The Landing Standard

September 08, 2026

In this episode, Jamie breaks down the Landing Standard.

A 30 cm forward jump that trains coordination, reaction time, bone density, and lifelong physical capability. You’ll learn why landing matters more than jumping, how the brain processes movement, and why adults lose (and can rebuild) this essential skill.

In This Episode

• What the Landing Standard is and why it exists

• How a simple jump trains your hips, knees, ankles, and nervous system

• The brain’s role in force production, timing, and landing strategy

• Why landing ability protects you from slips, trips, and falls

• How jumping supports bone density at every age

• Why adults stop jumping and how to safely rebuild the pattern

• How the Enough course retrains coordination step by step Key Takeaways

• Landing is a lifelong safety skill as it sharpens reaction time and reduces fall risk.

• Jumping trains power, but landing trains deceleration and stability.

• Bone density improves when you expose your body to controlled impact.

• The body isn’t fragile! It’s capable, adaptable, and wants input.

• You can always retrain jumping and landing with the right steps.

Resources

• Live Webinars (Tuesdays & Fridays) 60 minute deep dives into all 18 physical standards

Visit: enough.health/webinar

• Movement Capacity Quiz 90 second video quiz to identify your current capability gaps

Visit: enough.health/quiz

Explore the 18 physical standards and start rebuilding lifelong capability at enough.health

