Triple Jump in Three Rings: Teaching the Basics of the Three Phase Jump to Beginners

from Texas Coach - December 2024 - Volume LXIX No. 4

One, Two, Three, Hoooooray for Gary Lee: Lessons Learned from Coach D

Written by: Fred Grindle Retired Track Coach

At the age of six, my grandson came to me with a “great” idea. He wanted me to teach him how to triple jump. He had seen the event on TV and was intrigued as to how it worked. He was actually skeptical that anyone could “really” do the event. So, being the good grandfather (as we all are), I told him that I’d put a plan together and we could start to train for the event in his spare time. I figured that would be the end of it and chalked the request up to a passing fancy. Nothing would come of it I thought as many of such ideas had come and gone over the years. It reminded me of a year earlier when he wanted to learn to pole vault. I found an old broken pole and began with the basics. It worked out that he would rather run down the sidewalk using the pole vault pole as a jousting stick while riding his imaginary pony. Needless to say, the would be vaulter lasted all of a few days. The pole is still in our garage only brought out to get something out of a tree or bush. However, to my surprise, he came back several times within the next two weeks asking if I had finished putting the training plan together and when were we going to get started on his “training.” I then started to take him seriously and decided to put something together.

Being a six-year-old at the time presented its own set of challenges for me. First was to teach him the basic principals of the event while making it a fun and learnable experience. Secondly, the matter of the hop, step, and jump created a visual that a six-year-old mind would have a hard time wrapping himself around. Lucky for me was that he loved to jump and was constantly jumping over and onto thing. He had been “jumping” for a long time over puddles, across streams, from seam to seam on sidewalks, up onto various pieces of furniture, and jumping at anything else he would come upon. That was a great start, but putting three distinct movements together in a singular action created something that even beginners in high school had problems with.

Thinking about where to start, it came to mind that both he and his sister had loved to jump into and over their hula hoops when they were small. So why not start with something he was familiar with and make that the teaching tool. I chose three hoops because of the three facets of the jump, but to emphasize the parts of the phases I chose to have two of the hoops in a matching color and the third as a different color. The two colors would create a visual for him to understand that his feet should match the colors. Thus, if the right foot entered the first ring, it must be the right foot that lands in the second ring (same color as the first ring). Then the left foot must be the one that enters the third ring as it is a different color from the first two. You could add a third color ring at the end to represent the landing area that both feet should land in. We never got to use this fourth ring of a third color as my grand son naturally picked up the landing on two feet after he left the third ring. What we had accomplished was to provide a visual for the respected phases indicating that the two of the same color would be the same foot and the other non-matching color would be the foot not used in the first two.

Next was to lay out the hoops in straight line touching each other so that it was one color followed by its matching color and the third nonmatching color finishing the link at the end while touching the middle color. We actually did this in our living room before moving outside. It was easy then having my grandson to step into the first ring on one leg and landing into the second (middle) ring on the same leg followed by landing in the third ring on his opposite leg before hopping out of the third ring and landing on both feet. I will interject here that we did this over several days (not consecutive but as his interest allowed him). Also, the grandson was allowed to practice this phase starting on different legs (his choice) until he felt comfortable as to which would be his hop and step leg and which would be his jump leg. This went very quickly as he almost instantly preferred the right, right, and left sequence to the other. Then, he would use that combination for the remainder of his learning experience. After he had learned the process, we began to moving the hoops apart until reaching his optimum standing start jumping ability.

We then proceeded to the walk up and jump while again moving the hoops apart slowly as he mastered the skill while moving forward. Walk up then evolved to slow jog followed by faster jog and eventually a run. This runup would also be increased in distance on his approach as he became better at the process.

The final phase was to add a takeoff board. The board/taped line was placed into the first ring and he would now have to hit the board in the ring rather than being able to step anywhere within that ring. In doing this, we moved the rings closer together as to avoid any undo stress trying to reach for the ring. As he grasped the concept, the rings were moved farther apart and the jog/runup was made longer. Again, as his skill level increased, the distances and speed increased. Eventually, the first ring was removed leaving only the takeoff board. Finally, when he seemed comfortable at doing all of this, the rings were removed and he was allowed to triple jump normally without any aids. To my surprise, he triple jumped like a pro and is looking forward to the 2026 track season when he will be able to compete in the event in an organized middle school meet.