The importance of a good approach run: “The thing that I try to tell coaches, get your athletes to think of the long jump as a vertical jump. It’s really not a horizontal jump. The distance comes from the speed. “I believe that the approach is 90 percent of the jump. It sets up the rhythm, it sets up the takeoff, and that’s really the majority of the work. Once you leave the ground this whole distance that you can go is already pre-determined (by) the amount of speed you have at takeoff, your hip height, takeoff angle and the amount of force you put into the ground. (The approach is) basically a small series of bounds down the runway, getting faster and faster, to a big bound at the end. It’s not a sprint, because it’s hard to take off and go vertical when you’re sprinting ... From the beginning, get your athletes to think about being fast at the board. Now obviously you’re not going to start off slow. There’s different types of running. ... So it’s about that optimal speed that you can handle at takeoff, get up in the air and land without killing yourself.”
The importance of learning proper technique: “The main thing that you want to tell your athletes is, when they’re sprinting or jumping, the more time you spend on the ground, the slower they’re going to go. The more time they spend on the ground in the jump, the lower they’re going to go. The more force they put into the ground, to get off the ground, the faster and higher and longer they’re going to go. ... When you hit the ground you create energy, whenever your muscle contracts you create energy. So when you hit the ground that energy can either be a short burst that can help you lift off the ground, or you can hit it and then all the energy just disperses.” Long jump tips – flight and landing: “Once it leaves the ground the natural tendency for the body (is) to flip. ... So what you want to do is block and fight that forward rotation. Lengthen the body out, block the arms, keep the body elongated as long as possible before landing. ... So you want to make sure that you’re hitting (the board) behind the foot and then taking off over the top of the foot, and everything going up. “Keep your body upright, get yourself into a position when you come into the landing, where you’re not bending over, but assume a position where you can lift up the knees, extend the heels, hit the sand with the heels and pull to the side to make sure that the butt is clearing the heels, or the European way, where they hit and pull and scoop through.”