The women’s High Jump record has risen over the last 80 years from under 1.5 metres to over 2. And in the same time, the Pole Vault record has increased by more than 2 metres to 6.15 metres. When the programme was recorded, the world record men’s High Jump of 2.45 metres had been set by Cuban Javier Sotomayor in 1993.

World records still get broken, so Adam asks, what’s the real limit of human ability?

When an athlete jumps, he applies up to seven times more weight or force to the ground than if he were standing still. This extra force thrusts him into the air, so in theory, the more force he can apply to the ground, the higher he jumps.

A High Jump revolution occurred in 1968 when Dick Fosbury introduced a new style of jumping, the ‘Fosbury Flop’. Before that, athletes jumped by straddling the bar, but the Fosbury Flop is a much more efficient way of jumping. The athlete approaches the bar with a curved run up and then twists over the bar and lands on his back. This means that most of the jumper’s weight is below the bar at any given moment, which is far more efficient than the upright straddle jump, where the athlete has to lift his whole body much higher than the bar in order to clear it with his feet.

There are three ways of jumping:

• A high jumper uses a run-up to build up energy and then changes direction at the last second to turn forward energy into upward energy.
• A pole vaulter uses an energy storage device (the pole), which acts like a spring.
• A locust or a grasshopper stores up energy in a spring and then releases it all at once.

A grasshopper has tremendously strong muscles in its upper legs, with a little catch on each knee and a sort of spring. As it bends its knees, the muscle winds up the spring and the catch keeps it shut. When it releases the catch, the legs straighten in about a fiftieth of a second. This allows the grasshopper’s legs to exert about fifteen times more force than muscle power alone - and that results in an extremely high jump!

We don’t have any tips for turning you all into Olympic high jumpers, but follow these instructions for a very quick and easy way to make a jumping machine. Two cups are held together by a paperclip catch, which is released by simply dropping the cups. A stretched elastic band then propels the top cup into the air.

Stuff you need

two (or more) plastic cups

elastic band (or several)

paper clip

pair of pliers (or strong fingers!)

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