What a Summer of Cannonballing Taught Me About Cannonballs

Kids went back to school today in Austin. College football kicks off this weekend. There’s still another month of astronomical summer, but the clock is ticking. Also, relevantly for the cannonball circuit, most public pools are cutting back on how many days they’re open each week. Lot of high school labor on those lifeguard chairs. Lot of high school labor.

We made a little cannonball season highlight reel, so if you’d like to reminisce with us, you can. As we voyage memory lane…here are some things the cannonballs taught us:

Five Feet Is Enough Water (Unless There’s a Diving Board)

When cannonballing, it’s always a good idea to be aware of the depth of the water you’re entering. In my experience as a 5’11” man, five feet is plenty of space to land safely. You will hit the bottom. But the water should slow you down enough to make that painless. This is especially true if you don’t somehow lean forward, which could mess up your ankles.

You Will Get Water in Your Ears

Especially if you’re wearing a bucket hat. Don’t like it? Try it without the bucket hat, I guess. Not really an option for me.

The First Splash Is Physical. The Second Splash Is Visual.

There are two distinct splashes within the water’s reaction to a single cannonball. Without the benefit of an aerial view (note to self: put a drone on the Christmas list), I’m not sure what causes the second, but it’s the one that shows up the biggest on camera and when viewed from a distance. If you’re looking to win a cannonball competition, focus on the second splash. (Some call this the aftersplash.)

If your goal is to get people wet, the first splash is what counts. It’s the more lateral of the two. I think it features the higher volume of water. In a small pool or next to a boat or in immediate vicinity to a group of attractive revelers in a movie, the first splash is more impactful than the second.

Given we were splashing for social media, the second splash was a bigger deal for us. What follows is advice for optimizing your second splash.

You Want to Enter the Water From Above

Yes, obviously, this is the only direction from which you can enter most pools. What I really mean is that the more direct your descent, the more vertical your second splash. It looks cool to come flying in from the side or to spin a little in the air, but an underwhelming splash will immediately cancel out those social gains. The visual splash will be biggest if you enter the pool straight downward. Leave the tricks to the experts. Get the fundamentals down first.

Height Helps

Going off of that, you get a bigger splash if you jump higher. Again, this is somewhat obvious, but it matters. This is where the running start comes back in:

You might think, based on that last piece of advice, that you should enter the pool from a standstill, to minimize lateral motion. This isn’t true. A running start really helps.

Why?

This is only a guess, but I think there are two factors at play. First, a running start helps you jump higher. High-jumpers run towards the bar for a reason. Second, the running start takes care of the lateral motion for you.

You’re going to need some lateral momentum to jump into the pool. It’s impossible to enter a pool truly heading straight downward. If you try to do that, you will have to jump straight upward, which will make you land on the pavement beside the pool, where you will scrape your feet. When you approach a cannonball with a running start, the running start ensures you’ll get far enough out over the pool to make a clean entry. Your jump, then, can be purely focused on verticality. Your jump doesn’t need a lateral element.

There Might Be a Secret to the Elbows

I’m not positive about this. This is only a theory. But I think you might be able to gain some splash by flaring your elbows out wide as your feet and shins first hit the water’s surface.

I didn’t find a lot of patterns correlating cannonball form with cannonball splash. To the extent I did, most seemed psychological. For example: Trying to stay compact made me look downward as I jumped, which I think led to a more direct downward descent.

The elbow thing was more about feeling than any concrete evidence. I didn’t find the opportunity to do a scientific test. It felt like the second splash started around the time my upper body crossed the surface of the water, and it felt like having my elbows out caused more chaos upon that entry. But I don’t know this piece for sure. It’s a major focus as we head into the cannonball offseason.