At my first clinic lecture in 2007, I sat in on a triple and long jumping session.

Willie Banks was the first to speak and that was awesome. I had never seen him in person nor though that I might ever, but there he was. He started telling us about himself and his fabled rhythmic clapping that is now evidenced as valuable to the sport, and critical to athletes' performances. Most field athletes now get the crowd involved with having them clap. Just go back and watch the javelin, the triple jump, the long jump, the high jump and you will hear the sounds of Willie Banks enthusiasm as he captivated a Swedish audience and surprised the world with his historic hops, steps, and jumps.

Banks demonstrated some things for us and also stated that the triple jump and long jump share characteristics, but are quite dissimilar. The triple jump is a "controlled run." Rhythm is an absolutely critical element to training and performance of the triple jump since it is a controlled motion of three fluid jumps. I forgot to ask him if he incorporates music into this workouts or just thinks performances are good for that.

As his presentation started, he pointed out that to profile an ideal triple jump, they need to possess these qualities:

1. Fast, strong, flexible, agile
2. Lean, light and powerful

He also illustrated on a projector that there are 4 macrocycles and 5 microcycles. Active rest was also a key point to getting athletes to ease into their development and to peak at the right times. In the training, there should be a distinction between when to add quantities and when to shave back to add qualities both to the practice design and for the athletes mental and physical performances.

Within the four macrocycles, he wrote that in this order, the athlete should gain proficiency:

1. Speed endurance
2. Speed strength
3. Jump technique
4. Competition/fine tuning

Within the five microcycles (10-14 days), the athlete should experience focused work (any order) on:

1. Running technique
2. Jumping technique
3. Strength technique
4. Agility training
5. Psyche training (jumping off of a high dive)

Banks discussed what each of the four areas within the four macrocycles mean. In speed endurance, an athlete can run 150 meters. Within that distance, he encouraged running the first 50 meters without breathing, the next breathing and the last 50 meters not breathing to build-up work capacity. Hills are a staple of helping athletes not to peak too soon, as well as training the body to drive for short distances and improve explosive power in the legs. Speed strength refers to box jumping, steps, stairs or stadium steps to help build general strength in the legs and is a weight-less form of exercise to develop good technique in the cycle-through, touchdown, and foot placement. Pushups also are a staple of workout for the triple jumpers that have worked with Banks. He uses a dynamic set of pushups where the athlete starts out in a wide pushup to middle to close pushup, and starts again at wide. He said that most athletes will not be able to do that five times. This can be a good thing to practice as a warm up routine to weightlifting. Instead of doing too much strength building in the weight room, we can focus on getting weight routines to focus on explosive power to match the frame and quality of event to the athlete. And, he emphasized, "you don't have to be in the weight room to build strength." He demonstrated that we could take weights to the track and have the athletes then release the weights and sprint for a certain distance to build the necessary drive and explosive strength relative to the event.

Jump technique refers to simply getting on the runway and apply the two previous areas of focus in the macrocycles. Lastly, competition is competition where the only adjustments that are made are checkmarks and the coach(es) find ways to give the athletes simple cues to accomplish their goals.

In the triple jump, the athlete is not sprinting, but jumping, and the jumper must push off the board in order to maintain that control and speed. The critical difference between true triple jumping and long jumping lies in the fact that in the TJ, the jumper lifts the foot cycling over the takeoff knee and planting, and not just cycling through with close top speed, as found in the long jump.

At this point, Mike Powell finally showed up and he interjected with his comments on the approach and takeoff which he, along with other expert coaches and studies in the field of the sport, says are the most critical to long jumping success. Teaching athletes to count every other step, be consistent, and courageously run fast enough to be in control and nearly out of control. Coach Powell works under Joanne Bolden at UCLA, his alma mater, and was famously named "Mike Foul" for his lack of consistency in NCAA competition but later showed everyone his true meddle as a world-class athlete.

Powell began with explaining the basics of approach running and told coaches to look for a 16-step approach with an 'A' cycle. To develop the muscular strenght and memory for the explosive range of motion necessary in the long jump, the athlete should work on arm pumps through sled drives, hill work in practices. In order to maximize work on the approach, the athlete must learn to work on a short approach to a smooth transition to the end of their approach. The hips do mostly everything in the long jump, for the power of the jump and transferrence of weight. "Your head leads your hips," he said and being able to accelerate through the takeoff, think of being tall, bouncy and light. At the takeoff, the penultimate step, there will be a long step and a quick, short, powerful step following. A coach should give a cue of "Long to short!" to help the athlete focus on this end phase of the jump. Keeping the head up and the shoulders square looking straight ahead will help drive the hips, or c.g., through at the right trajectory for in-flight motion.

Banks interrupted Powell and made a circuitous comment about triple jump. That athletes should take 22 steps versus 20 in the LJ. If athletes start from a static stand they could be off of the board by 2-3 feet. So, it is important to establish rhythm from the very beginning.

Powell continued on his course about consistency and the different parts of the approach to takeoff, that having checkmarks to keep athletes consistent is a great tool in learning and teaching. An active start is better than a static start, showing that there are similar characteristics of both TJ and LJ.