Harper's Round Table, July 30, 1895

by Various

The pictures on the opposite page are reproductions of instantaneous photographs taken especially for this Department of Harper's Round Table. They clearly show the exact position and form of an athlete at the various stages of action in the running high jump, and a careful study of them will prove of great usefulness to any one desirous of perfecting himself in this particular branch of out-door athletics. The striking feature of the series is that it proves that a man practically steps over the bar with one stride, instead of flying over it in a compact bunch as he appears to do when watched by the naked eye. But before describing the jump itself, it will be best to give certain general directions about the necessary lay-out, and a few points on preliminary work.

In the first place, no one should start in to train for this event until after he is eleven or twelve years old. In fact, it is safe to say that no boy under this age ought ever to go into any kind of systematic athletic work, for his ambition is liable to lead him to injurious over-exertion. Don't do any high-jumping in the winter months; for running on a hard board floor is not a good thing, and you are apt to slip and get injured. If you want to take up jumping as a specialty, spend the winter, or the in-door season, in pulling weights so as to strengthen the back and chest, and in going through leg motions to fortify the limbs. No one can ever succeed as a high-jumper unless he has a well-developed chest and back. As will be seen later on, the strain on the dorsal muscles is practically what lifts the man over the bar. This sounds very much like lifting one's self up by the boot-straps, but it is nevertheless correct. The leg exercises are simple. There are two kinds. One is to lift yourself up on your toes. Start in by doing it about twenty-five times every day for a week; then increase the number until you get up to about three hundred times. An expert high-jumper can lift himself five hundred times without great fatigue. The second exercise is the "frog motion." This consists of placing the heels near together and of squatting and rising. Do this a few times only, to start with, and gradually bring yourself to the hundreds. Exercise the chest, as I have said before, with weights and dumbbells. Strengthen the back by bending over with the legs stiff, the arms thrown out in front until the finger-tips touch the floor easily.

The jumping costume should consist of a jersey suit rather than of a linen blouse and trousers, because the knit goods cling to the form and keep the muscles warm. The trousers should never reach the knees, which have to be kept free. The feet are encased in shoes made of kangaroo-skin, laced in front like running shoes, and are worn without socks. The left shoe is made several ounces heavier than the right, and is about twice as heavy as a sprinter's foot-wear. The heel is made of quarter-inch sole leather, and has two spikes. Some men jump with one spike in the middle of the heel, but this is very bad, because when the jumper alights his heel bone pounds on the spike and soon raises a stone bruise. If you have two spikes fixed at the extremities of diagonals drawn through the centre of the heel this bruising is easily avoided. There are no spikes on the heel of the right shoe, but the heel itself is made slightly thicker. In the toes of both shoes there should be six spikes.

A great many athletes who have gone in for high jumping have abandoned the sport after a few weeks of training because of sore heels. They should remember that the heel must be toughened as well as the other muscles, but as soon as it begins to feel sore, rest until it is in good condition again. A good way to avoid soreness of the heel and ankle is to keep that part of the foot thickly painted with iodine all the time. Keep the ankle absolutely black for several months, until the muscles there have become so tough and strong that there is no danger of straining or bruising. For the leg muscles, rubbing with alcohol is good, but do not resort to this too frequently. And in order to have the leg muscles in the best of condition, do not indulge in the frog motion and other exercises for a week or two previous to a match.

For practice the jumper should have two square posts about two inches thick, made of almost any kind of wood, and bored with holes one inch apart up to five feet eight inches, and half an inch apart above that. The pegs should be three inches long, and the bar, made of pine, should be about twelve feet long and one inch square. The posts are placed eight feet apart, and it is usual to hang a handkerchief over the centre of the crossbar, so that it can be seen better. A jumper must always keep his eye on the bar from the time he starts to run until he lands safely on the other side. The runway should be eight feet wide and about forty feet long. It should be made of cinders, well rolled, and ought to be kept dampened so as to make it springy. Beyond the posts the earth should be turned over and raked, so as to make a soft landing-place.

There is no rule about how far off from the bar a jumper should start to run. The nearer the better, because less power is then wasted on the approach. In No. 1 the jumper has just started. He takes an easy gait at first, with his eye fixed on the bar, and he regulates his speed and his step so as to come to the "take-off" with his left foot. In jumping all the work is done with the left foot. A good way for a beginner to determine how far from the bar to take-off is to stand before it on one foot and lift the other until he can touch the cross-piece with his toes. He takes-off as far back as he can thus place one foot and touch the bar with the other. This distance from the base line between the posts to the take-off is usually equal to the height of the bar from the ground.

