Rowing and Track Athletics (extract)

The jumps and the Pole-Vault 363 his shoes, therefore, which really are lifted to the distance at which the bar is set. His head travels upward only a few feet, or perhaps even only a few inches; and in perfect jumping form, so far as any upward motion is concerned, his head is almost as stationary as though it were hinged to an imaginary point and the body were a rod, which was flung upward and over the bar. The style which every good jumper eventually drifts into or conscious}y perfects, is to a certain extent modified by his physical make-up and mannerisms, and it would be difficult rigidly to define what constitutes nowadays perfect jump– ing form. Good jumpers run straight at the bar nowadays, instead of approaching it from the side. The body is in a horizontal position as it goes over the bar, and the jumper generally turns in the air, so that he lands facing directly toward the direction from which he came. Slender men of considerable length of limb would naturally be expected to excel at high jumping, and generally would so excel were the jumper's motions re– stricted to a mere spring, with a gathering up of the legs and little movement of the body. By kicking down and out with the jumping leg, and thus turning the body round just as the jumper is clearing the bar; by kicking out alternately with first the leg that is not used in jumping and then the jumping leg, and giving a jerk to the back,