How High can Harry Aikines-Aryeetey Vertical Jump?

Watching 8 athletes line up in the 100 meters is interesting to watch. You can see the various pre-race routines, including doing tuck jumps or simply doing an explosive vertical jump before settling into your blocks. The reason is for Post-activation Potentiation (PAP), and it gets all the neurons and muscle fibers ready for an explosive event like the 100 meters. (You can read more about Dynamic Warm-up, Static Stretching and Post-activation Potentiation in my podcast with James Zois.)

Last year, I wrote a satirical piece on Jeremy Wariner, asking how high can he box jump? This was followed by 2 videos of Ato Bolden and Dwain Chambers doing at least a 60 inch box jump. Impressive.

Of course, the box jump numbers are much different compared to a vertical jump test.

Harry Aikines-Aryeetey

At the 2012 Eurpoean Championships, here is a great photo (courtesy of the IAAF) of France’s Christophe Lemaitre and UK’s Harry Aikines-Aryeetey. It looks like a David Copperfield illusion where he has a hidden harness and invisible wires and he attempts a levitation trick.

This isn’t a trick, just good old fashion photography with a high speed camera and motor winder at several fps.

Based on the height of the Lane boxes, I would say his vertical jump is at least 30 inches, and that’s probably not a max vertical either.

So, how high can Harry Aikines-Aryeetey vertical jump? I can tell you one thing, the only two numbers he cares about are 10.18 and 10.24, the IAAF A and B standards. His PB is 10.10 and has run 10.27 this year.