Jumping & Landing Mechanics - Become More Functional!

I have been working in the sports industry as both a basketball coach and performance enhancement specialist for about three years now. One of the things we notice most at my training facility is the lack of functional movement in athletes, especially middle school/high school athletes. Something about hitting the age where your muscles begin to tighten and you are suddenly not as flexible as before hits them hard. Working to help them understand their bodies and why we should jump, run, and bend certain ways is critical to ensuring they will not only progress in their athletic endeavours, but maintain a healthy and functional lifestyle in the future. By allowing yourself to continue performing an activity that is damaging your body; you are setting yourself up little by little for an injury to occur.

The study I found demonstrated this lack of functional movement by observing a group of 18 year old male athletes performing one legged jumps and landing in different directions. The participants jumped 30 cm in four different directions and through these movements, meanwhile, their hip, ankle, and knee flexion angles were measured. Similar to what I have been seeing in my own work, they found that the majority of the participants had a stiff landing with very little hip and knee flexion. Should this trend continue, these athletes will continually put pressure on joints unnecessarily and leave them at risk for injury.

The researchers highly recommend that sports clinicians and athletes should learn to land softly by increasing both hip and knee flexion; at the same time learning to become more functional. It has been proven that landing softly will distribute the force of your body coming down much more evenly and reduce the risk of injury greatly.

Identifying potential risks for injuries is something all health care providers should be able to do. From reading an EKG to watching a patient walk; being able to identify a problem and give a solution that can increase the quality of that patients life is what our jobs are all about.


Sinsurin, K., Vachalathiti, R., Jalayondeja, W., & Limroongreungrat, W. (2013). Different sagittal angles and moments of lower extremity joints during single-leg jump landing among various directions in basketball and volleyball athletes.Journal of physical therapy science, 25(9), 1109.