Jumping, There's a Right Way and Wrong Way

This past Sunday, with the weather once again messing up our schedule, I had rugby practice on Sunday in beautiful South Boston. I say beautiful with pretty much as sarcasm as I possibly can lay on. We started with a jog out to Castle Island and back, mapped it out on Google from the stadium in Moakley park, not a short one at least not for me, about 5-6 miles. We then proceeded to practice lineouts since the surface was covered in snow, save what we shoveled off to do said lineouts, we couldn't get much else done in the way of team activities. Give the video a quick look over so you can see physically what it is I'm talking about, for those that don't know already.

See the guys that go flying in the air? Well that would be one of my big roles in this set piece from the game. The name of such a position is practical enough, Jumper, but there's a right way and a wrong way. Learning how to be a jumper can absolutely translate to the fitness field.

1. Arms up and jump as high as you can; This is actually something that is encouraged for me with jumps with my clients/athletes, the hands up allow for a solid counter movement to jump with, the jump as high as you can cue should be presumed. You have to say it for the rugby purpose because some guys simply just don't when they are learning and assume the lifters on either side are going to get it done on their own.

2. Go up tight not "fat"; Go up with control and not dead weight, going up without control of yourself and letting yourself go wherever, well if you're in a lineout and if it's not in the middle of a match, most likely results in the lifters will accidentally on purpose drop your ass to teach you. As you fall through the air after this thinking "oh shit" you'll probably realize what you did wrong. I may or may not have been guilty of this in my college playing days (yes I can do both, it's called versatility). You learn quick enough, hopefully, that you don't get dropped on your head over and over. Same applies to doing broad jumps, if you just jump with no control eventually you're just going to end up on your face from catching your shoe or something to the like of.

3. Control yourself in the air; Kind of goes along the same thing, for lineouts you need to keep your spacial awareness at high alert. Turning towards the opponent once you've caught the ball is gonna be bad news so just be aware of where your body is and where it's going. Same applies to our jumps in the weight room, know where your body is in space and where it's going to be in the next moment.

4. Land with ease; Land softly, it doesn't take too long to figure out when you don't catch yourself when you land, it hurts. Landing without catching yourself is tough on your body. I landed to the best of my ability every time I jumped Sunday and my body still hated me yesterday and I had something fairly soft(ish) to land on, concrete and hardwood floors aren't nearly as forgiving. You'll be able to tell when you don't catch yourself when it reverberates (big word I know) up your whole body through every bone.

For more on this subject my friend Mike did a great post on jumping and box jumps. There's a pretty good epic fail box jump for those that need a chuckle.

Hope everyone learned something today, go out there and get after it!