Why? The Science of Athletics

SOME MATHEMATICS IN ATHLETICS 265 in correct style, using either the Western Roll, which is shown in Fig. 88, Plate 20, or the Eastern Cut-off, as shown in its most advanced form in Fig. gr, Plate 20, since both of these styles bring the legs up, and the trunk down, to the centre of gravity. Fig 8g, Plate 20, shows Dick Landon, U.S.A., standing below a cross-bar set at 6ft. 4 r j2 ins., the height he cleared to win the Olympic Championship in 1920. Now Landon stood but 5ft. 8 ins., and so jumped 8 ins. higher than his own head. He did it because he got a perfect turn-and– lay-out, thus minimizing the height to which he had to lift his centre of gravity. Had he jumped in the ordinary schoolboy scissors style he would have needed to lift his centre of gravity to very nearly 7ft., while Waiter Marty, U.S.A., who has now cleared 6ft. g r /8 ins., would have needed to raise his centre of gravity well over the 7 ft. level. That the centre of gravity can be raised to what seem extraordinary heights is made plain by Fig. go, Plate 20, in which H. A. Simmons is seen jumping and kicking the foot of his free leg to the height of a bar raised 8 ft. above the ground, so that he accustoms himself to raising his centre of gravity to 6 r/2 ft. before instituting the turn and lay-out phase of the jump. If the coach constructs a graduated scale on the side of the standard he can see for himself during this sort of training how high the athlete lifts his centre of gravity-. Now there is another scientific fact in connection with both pole vaulting and, in a lesser degree, high jumping, which accounts largely for the amazing improvement of records in the last decade and is responsible also for experiments in a new style in the latter event which will, it is believed, make high jumping conform to the theory in question. The action of pole vaulters, in clearing such extreme heights as 14 ft. and over, quite clearly, I think, lends colour to the postulate that it is possible for a man to pass over a bar while his centre of gravity ' . I I