Athletics and Football (extract)

1.39 CHAPTER V. JUMPING, WEIGHT-PUTTING, ETC. IN no branch of athletics have practice and cultivation led to such an extraordinaryimprovement as in high and broad jumping. At the first Oxford and Cambridge meeting in 1864, the High Jump was wonwith 5 ft. 6 in., the Long Jump with 18 ft., and even at the present day foreigners hear with incredulity that men can jump more than 6 ft. in height, and clear more than 23 ft. on the flat. The improvement is per­ haps more marked in long jumping than in high jumping, but even in the latter, careful training and assiduous practice has shown that the human body is capable of greater feats than were thought possible before jumping became an organised sport. Probably ' Christopher North ' wouldhave found it as hard to believe that M. J. Brooks jumped 6 ft. 2^ in. high in 1876,as did Donald Dinnie, the Scotch 'professional,' who, on seeing an account of Brooks' jump, promptly wrote to the papers to show that, upon d priori grounds, such a feat was impossible. Perhaps nothing is so pretty and interesting as a High Jump, and a light-weight jumper who leaps straight over his obstacle and alights on the balls of his feet is almost certain to be graceful in his movements. Still, there are a variety of dif­ ferent styles of high-jumping,and some successful performers get over the bar sidewayswith a crab-likemotionwhich is more effective than beautiful. The muscles used for the spring are those in front of the thigh which pass down to the knee-cap. The knee is bent when preparing for the spring, the muscles