Standing long jump vs. countermovement jump for testing and performance enhancement

High performance sports training and testing environments usually are equipped with barbells, dumbbells and selectorized strength machines. In the last 10 years or so, the force platform (two, if you’re lucky enough to have a “big” budget) has become a mainstay in the training room for, at minimum, countermovement vertical jump (CMJ) testing and monitoring.

The CMJ can reveal valuable information about athletes’ lower limb neuromuscular function ^[1,2], training intensity recommendations ^[3], recovery requirements ^[4], performance abilities ^[5], training adaptations ^[6], and readiness to return to training or competition following injury ^[7] or periods of self-isolated training ^[8].

Given this broad swath of evidence based applications, many practitioners in high performance sport are quite comfortable relying exclusively on the CMJ for athlete testing. That is why I believe it is necessary to share some of the things I have learned about the value of the standing long jump (a.k.a. broad jump, and henceforth SLJ) within test protocols, focusing primarily on soccer.

Force application: Standing long jump vs. Countermovement jump

The unique demands the SLJ places on the athlete and the work necessary to move the body should elevate the SLJ in practitioners’ testing programmes.

At the whole body level, SLJs have biaxial force application demands since the objective is to create synchronized horizontal and vertical motion (Figure 1). The CMJ, on the other hand, has primarily uniaxial force application demands. The anterior-posterior force application is small and is intended only to limit horizontal motion when transitioning between the countermovement and propulsion phases of the jump (Figure 1).

At the joint level, research from the late 1980s provided preliminary evidence that the muscles crossing the hip, knee and ankle joints contribute ~46%, ~4% and ~50%, respectively, of the total work performed by the lower body during the propulsive phase of the SLJ ^[9].

Those studies also reported much different joint contributions during the CMJ, and my recent research indicates the breakdown between the hip, knee and ankle joints during the CMJ is ~32% ~42%, and ~26%, respectively ^[10]. This means that the extensor muscles crossing the knee joint provide a small contribution to the work of jumping and moving the body forward as vigorously as possible, but provide the greatest contribution when moving upwards as vigorously as possible. As common training exercises involve varying magnitudes of joint mechanical output ^[11], these differences can have an important influence on whether targeted adaptations carry over to a jump. My unpublished data partly supports this, as barbell back squats with a common training load (RPE = 8) coincide with concentric hip, knee and ankle work contributions of ~68%, ~29% and ~3%, respectively. However, our data also indicates conventional barbell deadlifts of the same relative intensity (RPE = 8) coincide with concentric hip, knee ankle contributions of ~90%, ~2% and ~8%, respectively.

Based on these data, back squats and deadlifts are more potent lower body stimuli for improving CMJ and SLJ, respectively, and their related physical abilities.  

Standing long jumps are more useful than countermovement jumps

This is obviously a loaded subheading, as “useful” is context specific. Still, the whole point of jump testing is to provide a means for estimating types of on-pitch performance enhancements during competition.

Vertical jumping, sprinting and agility are primary physical abilities in soccer ^[5,12,13]. The CMJ is used almost exclusively as the jump test activity because of the known correlation between the CMJ and competition specific jump ability (obviously), certain sprints and change of direction tasks. Accordingly, practitioners should expect greater performance potential during corner kicks or crosses into the box, as well as during sprints or changes of direction, when athletes demonstrate improved CMJ performance ^[14].

While the CMJ is obviously better suited than the SLJ for translating to performance potential during headers, SLJs have stronger associations with sprint acceleration and change of direction actions ^[15-19].

Practitioners can even use SLJs to accurately estimate CMJ ability ^[20]. This is very important because vertical jumping actions occur ~11 times per match ^[21]. Conversely, high intensity runs occur ~40 times per match, while changes of direction occur around 700 (yes, 700!) times per match ^[13] The ability to use the SLJ to estimate CMJs requires cross-validation from adolescent to adult populations ^[20], but it provides some rationale for replacing the CMJ with the SLJ in the appropriate circumstances (i.e., when primarily focused on vertical jump ability).

The upshot is that the SLJ can tell a more complete story of potential on-pitch soccer performance because the SLJ predicts the most commonly performed actions better than the CMJ.

