Today’s podcast guest is Stefan Holm—Olympic gold medalist and one of the most elite high jumpers in history. Standing just 5’11”, he cleared over 140 bars at 2.30m or higher, won the 2004 Athens Olympics, and holds an indoor best of 2.40m (co-owning the “height jumped over head world record). Now a coach for Sweden’s national team, Holm brings deep insight into jumping training and performance at the highest level.
On today’s episode, I ask Stefan about his early life as an athlete, and formative sporting experiences, along with the tree of coaching that led to his own training methods. Stefan covers his history with high jump variations, plyometrics, strength training, technique development, and much more on today’s show. As Stefan is now a coach, he also discusses his philosophy based on his time as a world-class competitor. This is not only a great show on training ideas, but also a great opportunity to study one of the best of all time in their given sport discipline.
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Timestamps
4:29– Stefan’s Early Training: Genetics, Childhood Sports, and High Jumping
15:21– Rituals in High Jump Training and Athletic Mastery
26:06– Strength Training and High Jump Performance
40:12– High Jump Training Methods, “Holm Hurdles,” and Plyometrics
41:04– Emphasizing the Feeling of Flying in High Jump
52:36– Approach Dynamics in High Jump
1:01:17– Strength Training and Range of Motion Concepts
1:03:32– Gradual Plyometric Progression for High Jumpers
Stefan Holm Quotes
(2:50) “My dream was to be a professional soccer player.” – Stefan Holm
(3:00) “We played tennis, we played ice hockey, we tried track and field, we played football. Of course, we just played outside, trying to do everything.” – Stefan Holm
(6:50) “I think you can handle a lot, all of you, but I think you have to build it up year by year. I mean, doing these sort of plyometrics that I did at the age of 28, 30, I didn’t start there.” – Stefan Holm
(9:23) “I started jumping for fun together with my best friend in his backyard when we were like six or seven years old. And we had to do the scissor kick because we had didn’t have a mat to land on. We had to land on our feet.” – Stefan Holm
(24:45) “But then I starting lifting in the fall of 1995 when I was 19, one and a half years later, I jumped 230 for the first time. So I think that I, when I get used to it, the first six, seven months, that was rough because I, I got muscles that I couldn’t control. I got so much stronger and slower and just felt heavy and everything. But after, I mean, six, seven, eight months, but I could get control of everything then. I really think that it, it helped me to jump higher and also to get stable on higher heights. I could do them more often.” – Stefan Holm
(27:01) “If I really, really, really wanted to jump a certain height, I jumped until I cleared it. For good and for bad.” – Stefan Holm
(37:20) “Whatever everybody sees is these viral clips, me jumping over like 170 hurdles or 150 hurdles or whatever there are. But I mean I. I started off on the usual lower hurdles. That’s 107 their tops. And I was doing plenty of jumps as a kid and as a youth jumper as a junior. I didn’t buy these high hurdles until I was 24.” – Stefan Holm
(41:10) “I had a session when I was jumping over hurdles, different kind of exercises, around 200 jumps in a session. I also did some, some bounding 60 meters. 24 times 16, 24 12. Left, right, left, right, left, right. And yeah, and then six times on your left leg, six times on your right leg. That was a very, very fun morning actually.” – Stefan Holm
(57:00) “Quiz games is actually my second best sport. But besides that, I would say long jump.” – Stefan Holm
(1:01:17) “For me I think the deep squat was a very good exercise. I could handle it technically I could do it well strength wise as well. So I think it was a very, very good for, for building up a good sort of ground strength to work from in the other exercises. So I did, during my ground training part of the year, I did 6×6 deep squats. I did 6 by 6 half squats as well, 5 by 5 when it came to snatch and cleats and stuff like that.” – Stefan Holm
(1:04:21) “It’s all about reversing the speed to a vertical, vertical speed. I mean that’s all what it comes down to in the end.” – Stefan Holm
(1:07:20) “Trying out new things all the time, I’m definitely the wrong coach for you because I’m going to give you like four weightlifting exercises, I’m going to give you five plyometrics and that’s it. And then we’re going to do this over and over and over again.” – Stefan Holm
Show Notes
Dragan Tancic: West German High Jump Training
About Stefan Holm
Stefan Holm is one of the most accomplished high jumpers in history. Known for his exceptional consistency and textbook form, Holm rose to prominence in the early 2000s, dominating indoor and outdoor competitions with a career marked by over 140 clearances of 2.30 meters or higher.
Despite standing at just 1.81 meters (5’11”), Holm consistently outjumped taller competitors through elite reactive ability and technical execution. He won the 2004 Athens Olympics, gold medal with a jump of 2.36 meters. Holm also captured four World Indoor Championship titles (2001, 2003, 2004, and 2008), and his indoor personal best of 2.40 meters remains one of the best in history. He is the co-owner of the “height jumped over head” record of 59cm alongside Franklin Jacobs.
After retiring from competition in 2008, Holm transitioned into coaching and athletics leadership. He has served as a high jump coach for the Swedish national team, mentoring athletes such as Sofie Skoog, who reached the Olympic final in 2016. In addition to coaching, Holm has been involved in sports commentary and athletics administration in Sweden, and has also appeared on Sweden’s “Celebrity Jeopardy”.
Holm’s career stands as a testament to the power of consistency, technical mastery, and mental discipline in elite sport.
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