Episode Transcript

hello and welcome to episode 11 of Enough Said
today we're going to take a deep dive
into the landing standard
what it is how to do it how it helps you stay
physically capable and
we're going to take a nice
little dive into it to see what it's all about
alright so before we begin my name is Jamie Jones
I've had over 22 years as a personal trainer
strength and conditioning coach
and a remedial massage therapist
so I've been lucky to work with
thousands of bodies over the years and
now my mission is to spread the 18 physical standards
that help people
like you stay physically capable for life
okay for too long
the fitness industry has been about be better
be stronger be faster just be more and
we all need to exercise
and we're leaving people behind so now
these standards are here to help people understand
what they need to do for life to keep their
musculoskeletal system so their muscles their bones
ligaments and tendons functional capable forever
so let's dive into the landing standard
so what is it it's a 30 centimeter jump
forward landing safely and standing up
now you're probably thinking that's pretty simple
I can do that if you can wonderful
but I'm sure there's some of you thinking
when was the last time I jumped
so what does this movement
actually involve so with two feet underneath your hips
you're gonna push your hips
back behind you slide your hands back
propel yourself up into the air clearing 30 cm forward
landing hopefully two feet at the same time
with bent knees bent hips
then standing up with control
so
again this isn't the most athletic
performance and that's not what these standards
are about it's about providing the right inputs
to keep you well and keep you safe
and keep you functional to be able to do the things you want to do
now jumping's a great exercise
in that it produces a lot of power
there's so much that's happening
so if we look at breaking down the jump
once you're standing and you push your hips back
your hips have to flex which is your hip flexor muscles
they're gonna help do that your knees will bend
so that's knee flexion your hamstrings begin to load
and then you're gonna throw your arms
forward to create momentum
then we're gonna do the opposite
so from flexion of the hips going to extend the hips
which means squeeze your glutes your backside
that's gonna open up the hips
hopefully give you some energy
that's then gonna connect
with your knee extensors which is your thigh muscles
and then your calves are gonna contract pushing you
into what we call plantar
flexion which is when you point your toes
and that chain reaction
will hopefully propel you forward up into the air
getting enough airtime to propel 30 cm forward
then as you land ball of the foot will hit
and then down into your heels so from there the
your brain and your body
start to figure out how to land depending on where
what foot placement you hit on the ground
there is a chain reaction up the body um so your knees
will hopefully bend so reengaging those hamstrings
and then from then standing up nice and tall
just when you thought it was just a simple jump hey
there's lots involved with this body with this movement
sorry and that's why it's really
important to try and keep it um and the coordination
of all those tissues in that order those muscles
to actually make that happen is
is quite challenging and then
yeah when I show and ask people to jump
at work for the first time when they haven't safely
you can see the cogs are ticking it's like how
I used to be able to do this how do I do this so
again that's where the enough course has module 1 which
starts to just break it all down step by step to help
get those pathways signalling
again that coordination from the brain
down to the body and all the muscles
um is is pivotal and a tricky point for a lot of people
so
let's talk about the brain for a second and the
response that it has to have to make you jump okay so
when you're pulling your hips back and initiating
the first part of the jump
and you're looking at your 30 centimeter target
your brain is processing that distance
how much force you're going to need to produce
through all those muscles to help you go forward so
instantly as soon as you spot your target your distance
and you begin to load there's already cogs ticking
and that's where I see a lot of people trying to process
and figure out how do I get from here to there
um so
you've the brain goes OK that's the distance
I'm computing
how much force I need to do that now again
if you do lots of jumping you've got
enough strength and you've done plenty of jumps
it'll be quite easy for some people who have
can't even make it 5 cm or even get off the ground
they're gonna be thinking
I need to put my best effort
in I need to do as much as possible
just to get off the ground um
even people before that we think it
I'm not going to try to jump I'm just gonna trip and fall
so again it's completely individual
response to the brain but the brain is ticking
as soon as you spot your target
and you're committing to trying to jump
alright so then we've got the jump itself so
you so your brain's taken in the load it's understood
okay this is what we're trying to get where we're trying to get to
now we're gonna propel
that force so those glutes are gonna contract those
thigh muscles your quads are gonna contract
your calves are gonna contract
just to what we call triple extension
from the hip to the knee to the ankle
and then you propel up so your brain has to
fire the nerves to make those muscles engage
and hopefully you have a connection there
to actually make enough force otherwise
a little to no jump may occur some people just go
I don't know how to do that I can't
I can't figure it out OK so
again everyone needs to be jumping and if you lose if
you stop doing it you definitely can lose the ability
so that jump
portion was about coordination getting the hips
the knees and the ankles all working in unison
or one after another to produce enough force
so now you're in the air okay
getting that hang time hopefully and
before you hit the ground
your brain perceives all there's impact coming so an
isometric contraction so a load
starts to engage your muscles
to support your joints on landing so you don't land
loose and then collapse into it with momentum
there is support for your joints cause your tissues
are already
starting to engage they don't lock up because you need
enough bend in the knees and hips to absorb the load
but they start to engage in preparation
for impact okay the impact's coming
so we've loaded got our target
we've coordinated the hips knees and ankles
now we're in the air
the brain's thinking oop here comes the landing
and then on landing we have deceleration so
depending how you land with your feet the transfer
of energy comes up your body the brain's
then computing which muscles have to engage stop
balance and lock on
to create stability before standing up OK
so that's just to jump 30 cm
there's plenty in that
and that is why it's really important
to maintain this landing ability
and this is why it's one of the 18 standards
so as you can hear
there's a lot of breakdown a lot of coordination
happening from your brain down to your pinky toes
a lot of response happening
now how this relates to real life is it speeds
up your reaction
time if you happen to have a slip trip or fall
your body knows how to decelerate it knows how to land
and then transfer
that information
from the floor back to the brain to make the muscles
contract to help you stabilize
so that's your coordination that helps your balance
so if you know life's never smooth sailing
if those trips and falls happen to come in
you want to have that reaction the ability
to move and stabilize
which means you need to practice how to land
jumping creates a lot of power and force and that's great too
but it's that landing ability
that is actually going to be most applicable
throughout the rest of your life
so getting off the ground and training
it and teaching it every week
will make your reaction time better
giving you less chance less likely
a chance of falls and slips
will give you the best chance possible to react
if you happen to have those slips and falls
which is obviously very very important
a huge plus to jumping and landing
also is it increases your bone
density as well so that force
that goes up through your body
all through your skeletal system
um is really really critical and helps
keep your bone density up in a
in a pretty safe way as well with jumping and landing
so yes not only it improves your coordination
and your action time
but that bone density which is critical
for all people at all ages
so I guess
the question is why do we stop jumping
we think it's for athletes we think it's for kids and
it's not again culturally we think this
amazing human body this vessel is fragile
we think it's vulnerable it's just lack of input
it needs the right inputs and the fear
of not being able to do something
just means a lot of people just stop
and we know the stats on how people's bone
densities and functionality is going
these inputs are missing
especially like something like jumping
should be simple and it can be simple
but the longer you leave it the less
um input you give your body that your brain
starts to lose
its ability to do so but you can retrain it and the steps to do it and that's what my course
does so
we need to give the human body more credit
alright it is extremely extremely
strong extremely capable but you know
so many people are
guided to just rest or stop doing that
you don't do that ever again it's not good for you
time and a place yes but
more than likely we need to rebuild patterns
we need to rebuild abilities we need to rebuild
confidence um
because jumping's fun alright
if you're wanna play do hopscotch with your grandkids
you need to be able to hop OK if you want to
jump and run around and be involved in any sports
you need to be able to jump a little bit have that reaction
time and be able to decelerate through the floor so
you deserve to be able to jump
because it leads to so many other things
and it creates a nice safety barrier as well for your
reaction time if any of the slips and trips
actually happen
so I think we need to
stop acting like the body is fragile
respect it absolutely
but just know that your musculoskeletal system
wants to jump there's so much goodness in it
and it wants to land as well
and there are steps that you can take
to train it and teach it and build it
safely and consistently
alright and that's obviously done through my course
um if you haven't already I've got
live webinars happening every Tuesdays and Fridays so
that gives us 60 minute in depth about the whole
all the standards and all the tools
that you need to know so if you haven't
jumped on yet head to enough dot health slash webinar
pick whether you wanna do a Tuesday or Friday
and we'll catch up there and do a big
one hour webinar which is awesome
having lots of fun doing that and educating a little bit further a bit more in depth
and also the quiz
uh if you haven't taken the quiz to see what movement
capacity is lacking for you at the moment takes 90
seconds head to enough.healthslashquiz and there's
some video questions
in there and just select one of the five options
it's a nice little way for you to start to understand
what's going on with your body and what might need some work
before it's too late okay
so that's the landing standard for today
super important
to keep you powerful to keep your bones strong
to improve your reaction time
if any slips and trips come
a very important standard but now you know
what it's all about and I
wish for you to develop it and keep it in your world
forever cause it's so important
thanks for listening to Episode 11 and for now
that's enough said