Finally, in the age of data and technology within sport, we cannot overlook the need for reliable jump test data. For instance, reliable SLJ data within a test session could be obtained with only three trials ^[22], while the CMJ might require six trials ^[23]. Although this definitely requires further and more focused exploration, coaches can at minimum expect the time requirement for a test session to not increase when using the SLJ in place of or in parallel to the CMJ. From my own experience, we performed nine trials each for the CMJ and the SLJ with a squad of 25 NCAA Division I soccer players, with the test session lasting less than two hours.

Estimating game play ability from standing long jump improvement

Improving SLJ performance should translate to game play advantages for most soccer players. Given the ability to estimate an accurate CMJ from a measured SLJ (and vice versa), players demonstrating enhanced SLJ performance should have greater performance potential during corner kicks or crosses into the box.

However, during the 2007/2008 German Bundesliga season, ~83% of goals scored in the second half of the season involved linear or change of direction sprints. This means players demonstrating improved SLJs during testing should also show a greater ability to create separation from opposing players to receive through balls or create / minimize separation from opposing players during counter attacks.

From a playing position perspective, wide players and central midfielders can benefit from improving their SLJ, as they tend to perform more high intensity runs than forwards or center backs ^[24,25]. However, the greatest translational effect could be specific when coaches structure their team in more defensive oriented formations. In tactical structures like the 4-5-1, for example, players perform ~20% more of their sprint actions without the ball ^[26], reflecting the sprint ability that is the basis for predictive associations between metrics.

Standing long jump metrics to emphasize during testing and monitoring

The metrics practitioners use to explain or understand athletic potential or a training response from a jump test should be specific to the intended performance change ^[27], particularly for athletes who are not demonstrating improved standing long jumps. For those athletes, monitoring their jump strategies can reveal whether they are on the verge of displaying jump and in-game performance enhancements, or if the coach needs to intervene.

SLJ performance metrics typically include jump distance and the ratio of jump distance to the time to takeoff (RSI_MOD). These point towards the specific strategies for coaches to emphasize during training and testing.

For jump distance, the following strategy metrics predict performance ^[28]: flight height, yielding time, braking time, concentric time, vertical and anterior–posterior COM depth, anterior–posterior push-off distance, amount of vertical unloading, anterior–posterior unload yank, average vertical force during eccentric yielding and average anterior–posterior concentric force (see Table 1 for definitions). Flight height and yielding time are probably the important strategies to enhance jump distance or predict an imminent improvement. As such, they should be the first place coaches look.

The metrics for predicting RSI_MOD  performance are flight height, loading time, yielding time, braking time, concentric time, amount of vertical unloading, vertical and anterior–posterior yank during unloading, and vertical and anterior–posterior average concentric force. Anterior–posterior unloading yank, concentric time and average concentric vertical force top the list for training or predicting RSI_MOD improvements.

These metrics overlap because jump distance is the numerator of the RSI_MOD ratio. Practitioners looking to fine tune an athlete’s SLJ and related game play abilities via movement quickness (e.g., time to takeoff) may want to focus on metrics that are unique to RSI_MOD.

Longitudinal training effects on standing long jump performance

Not much literature is available demonstrating the effectiveness of contemporary, longitudinal resistance training interventions for improving standing long jumps in soccer players. Nonetheless, for collegiate female soccer players, 10 weeks of progressive strength, plyometric and speed training exercises performed in parallel two times per week increased performance in the SLJ, 40 meter sprint, and 150 meter shuttle ^[29]. In national level U20 soccer players, eight weeks of preseason training three times per week with a specific ~30 meter warm up consisting of low to moderate running exercises, technical drills and high-intensity accelerations, changes of direction and sprints improved SLJ ^[30].

For beginner or novice athletes, programs focusing on strength and plyometrics seem to be equally effective for SLJ improvements.

As few as four weeks of training with either simple lower body strength exercises (i.e., leg press, leg curl and leg extension) or plyometric exercises (i.e., depth jumps, bounding, etc.) three times per week led to improved SLJ distance and CMJ height in a sample of 36 males and 36 females ^[31]. After eight weeks, the magnitudes of SLJ improvement via strength and plyometric focused training were ~11 cm and ~9.5 cm, respectively. CMJ improvements were not as large and mainly showed up in the females ^[31]. This study also showed that 40 meter sprint time improved by about 0.2 seconds, regardless of training type, indicating early stage athletes who improve their SLJ should also improve their linear running speed.

