Funnel Reboot Podcast

One of the best known events in the modern Olympics is the High jump. Since its dawn in 1896 all jumpers used the same technique. They would run towards the bar, then begin their vault by putting one leg over, or trying to go head-first over the bar. But someone came to the 1968 Mexico City games, who couldn’t win on physicality, but who did have a hack no one had thought of.    That person was 21 year old American Dick Fosbury, who you wouldn’t find anything notable looking back at his track career.  Back in high school he’d struggled to master  all the motions used in the high jump; and coaches noted how little he practiced; when time came for track meet qualifiers, his jumps came up short.    But when he got to University for civil engineering, he began to experiment with other ways of jumping. In his studies he learned that our ability to jump is limited by our centre of gravity. Lifting our whole body over a bar at the same time demands that we raise our centre of gravity to that same height. So Fosbury