Join Eric Leidersdorf, Director of Biomechanics at P3, as he delves into the world of jump testing and biomechanics. With over a decade of experience, Eric shares insights on critical metrics that link jump performance to athletic success. He highlights the challenges of data transparency in the private sector and compares marker-based with markerless motion capture technologies. The discussion also explores innovative training methods for athletes, revealing how basketball techniques can enhance performance across various sports.
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insights INSIGHT
Ease Drives Jump Test Popularity
Jump tests are popular because they are easy to conduct with accessible force plate tech.
This prevalence sometimes causes confusion between being the 'gold standard' and just being the most common test.
insights INSIGHT
Purpose of Jump Testing
Jump testing links directly to basketball and volleyball performance, while in other sports it more generally assesses physical qualities for training.
These qualities help guide strength work that benefits athletic performance in wider sports contexts.
insights INSIGHT
Links Between Jump Metrics and On-Field Ability
Some jump metrics correlate with sprint acceleration and possibly deceleration abilities, though these links are not always clear.
Understanding these connections better could improve how jump data relates to on-field performance.
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This week’s guest on the Pacey Performance Podcast is Eric Leidersdorf, Director of Biomechanics at P3 in Santa Barbara, California. He’s been with P3 for nearly 11 years, and he and his team oversee biomechanical assessment processes from data collection acquisition through to analytics. Eric recently earned a Master of Science in Data Science at Columbia University and is leading P3’s data analytics efforts to develop new insight into athletic performance and injury mechanisms.
Eric is here to talk about his considerable experience in jump testing, including how he first got into the industry and how biomechanical roles are growing in US sport. On testing, Eric discusses why coaches and sports scientists assess jumps and the basis this provides. There’s also insight into metrics, including the ones Eric believes matter most, how they connect to performance on court or the field, and how to gather them from athletes performing in different roles and with different body types. Eric also talks about the reliability of assessment tools such as markerless motion capture, and the difficulty of sharing data as a private organisation.
Moving onto the training side, we also discuss what other sports can learn about jumping from basketball, and how training is affected by movement strategy. Further expertise comes from Eric’s views on countermovement jump strategies, whether testing strategies can be grouped into categories, and how training differs between vertical and lateral jumps. We round out the episode with Eric’s views on the future of sports science technology and the future of jump testing, including force plates. For all this and much, much more, hit the play button now.
This week’s topics:
Why we assess jumps and the basis they give us
The links between metrics collected and what happens on court or the field
The difficulty of sharing data as a private organisation
The reliability of assessment tools such as markerless motion capture
Eric’s view on the metrics that matter, and which ones to measure for different athletes
What we can learn about jumping from insights into basketball
How training is affected by movement strategy
Whether testing strategies can be grouped into certain categories
How training differs between vertical and lateral jumps
Eric’s views on the future of sports science technology
Pacey Performance Podcast