Success in Athletics and how to obtain it

CHAPTER IX THE STANDING LONG-JUMP To the long-jli'mper, powerful legs and strong back and abdominal muscles are necessary, particularly the latter, which play a great part in drawing up the lower limbs under the body and carrying them through to the front in the concluding stages of the jump. As has already been said ·in the preliminary words on standing jumpers, tall men with long, thin, muscular legs, for example, Ray Ewry, L. H. G. Stafford, the brothers P. and B. Adams, and the late C. Tsiclitiras, are best in the event. The preliminary physical preparation is much the same as that described for the standing high-jumper. The training for the standing long-jump can take place on any piece of ground, say 13 feet by 20 feet, if a pit is dug and a take-off board let into the ground, the earth in front of the board being dug out to a depth of six inches in order that the toes may come well over the edge of the board, from the face of which they get the final push-off. There is a great temptation in practising for this event to go "all out " and to try for length every time; . but this tendency must be rigidly checked, or style will be sacrificed to distance, and good results will not be forthcoming.