These training outcomes support the aforementioned predictive association between key on-pitch qualities and the SLJ.

Acute interventions to improve standing long jumps

The problem with longitudinal training is the duration of time necessary to realize worthwhile change. This is particularly true for athletes in a “slump” or in need of a morale boost, as mental fatigue impairs soccer performance ^[32].

One approach that comes from other athlete populations takes advantage of post-activation potentiation (PAP). The athlete induces PAP by performing a number of higher intensity SLJs or other related exercises prior to the SLJ test trials.

Relative to jump distance, rugby players improved upon a baseline set of SLJs following four sets of box squats or deadlifts with traditional barbell or compound resistances ^[33], with the differences emerging after each set. NCAA Division I American football players jumped farther 5-6 minutes after a dynamic warm up that included deadlifts progressing in intensity to a one repetition maximum ^[34]. Importantly, this was more effective than the dynamic warm up alone, with a difference in jump distance of more than 4 cm (~2%).

I have used a post-activation potentiation protocol involving five SLJ repetitions while wearing a weighted vest with a 10% body mass load a few minutes prior to the SLJ performance test trials. That significantly increased average SLJ distance and RSI_MOD across a sample of recreationally active adults (Figure 2).

For those interested in interventions with no added loading, simply employing an external focus of attention improves SLJ performance ^[35] by way of a more appropriate projection angle ^[36]. This is an important result because projection angle influences flight height, which is a key strategy predictor of SLJ performance ^[28] and is easily monitored by practitioners. Moreover, increasing the distance between the athlete and the external focus augments the external focus effect ^[37].

Finally, an overlooked yet very simple, non-invasive acute intervention for SLJ performance is footwear. Coaches might easily overlook footwear because the literature doesn’t currently tell them that it’s a factor, in part because of poor research designs. I admit to being guilty of this myself. For instance, the first study I published failed to show an influence of footwear type (conventional vs. minimal vs. barefoot) on a group’s average SLJ distance and CMJ height ^[38]. However, when looking at individual participant data some years later, a clear participant-specific footwear effect exists that either benefits or hinders SLJ performance (Figure 3) and CMJ performance ^[39].

A simple SLJ test with various footwear types could provide guidance for an athlete’s upcoming test battery or recommended footwear for longitudinal training.

My preliminary data also indicates perceived comfort should not be considered when selecting an athlete’s footwear to produce greater performance during a jump test ^[38]. Speculatively, recommending that an athlete trains and tests in a data driven footwear type could augment training stimuli and observable adaptations during SLJs, and other tasks that improve in parallel to the SLJ.

Practicality of the standing long jump in testing environments

Unlike research laboratories, jump testing / monitoring environments in sport tend to be equipped with portable force platform systems placed on top of the ground. At face value, this means the SLJ is of little practical value to practitioners compared to the CMJ because jumping off of, or landing on, a raised platform can be high risk to an athlete. However, all coaches really need for a level landing surface is a sheet of plywood, some 2x4s, and related accessories (screws, nails, casters, etc.). This is more common that one might think in research settings. I conducted an early study ^[38] using something similar to collect SLJ data.

This type of surface permits recording data when an athlete jumps off the force platform, then again when the athlete jumps onto the force platform from the marked landing distance. This would be a tremendous addition to a jump testing / monitoring environment for two reasons. First, recall that SLJs entail very large biaxial impact forces during the jumping portion. This obviously is the case for the landing portion, as well (Figure 4). Given the long held association between impact force attenuation strategies and overuse injury potential ^[40], this method opens the door to a broader risk profile within athletes’ overall score of athleticism ^[41].

Second, my prior consulting work with an NCAA Division I men’s soccer program suggests vertical and anterior-posterior impact force asymmetry during the landing of the SLJ have similar magnitudes and intra- and inter-athlete variations versus vertical impact force asymmetry during the landing portion of the CMJ (Table 2).

If practitioners place a high value on force asymmetry and force attenuation consistency during the CMJ, they should bring the same mindset to the SLJ.

If this article or anything else about jump testing, more broadly, and standing long jumps, in particular, interest you, please check out my laboratory website to learn about what we are doing and who is doing it. If you are interested in a chat or potential consultation about anything related to force application or attenuation, particularly in the realm of athlete development, do not hesitate to reach out to me directly (john.harry@ttu.edu; Twitter: @johnharry76).