practice, practice and practice. MAJOR PROJECT 2

I spent this week around 6 hours just practicing. I didn't jump all the time of course! I had shin splints for a while so I am taking it easy.

Practice does not mean just to do exercise. So many people think that practice means going to the weight room and lift all the time. It's funny that when people ask me: so... do you run all the time every day? I am like nope! track doesn't mean just to run! There are throws, jumps, races... I just don't run or jump for practice. Of course I run and jump but I also watch videos of another athletes and I watch my own jumps as well of practice and competition. Doing that, I can analyze the technique, see mistakes as well as things that I do/did good. With that, I can correct the mistakes and maximize my strong points. 

This is what I did half of the time this week. Claudia and I met at the track and she showed me a lot of videos. Some were of herself and some were from different athletes of the world. I have to say that

I never practice by myself. Claudia meets me every time I need to practice. Moreover, my coach join us always that he can make it. I really appreciate it because they are the ones who can explain to me the best idea about high jump, how can I jump and what is the best way to achieve my goal. 

This week I learned the exactly steps that my approach is going to have. First of all they explained to me the bases of the approach and then I tried the approach. 

They told me I cannot have a long approach because I will get tired really easy. I cannot have either a short approach because I am not a pro and I cannot jump high without speed. So, I need a approach that give me enough speed to pass the bar as well as a not long approach, so I can save energy. Saving this energy, I will jump more times without getting tired. 

Also I learned how to run my approach. High jump has a really weird way to run before jumping. High jumpers run in curve and then...JUMP! It sounds easy but I really think is the most complicated part about high jump. They tough me that I have to do two long steps in the middle of the approach. It will give the energy I need to pass the bar. And why? They explained to me that after these two steps, the body has a good strength, better than usual, so the speed increases and I am more powerful. 

As I explained on my first post, my goal is to pass a bar (1.35 meters) and to achieve it I need to figure out every step. The first one is to have a good approach. Once I got it, I can move on. This is like a math problem. You have to figure the first step out to get the final solution. If you don't know how to do 2+2, you cannot do 3x5. 

And the good news is that, after a long two practices watching videos and running, I GOT IT!

I am ready for next week and I can't wait to start jumping!