Hollis Coway typically planted very close to the bar and seemed to float straight up in the air. Of course with that type of technique there is a smaller window to get into position over the bar and kick. Other jumpers, like Carlo Thranhardt, had serious glide time which enabled them to plant farther away from the bar. This also gave him a wider arc (time between arching and kicking) than someone like Partyka, who seemed to plant close and thrust his hips up and kick in one quick motion. The latter technique requires impeccable timing and so the plant location is all the more crucial.

Ah, I see. Well, if you were his coach, what would you recommend? The flop doesn't appear to me to be a "natural" motion, surely it comes through training and so on. If Partyka was having consistent problems with it and having frustrating non-clearances where he is way, way over, is there something in his training that could be changed, or is it a case where by the time one is an elite athlete, the muscle memory is such that it's infeasible to change?

Sorry for the questions, I'm just curious - putting myself in his shoes, I would be so very frustrated to have such a clearance but not be able to put it all together, so to speak.

[nbonaddio]

Hello.

Im not in that detailed for partyka, but its not that easy. It depends on peoples distance perceptions and coordination. bringing him closer to the bar maybe make him shorten his strides or jump too much vertical. it looks like he felt confortable with this distance. its the same with horizontal jumpers. some are allways good on the board and some never learn.
I once coached one decathlete that nearly never placed his foot on the board. getting him nearer made him shorten the strides, as long as he never could handle it and totally stepped over. i can count my fingers for jumps on the board in 2 years.
all tricks i played on him, that worked well with other athletes did not work here.
also i heard many stories of horizontal jumpers making pbs because of a missguided runup distance, that forced them to adapt the stridelenght to the board and bettered their jumps.

greetings.

All very, very interesting! I can't think of anything in my sprint training that is comparable to any of this, other than maybe the little tweaks here and there from the block start. I suppose it could be said that we have it much easier than the jumpers, who have so many details to put together at the same time, in specific order, to achieve the result.

[Dietmar239]

There are also biomechanical differences to how everyone performs the flop. Hollis Coway typically planted very close to the bar and seemed to float straight up in the air. Of course with that type of technique there is a smaller window to get into position over the bar and kick. Other jumpers, like Carlo Thranhardt, had serious glide time which enabled them to plant farther away from the bar. This also gave him a wider arc (time between arching and kicking) than someone like Partyka, who seemed to plant close and thrust his hips up and kick in one quick motion. The latter technique requires impeccable timing and so the plant location is all the more crucial.

Ah, I see. Well, if you were his coach, what would you recommend? The flop doesn't appear to me to be a "natural" motion, surely it comes through training and so on. If Partyka was having consistent problems with it and having frustrating non-clearances where he is way, way over, is there something in his training that could be changed, or is it a case where by the time one is an elite athlete, the muscle memory is such that it's infeasible to change?

Sorry for the questions, I'm just curious - putting myself in his shoes, I would be so very frustrated to have such a clearance but not be able to put it all together, so to speak.

As you mention, flopping isn't really a natural motion and so it is quite hard to make adjustments that way. However, don't misunderstand my statement. I'm not saying his technique was bad. He was a beautiful flopper to watch. I'm just saying someone with his style relies more on plant location.

[Stafanitus]

Hello.

Im not in that detailed for partyka, but its not that easy. It depends on peoples distance perceptions and coordination. bringing him closer to the bar maybe make him shorten his strides or jump too much vertical. it looks like he felt confortable with this distance. its the same with horizontal jumpers. some are allways good on the board and some never learn.
I once coached one decathlete that nearly never placed his foot on the board. getting him nearer made him shorten the strides, as long as he never could handle it and totally stepped over. i can count my fingers for jumps on the board in 2 years.
all tricks i played on him, that worked well with other athletes did not work here.
also i heard many stories of horizontal jumpers making pbs because of a missguided runup distance, that forced them to adapt the stridelenght to the board and bettered their jumps.

greetings.

All very, very interesting! I can't think of anything in my sprint training that is comparable to any of this, other than maybe the little tweaks here and there from the block start. I suppose it could be said that we have it much easier than the jumpers, who have so many details to put together at the same time, in specific order, to achieve the result.

In my eyes its totally different, allthough my view on sprint-training changed a little in the days of powell, gay and bolt. the jumpers can work on so many things to improve their performance, the more complicated the event (triple, pole) the more you can do. in sprinting its a little different. you are fast or not, and this you can improve a little bit. for this im more likely working on the jumps. this is where i can really do something. and im really glad that the jumps are more depending on movement elements than the sprint, which is totally dominated by biological factors. i hope you get me right.

greetings.

[Chris McCarthy]

I'd have to look at Partyka's jumps in more detail, but I don't think he had a great deal more in him - from memory his highest "low" point was rarely his hips.

[Per Andersen]

I don't think Partyka is taking off too far away in the 2.37 jump. But I do think he could have held his clearance position a fraction longer. He seems to start his un-arching a fraction to soon. That's why his butt barely clears.