High jumpers use the 'Fosbury Flop' to clear the bar while their center of gravity actually passes underneath it.

The Fosbury Flop was popularized by American athlete Dick Fosbury during the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Before this, jumpers used the 'straddle' or 'Western roll' techniques, which required lifting the body's entire center of mass above the bar. Fosbury's method utilizes a curved approach and a backward leap that creates a J-shaped flight path.Physicists explain this phenomenon through the concept of the center of mass, which is the average position of all the parts of the system. In a rigid object, this point is fixed, but in a flexible human body, it can shift based on posture. When a jumper arches their back into a crescent shape over the bar, their center of mass actually drops below the level of their torso.Calculations show that a jumper's center of mass can pass up to 5 centimeters below the bar while the athlete successfully clears it. This mechanical advantage means the athlete does not need to exert as much vertical force as they would in a traditional jump. Following Fosbury's gold medal win in 1968 with a jump of 2.24 meters, the technique quickly became the global standard.By the 1972 Munich Games, 28 out of 40 competitors had adopted the Flop. Today, it is used by virtually every elite high jumper in the world. The technique remains one of the best examples of how biomechanics can be used to overcome the physical limitations of the human body.