Why can humans jump higher with somersaults?

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I know gymnasts are trained like the guy in the link below, but is the summersaults necessary and why?
For example this: https://www.instagram.com/p/B8qzw3IjqVu/?igshid=1mgbq5jwob8uj

In: Physics

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In the video, he’s jumping off of a springboard. It’s sort of like a trampoline in that it helps you jump much higher than normal.

The somersault isn’t necessary for height, but these are competitive, and somersaults are usually more points.

Looking at a straight high jump competition, there’s no somersaulting.

Anonymous 0 Comments

They aren’t not “jumping higher” if your definition of height is “height above ground that the center of mass of the object is moved”. By doing a somersault the “lowest part” of the body i is brought closer to the center of mass, thereby giving the appearance of gaining more height. It is true that this person would clear a higher object, but not as high as someone doing an even more optimized method like the fosberry flop in high-jumping. For the video he get a long limb higher because he extends it out from the center of gravity. He is not however getting his center of gravity any higher.

Anonymous 0 Comments

In the case of the video, the goal is to hit a bag that is rally high. He can do this by getting is center of gravity within leg reach of the bag, and making sure he’s flipped so that the leg can actually hit the bag

Anonymous 0 Comments

When you have left the ground your trajectory is fixed until you hit the ground. There is very little you can do to change your trajectory to get higher unless you have something to push off. However the part of you that have the trajectory fixed is your center of mass. You are able to move your body around as much as you want around your center of mass. So sometimes it can be beneficial to do a somersault to get higher. For example your feet are further from the center of mass then your head, so you can get your feet higher up then your head. Or you can arch your back so that the body part over a bar is always the highest part of your body meaning you can jump over a bar even if your center of mass is lower then the bar.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Throw something and keep it perfectly straight, like just push something straight out of your arm into the air, then throw something with a bunch of spin on it.

A bunch of rotation lets you add more overall momentum into something. You could use some of your muscles to push off exactly straight, or you could use a bunch of muscles to give the most force but also have rotation. If you have that rotation you can like fall on your face and that is fine, or if you hate falling on your face you can add some flips and land on your feet.