Comments on: How Far Could Usain Bolt Jump?

By: usman

usman — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 07:12:54 +0000

Alright, I relized the square root should be on the whole bracket, as the dimensions for the v^2 term also are wrong… Vertical Jump Bible

By: DYNAMITE

DYNAMITE — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:39:06 +0000

A lot has been said already… Bolt would have to do a lot of work on concentration and his vertical component which, to the best of my knowledge hasn’t been tested yet. He’ll have to be at his best and, better still forget about his past achievements (except of course to draw courage from there.) He has to take it up as something new.

By: ED

ED — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 21:30:49 +0000

I would love to see Bolt do the long jump. I think he would be a natural at it, and we would see the first person to break 9m. That said, it is not just about how fast you run down the run way, but how controlled your stride is down the run way. I was a long jumper and a sprinter, and your approach in long jump is more measured then your stride in sprinting. The faster you run the harder it is to control your last 3 strides for take off and transition through the penultimate stride. Mastery of this helps with take off angle and ultimately distance. To Bolt’s advantage, is that he is soooooo fast, with such a long stride, that he could coast his approach at a measured and controlled 95% and still be faster than any other jumper and allow for good transition from approach to knee drive. His penultimate stride would be awesome because of the difference in length between his 2nd last stride and his penultimate stride, lowering his hips and giving him significant pop of the board. His height would allow for a powerfull knee drive at take off, and if he developed a good landing technique his long legs could give him extra range on landing. The challenge he would have would be technique during the flight phase of the jump, with his speed and height it may be difficult for him to maintain form and ballance in the air.

By: leonfoster

leonfoster — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:38:05 +0000

Yeah I agree with your comment Scott, gone are the days where you can compete competitively in both the 100 metres and the long jump at the same time. Usain would have to concentrate on the long jump and disregard the 100 metres…. I can’t see this happening in the near future.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:30:47 +0000

The take off angle assumption seems too steep. The numbers I have seen rarely exceed 23 degrees.
Mike Powell’s technique gave him a distinct advantage over Carl Lewis. First, he raised his arms prior to leaving the board raising his center of gravity, then he would land sideways putting his cg close to the sand. Carl’s feet and butt contact the sand long before his cg costing him several inches in distance.
I don’t think we will ever see a long jump world record from Bolt. Marion Jones showed the world that even if you have the speed, if you don’t practice the event, listen to your coach, or have a coach that knows what they are talking about you won’t break world records.

By: leonfoster

leonfoster — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:36:47 +0000

Hi Pi, thank you for spotting that one. I have double checked and you are right the square root should be on the whole bracket. This was a typo on the blog write up but the correct equations were used in the calculations.

By: leonfoster

leonfoster — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:36:20 +0000

Thanks for your comment Franc, I do take your point that Usain Bolt would never just go out and break the world record straight away with one jump. However I think you may have slightly misunderstood the blog, this was a speculative article aiming to highlight the remarkable talents of Usain Bolt. The slide rule as you put it was a well established model clearly showing the relationship between running speed and long jump distance. Understandably Bolt would have to train in the long jump to achieve note worthy distances, but I feel a conservative estimate of 9.46 m (31 feet for those of you that still work in imperial units) is well within his ability. Being a ‘Trackman’ Franc, what is your speciality? Are you yourself a sprinter, long jumper or a coach?

By: Pi

Pi — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:23:01 +0000

Alright, I relized the square root should be on the whole bracket, as the dimensions for the v^2 term also are wrong…

By: Pi

Pi — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 12:16:10 +0000

Can anyone explain the dimensions in the above equation? I don’t understand how the term including 2gh^1/2 results in a distance… The resulting dimension for this term, as I understand, is ms^-1*m^1/2, which doesn’t make sence to me. Could anyone clarify this?

By: franc

franc — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:51:23 +0000

This should have been left to a track man, not a physics egghead. NO, NO, NO long jumper can produce an optimum jump at his/her top speed. They simply can’t produce the ‘uplift’ at the point of takeoff.
A trackmans opinion, vastly less Oxfordian and way more valuable: If Bolt has great leaping ability ( like Mike Powell ), can maintain physical compusure at a high speed run up ( Carl Lewis was a master ) and ‘load the takeoff leg’ to optimize the 2 of them, and most importantly dedicates himself to the sport, his long legs might stretch him out on a conditions perfect day incrementally past 30 feet . Breaking the 29 foot barrier by 1.55 meters? 34 feet?
Keep your slide rule away from athletics Poindexter, you wield it foolishly.