As the jumper approaches the bar he runs as fast as he can, and in picture No. 2 he reaches the take-off with his left foot. His heel strikes first (as may clearly be seen from the heavy mark underneath it), and gives the power for the jump. The toe merely gives direction to the motion imparted by the heel and the big shin muscle which connects with the heel. The leap has now begun, and with the right foot rising the jumper begins to sail over the bar. His line of travel is a perfect semicircle, beginning at the take-off, and ending in the soft ground on the other side at exactly the same distance from the base-line of the posts. No. 3 shows him still rising from the ground, his right foot giving the direction of the leap. The muscles of the arms and back are now just coming into play to raise the torso and the left leg—and all the time the eye is firmly fixed on the bar. In No. 4 the right foot is just passing over the handkerchief, and the arms and back are seen straining with the exertion of bringing up the left leg. Notice that muscle of the neck. It connects with the muscles of the side and abdomen, and these harden like steel to force the quick motion that has to be made to lift that side of the body. The strain on this neck muscle and the working of the back and arms are even better displayed in No. 5, where the left leg is almost up, and is about to clear the bar. Considerable practice is required for this motion, because it has to be done very quickly. The left foot has to be brought in very close to the right thigh, and yet the sharp spikes must be kept from tearing the flesh. Note how the eye is constantly on the bar.

In the next picture, No. 6, the bar has been cleared, the whole body is over, and the right leg has dropped. It is now no more used, except as a balance to the body, the entire work of the jump, as before stated, being done with the left leg. The jumper's eye is still fixed on the bar, and not until he is well over it, as shown in No. 7, does he remove his gaze. As he clears the stick his back muscles give a twist to his flying form, and his right arm thrown into the air aids him in turning, so that he will fall facing the bar. The left leg has now passed the right, and is making ready to sustain the weight of the body on landing, while the right is thrust slightly backward to sustain a proper equilibrium. The strain on the back and arms is relaxed. In No. 8 he is just about to land, and the camera has given us a beautiful display of the looseness of the arm muscles, showing the right arm still in the air and about to drop as soon as the feet strike the ground. The body is lying along the curve of the semicircle through which the jump has been made.

The bar in all these pictures was at 5 ft. 8 in., and each photograph necessitated a separate jump. This alone is enough to show in what excellent form the young athlete worked, for a kinetoscope could not have caught his separate actions in one leap to better effect than these photographs have shown them in eight different leaps. The ninth picture is a portrait of the clever young athlete, who is shown in action in all the others. He is S. A. W. Baltazzi, of the Harvard School of this city, who holds the interscholastic high-jumping record not only of the N.Y.I.S.A.A., but of the United States. At the Interscholastics last May he cleared 5 ft. 11 in., but since then he has covered 6 ft. in practice, and I have no doubt that he will defeat the Englishman who is coming over to represent the London Athletic Club at the international games this fall. Baltazzi is seventeen years old, and weighs 135 pounds. He began jumping while at St. Paul's School, Garden City, in 1891, and won first in a school competition with 4 ft. 9 in. At the school games of 1892 he took first, with a jump of 5 ft. 1/2 in., and in 1893, as a member of the Harvard School, he established the in-door scholastic record of 5 ft. 3-1/2 in., at the Berkeley School winter games. The following year, at the same games, he raised the record to 5 ft. 6-1/2 in., and subsequently took first in the Wilson and Kellogg games with a jump of 5 ft. 5 in. At the Interscholastics of 1894, Baltazzi and Rogers tied for first place at 5 ft. 9 in., breaking Fearing's Interscholastic record of 5 ft. 8-1/2 in. In September of that year he won first at Travers Island, jumping 5 ft. 7 in., and later in the winter he took first in the Barnard games with 5 ft. 8 in. Having taken first in the Berkeley, Poly. Prep., and Columbia College handicap games of 1895, he lifted the Interscholastic mark up to 5 ft. 11 in. at the Berkeley Oval in May. The following week, at the Inter-city games, he cleared 5 ft. 10-1/4 in., and took first at the N.Y.A.C. spring games with the same figure. Baltazzi expects to enter Columbia College this fall; and if he does, there are five points sure for the New-Yorkers at Mott Haven for some years to come.