World and Olympic coach Denise Myers shares a number of valuable jump exercises and other insights related to jumping. She begins with one-foot axels as a way to “snap the thighs together” on double axel. Similarly, the one-foot salchow can solve the same problem on the triple salchow. These exercises can also be helpful with maintaining jump direction, as well as helping skaters learn to begin exiting a jump earlier while still in the air. To help with landing stability, skaters need to keep a strong core and proper alignment, absorbing the landing forces with the ankle and knee and not the hip. Turning the head to the landing side can also help.
Next, Denise shows an entry for salchow to improve rhythm and timing and reduce over-thinking. The entry includes choctaws from backwards into an undercut and then directly into the jump. The entry can be calming and it also helps with jump direction.
Another exercise is counter-waltz jump which can then be converted to counter-axel. As an exercise, Denise has the skater land a waltz jump, then undercut and push back into a backward counter directly into another waltz jump take-off. This exercise also works with double axels. The counter entry is a “nice transition” which can “come as a surprise” so it’s a good skill for skaters to master. It also teaches skaters to “hold the right (axis) side strong for the step for the double axel or triple.”
Denise finishes this video by sharing two flip jump exercises. The first is a split flip with a boot or heel tap prior to landing. This exercise is excellent for improving jump direction and height, as well as foot/leg quickness in the air. The second exercise is “knee up down” or a standard h-position take-off followed by a strong d-position (second up) in the air with a flexed axis foot. Denise notes, “Most of the athletes have a much more natural [axis foot] flex on the loop, flip, and lutz and more and more have to work on it on the axel, salchow, and toe loop.”
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