The discipline is, alongside the pole vault, one of two vertical clearance events in the Olympic athletics program.

If the event remains tied for first place (or a limited-advancement position to a subsequent meet), the jumpers have a jump-off, beginning at the next height above their highest success.

By taking off as in the scissors method, extending his spine and flattening out over the bar, Sweeney raised the world record to 1.97 m (6 ft 5+1⁄2 in) in 1895.

Straddle jumpers took off as in the Western roll but rotated their torso, belly-down, around the bar, obtaining the most efficient and highest clearance up to that time.

Valeriy Brumel of the Soviet Union took over the event for the next four years, radically speeding up his approach run.

He took the record up to 2.28 m (7 ft 5+3⁄4 in) and won the gold medal of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, before a motorcycle accident ended his career in 1965.

However, it would be a solitary innovator at Oregon State University, Dick Fosbury, who would bring the high jump into the next century.

Taking advantage of the raised, softer, artificially-cushioned landing areas that were in use by then, Fosbury added a new twist to the outmoded Eastern cut-off.

In the female side, the 16-year-old flopper Ulrike Meyfarth from West Germany won the gold medal of the 1972 Munich Olympics at 1.92 m (6 ft 3+1⁄2 in), which tied the women's world record at that time (held by the Austrian straddler Ilona Gusenbauer a year before).

Successful high jumpers following Fosbury's lead also included the rival of Dwight Stones, 1.73 metres (5 ft 8 in)-tall Franklin Jacobs of Paterson, New Jersey, who cleared 2.32 m (7 ft 7+1⁄4 in), 0.59 metres (1 ft 11 in) over his head (a feat equalled 27 years later by Stefan Holm of Sweden); Chinese record-setters Ni-chi Chin and Zhu Jianhua; Germans Gerd Wessig and Dietmar Mögenburg; Swedish Olympic medalist and former world record holder Patrik Sjöberg; female jumpers Ulrike Meyfarth of West Germany and Sara Simeoni of Italy.

In fact, from 2 June 1977 to 3 August 1978, almost 10 years after Fosbury's success, the men's and women's world records were still held by straddle jumpers Yashchenko and Ackermann respectively.

In 1980, the Polish flopper, 1976 Olympic gold medalist Jacek Wszoła, broke Yashchenko's world record at 2.35 m (7 ft 8+1⁄2 in).

The athlete starts by pushing off their takeoff foot with slow, powerful steps, then begins to accelerate.

The athlete's takeoff foot will be landing on the first step of the curve, and they will continue to accelerate, focusing their body towards the opposite back corner of the high jump mat.

While staying erect and leaning away from the mat, the athlete takes their final two steps flat-footed, rolling from the heel to the toe.

Jumpers attempting to reach record heights commonly fail when most of their energy is directed into the vertical effort and they knock the bar off the standards with the backs of their legs as they stall.

This rotation rate can be back-calculated to determine the required angle of lean away from the bar at the moment of planting, based on how long the jumper is on the takeoff foot.

One can also work in the opposite direction by assuming a certain approach radius and determining the resulting backward rotation.

The knee on the athlete's non-takeoff leg naturally turns their body, placing them in the air with their back to the bar.

They can look over their shoulder to judge when to kick both feet over their head, causing their body to clear the bar and land on the mat.