Why One Foot Jumpers Are So Skinny

The average height of an Olympic high jumper is 6'3"

The average Olympic high jumper is also skinny as sh**. They have no upper body mass and body fat percentage levels that are way below 10%

However, I found someone who is swole as hell, short, and can literally fly off one foot

This is Santana Turner. He is one of the freakiest athletes I've ever seen in my life

Now, why is being swole so rare for one foot jumpers? There have been a lot of two foot jumpers that have been buff as hell

Some examples are Zion Williamson, Myrie Bowden, had a ton of upper body mass, could jump high

T flying high, could literally bench 315 for reps, could also fly off two feet

Donovan Hawkins is 200 plus pounds at 6'4", still flies off two

But there's almost nobody like that off one foot. How is this possible

The reason upper body mass isn't as harmful for two foot jumpers is because of the ground contact times

Two-foot jumpers spend more time on the ground during the eccentric portion of the stretch shortening cycle compared to one-foot jumpers

This means that performance in two-foot jumping is more correlated to your max strength than it is for one-foot jumping

That means if you're strong as hell and you've jumped a lot in your life, upper body mass has way less of a detrimental role in the jump

Also, you use your upper body way more when you jump off two

There's usually a very aggressive arm swing with both arms behind you, which requires a lot of strength in the shoulders and upper back muscles

And training these muscles with upper body work can actually help you jump higher

So if you want to be swole like Santana and jump off one, you're going to have to be an even greater outlier in terms of the efficiency of your nervous system, your muscle fiber typing, your tendons, your jump technique

because you can make a strong argument that Santana would jump even higher if he didn't have any upper body mass

But it's still very impressive and very fun to watch