ATHLETIC S COACH
HIGH JUMP IN HIGH SCHOOLS A COACH’S ADVICE FOR TEACHING HIGH JUMP IN SCHOOLS
Coaching High Jump in High Schools or at Clubs with a large number of participants, especially younger athletes with lower attention spans, can be a difficult challenge for coaches and teachers to overcome. The obvious difficulty is balancing the three main priorities of the coach – i) safety, ii) engagement of the entire group and iii) adequate practice for each individual to improve. Traditionally, High Jump needs to be done one person at a time, which is obviously not a great way to engage a large group of participants and will result in long queues with lots of waiting time. Despite High Jump being one of the more enjoyable and exciting events for many students, you will notice that if kids are waiting several minutes for their next turn, they’re going to show a preference for activities that allow for greater engagement and participation.
Several of the World’s best High Jumpers did not participate in competitive High Jump until they reached their late-teens. The other challenge when it comes to engagement is that in a large group of participants you need to be able to cater to the skill level of the entire group. The coach wants to avoid letting those with some High Jump experience dominate the session. Often when you put the bar up higher, those with the most talent get the most practice and those that are at an earlier stage of their development receive less practice and attention. This exacerbates the gulf in skill between participants and leads to cases where less talented participants are less likely to want to participate in future sessions to develop their skills. This is especially problematic in young athletes where natural variation in developmental ages can result in large variation in performance and by discouraging late-developers, you may be putting someone off the event who could have developed into a talented jumper. Remember, several of the world’s best High Jumpers did not participate in competitive High Jump until they reached their late-teens. We don’t want to lose athletes to the sport while they are still in their teens and have not matured.
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