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« on: February 11, 2011, 12:49:41 pm »
From personal experience I have never seen anyone gain inches by changing their technique and I have seen quite afew people try. IMO even if you have sub-par coordination, once you get past the total beginner stage your body will automatically take in consideration your strengths/weaknesses and in return make you perform the best possible jump to maximize your strengths.
The only real use I see in over analyzing someones jump technique is to find out their weaknesses (ie. posture, flexibility, inhibited muscles, and more commonly strength/reactive ability) so they can go out and work on it (ie. stretching, mobility work, lifting, plyometrics).
Although he does give some decent information in the videos some of what Linkenauger is saying is complete garbage. There is a reason why someone is slowing down before takeoff. There is a reason why someone is collapsing during takeoff. There is a reason why someone is barely accelerating in their approach. There is a reason why someones GCT is too high, etc etc. In most cases try to "fix" this and perform it the "right" way and someone will be jumping even lower.
The only credit I give him is for being able to analyze the videos and point out what could be better, thats it. To turn around and say "oh your approach is too slow, go faster", "your knee collapses, dont collapse", "you are sinking your hips too low, less bend" and then follow it up by (real example from one of his videos) "If you dont decelerate before takeoff Im sure you will gain ~4 inches" its complete scammer talk. The jumpers problems and his analysis are obvious as hell, I mean what he does after and the promises he makes are complete bullshit.
What has happened in all cases I have seen ie. someone approaches too slow, if they increase their approach speed to "optimal" levels they are not strong enough to handle the force which will lead to increased GCT or horizontal jumping, and so on and so forth.
Best thing you can do is to have a great workout plan, do all the right things in the weightroom/kitchen/court and your body will know what to do better then what anyone could tell you online in a couple of sentences.
Also one of his biggest bullshit stories that probably gets a ton of people is that "day" where he woke up with the right technique and added ~7 inches or whatever to his high jump. Technique is much more important in high jumping and needs to be taught. High jumping, especially for beginners which is what he was, is obviously not all about how high you jump. He kind of puts on as if he gained 7 inches on his vertical... His vertical could have easily stayed exactly the same as Im sure it did, and he still could have gained 7 inches on his high jump by improving his technique (which Im sure 95% of everyone here or his customers couldnt care less about).
Anyways those are just my opinions, take them with a grain of salt.