Figure Skating: Triple Jump Technique (Michelle Leigh)

Olympic coach Michelle Leigh offers some jump drills and exercises to improve control and efficiency, particularly related to building double jumps into triple jumps.

In the first exercise, Michelle has the skater who rotates to the left hold the left hand on the right hip.  Michelle’s skater demonstrates this with the double toe, salchow, and loop.  Notice that Michelle wants the head turned toward the landing side on landing.  The goal of this exercise is to ensure that the skater is primarily developing rotation for the jump using the lower body, rather than swinging the shoulders.  This makes the jump take-off more efficient and “quiet” which then translates into more control on the triple.

The second exercise is an important tool for all coaches working with skaters on triple jumps.  The idea is to have the skater perform a purposely “small” double while keeping the arms in throughout the jump and landing.  Michelle is trying to simulate the rotational landing forces of a triple in the double.  By making the jump small the skater must rotate quickly and all the way down to the ice.  By keeping the arms in the skater must develop a fast lower body landing movement.  A major problem for skaters working on triples is that their doubles are usually so big that the rotation is mostly done at the top of the jump and the skater can begin to open while well up in the air.  This allows the skater to get used to relatively slow landing movements.  This exercise from Michelle forces the skater to build landing quickness.

In the final exercise which Michelle calls “The Inside Hop” the focus is on getting ankle contact as well as fast landing movements.  Again this drill helps the skater build landing quickness but also focuses on ankle contact which is one of the most important concepts in jumping.  Nearly all top coaches who regularly teach triples take the need for ankle contact for granted.

These exercises are incredibly important for coaches that don’t teach a lot of triples but have the occasional skater with the skill and athleticism to attempt triples.  Most coaches that teach a lot of triples already use these or similar exercises.

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