A New Perspective on Jump Takeoffs: Part 1

By Terri Milner Tarquini

Turns out there’s an upshot to PSA’s 2020 Summit having to be virtual this year: all of the tips, tricks, and topics from the seminar’s speakers can be accessible to coaches for an entire year.

While the annual conference was certainly different than the live-and-in-person experience, there were still a lot of coaches, including Rafael Arutyunyan, Laura Lipetsky, Scott Brown, Janet Champion, Debbie Stoery, Denise Myers, Jimmie and David Santee, and Christy Krall, as well as skaters Patrick Chan and Bradie Tenell, taking to their computers to share their knowledge and insight.

In the first half of “Part 1: A New Perspective on Jump Takeoffs,” Krall uses scientific principles to enhance airtime of jumps.

“(It’s all) validated by science and it justifies that what we’re talking about is not what I think happens when you’re going up…but what I know happens,” Krall said. Krall, who this year is celebrating her 50th year coaching at the Broadmoor World Arena in Colorado, first explores the basics of what quality movement concepts are, sharing information from Brandon Siakel, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Strength and Conditioning. • Foot – The skating foot must have even distribution of weight in the big toe, little toe and heel. “Stay on the tripod of the foot,” Krall said. • Knee – The knee must be in line with the middle toe, regardless of the foot position. “Keep the string tight from the knee to the middle toe,” Krall said. “The knee must be over the foot properly.” • Hips – Hips must be in a neutral position, as a solid foundation, under the skater. “I say, ‘Keep the water in the bucket,’” Krall said. “So, in other words, think of the hips as the water bucket, filled from the top with water.

If the hips tilt back, the water spills out the front and, conversely, if they collapse side to side or raise or lower, the water is going to slosh out. We have to have that neutral foundation.” • Head and shoulders – “A great way to get your head in line with your spine is to keep your ears in line with your shoulders and your shoulders in line with your hips.”

During the 40-minute video, Krall takes viewers through off-ice demonstrations of the above basic infrastructure for jumps, exploring the ways a skater’s knee often collapses inward or outward, how hips can move about and what proficient posture looks like.

“In today’s world, (proper alignment) is almost an unusual stance,” Krall said. “Because of our technology today and our cell phones, we tend to be very rounded, pitched-forward people, so practicing this is one of the key things for athletic success.”

From these basics, grow the movements of skating. “In the sport of skating, we have very fundamental ways of moving,” Krall said. “We have a hip hinge, a squat, a lunge, step-up and step-downs, and, of course, the jump and land.”

With more off-ice demonstrations, the skater shows these fundamental movements, for instance, beginning with a hip hinge on both feet, then on one foot and then demonstrating how to use it for a flip or Lutz takeoff position.

“Practicing this relentlessly off the ice to perfection,” Krall said, “will exponentially change your quality when you hit the ice.”

It can’t be emphasized enough: The basics cannot be overlooked; they are the building blocks to the steps that follow.

“The most important pillar here that I think you need to put into your think tank is that there is an order of events of learning,” said Krall, quoting the USOPC’s Siakel. “Movement alignment and mechanics must be addressed first before you can focus on force, velocity and power. It’s incredibly important that you lay the foundation for your athletes so that they can become the absolute superstars of our sport.”

Strong (force) x Quick (velocity) = POWER

Next in the progression toward jump takeoff success is adding some force and weight, demonstrated with more off-ice examples, including a variety of loading and exploding exercises.

“Our progression is adding force, velocity and power to movements, but never losing the quality of the movement,” Krall said.

Coaches know that force is important, but they might not realize how big of a force is required for optimal jumping. And coaches know that the utilization of the force on takeoff happens quickly, but they might not realize how incredibly fast it needs to happen.

“Athletes must produce a big force in a short amount of time to generate enough velocity in upward movement,” Krall said. “The athletes who tend to really accomplish this, tend to also have very high power outputs. It’s that very basic, fundamental power equation: force times velocity is power. And that enhances our ability to generate power in an amazing way.”

The quickness necessary to achieve this vertical velocity cannot be overlooked: .53-.55 of a second is the time of takeoff for a skating jump. That’s how long it takes for a wiper to swipe one direction on a windshield. A blink of an eye is only slightly faster.

“We’re looking at an extraordinarily quick area of the jump,” Krall said. “That is going to create all the upward power for these athletes.”

From a scientific standpoint, critical components of jumping high include loading in an athletic position – using the basic fundamentals of squat, lunge, hinge, step up/step down and jump – and stabilizing the head to the skating side.

“Imagine I’m holding a hose in my hand and water is coming out of the hose,” Krall said. “I’m going to tip my wrist toward the ground and the water in the hose is going to have a parabola that is low and flat. Now I’m going to increase the arc of the parabola by pulling my hand straight back and the water arc is going up. This is where it’s very important that these kids have that absolute alignment moment so they can throttle their hips up into the air on a trajectory like the water.”

One of Krall’s takeaway tips for jumping high is that the younger a skater starts, the better.

“Here’s a big shout-out to all the coaches working with our young kids – Learn to Skate, Basic Skills, Preliminary to Juvenile,” she said. “Without your critical care and development of our figure skaters, their success in totally limited.”

The fundamentals those coaches are teaching the young skaters is vital.

“There is going to be absolutely no success unless you get the alignment and mechanics done properly,” Krall said. “It’s nothing but breaking habit after habit if you don’t have that as a foundation.”

Training off-ice specifically for strength and quickness needs to be part of any regime.

“You can’t go on being a great athlete unless you are training yourself for those two key components because, remember, strength moving quickly is the power base that you have to have to jump up,” Krall said.

Any quantity of training has something even more important: quality of that training.

“The repetition has to be quality,” Krall said. “It can’t be off because you are going to get what you train.”

To learn more about Krall’s “Part 1: A New Perspective on Jump Takeoffs,” video, including the second half of this presentation that covers critical components of rotating, go to www.skatepsa.com.

DID YOU MISS SUMMIT? Don't fret! You can still register at skatepsa.com and view all of the presentations on PSA TV!