How This Calculator Works

This calculator measures your lower-body horizontal explosive power using the Broad Jump (also known as the Standing Long Jump"Standing Long Jump" is the term used in European research and the Eurofit battery; "Broad Jump" is the North American term, popularised by the NFL Combine. The protocol is identical.) — one of the oldest and simplest field tests of explosive leg power, used in the NFL Combine, Eurofit battery, and military and police testing worldwide. You enter your jump distance along with your sex, age, and body height, and the calculator classifies your jump into a five-tier category, expresses your jump as a percentage of your body height, computes your Jump Age, and produces an approximate percentile for your age and sex.

Step 1: Enter Your Details

The calculator needs four inputs plus a unit selection:

• SexBroad jump norms are reported separately for men and women, who differ on average in muscle mass distribution, lower-limb mechanics, and hip-extensor strength — men jump further across most age bands. — selects which normative table you are compared against.
• Age — determines the jump-distance standards expected for your stage of life.
• Body heightBody height is used to compute your Relative Jump — the share of your standing height that you cover horizontally. This is the most widely cited broad-jump-specific benchmark. — your standing height in centimeters or inches, used to compute your Relative Jump.
• Jump distanceAlways measured from the take-off line to the nearest heel on landing — not to the toes and not to the back foot. This convention is shared by Eurofit, the NFL Combine, and most field-testing standards. — the horizontal distance from the take-off line to the nearest heel on landing, in centimeters or inches.
• Units — a single global toggle for the whole calculator (metric or imperial). All thresholds and results adapt to the unit you choose.

The Test Protocol

For results that match the norms, the test must be performed the standard way — with no run-up and no stutter step:

• Setup: Use a firm, non-slip surface for takeoff and, ideally, a soft landing area such as a mat or short grass. Mark a clear take-off line, with a tape measure running forward perpendicular to it.
• Starting position:If your toes cross the line before takeoff, the jump is a foul and should be repeated. Both feet must stay flat on the floor before the countermovement begins. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, toes just behind the take-off line. Both feet flat on the floor.
• The jump: Without taking any steps, dip into a quick countermovement (knees and hips bend, arms swing back) and immediately explode forward, swinging the arms up and forward as you jump. Both feet must leave the ground at the same instant.
• The landing:Falling back, taking a step, or putting a hand down on landing all invalidate the trial. The intent is to record only jumps that the athlete could have stuck cleanly. Land on both feet simultaneously, knees and hips bent to absorb the impact, and hold the landing until balance is established. If you fall backward, step, or put a hand down, the jump is not counted.
• No run-up, no stutter step:A run-up changes the test entirely (it becomes a running long jump). A stutter step in front of the line uses momentum the standing test is meant to exclude. The feet must not move before the jump, and the countermovement must flow straight into the forward push.
• Measurement: Measure from the take-off line to the nearest heel on landing, to the nearest centimeter. Record the highest of three legitimate attempts as your score.

How Your Category Is Determined

Your jump distance is compared against the minimum required for each tier at your age and sex, and you are placed in the highest tier you qualify for. To keep every assessment on this platform consistent, the same five-tier scale used across the site applies here:

• Low — below the typical range for your group. Maps to the "Below Average" band from general-population broad jump norms. The most to gain from strength and power training.
• Intermediate — around the population average. Maps to the "Average" band — typical of recreationally active adults who do not train explosively.
• Advanced — above average for your group. Maps to the "Above Average" band — reflects regular resistance training or active sport participation.
• Superior — well above average. Maps to the "Excellent" band — characteristic of competitive amateur athletes and well-trained recreational lifters.
• Elite — athlete-tier for your age and sex. Calibrated against sport-athlete benchmarks (NFL Combine, elite track sprinters) — not general-population thresholds.

Relative Jump (% of Body Height)

Alongside your tier, the calculator expresses your jump as a percentage of your standing body height. This is the most widely cited broad-jump-specific benchmark — taller people tend to jump further in absolute terms, so normalising by height makes performance comparable across body sizes:

The classic rule of thumb, repeated across coaching and field-testing references, is that you should be able to jump at least your own height horizontallyA 100% relative jump is the simplest one-line benchmark in lower-body power testing. Below it, basic athletic explosiveness is still developing; above it, you have an actionable horizontal-power base. — that is, a Relative Jump of 100% or more. The calculator uses these descriptive bands:

• Below 80% — building base, lower-body strength work will lift this quickly.
• 80–100% — approaching the bodyweight benchmark.
• 100–120% — meets the classic athletic benchmark.
• 120–140% — strong horizontal power, typical of well-trained athletes.
• 140%+ — elite range, comparable to sport-athlete benchmarks (NFL Combine sprinters typically reach 150–170%).

Relative Jump is most useful for cross-comparison — putting a 165 cm and a 195 cm person on the same scale — and for tracking changes in your own power as you train. Like all field-test metrics, it depends on technique: jump angle, arm swing timing, and landing position all affect the measured distance.

The Smooth Age Model

Broad jump performance changes continuously across life — rising through adolescence, peaking in the early twenties, then declining gradually with age. To reflect this, the calculator anchorsRepresentative values are placed at ages 12, 17, 25, 35, 45, 55, and 65 (the midpoints of the published age bands), and the tool reads off a smooth value for every age in between. the tier standards at seven representative ages — 12, 17, 25, 35, 45, 55, and 65 — then interpolates a smooth value for every age in between:

Ages below 12 are held at the youngest values, and ages beyond 65 are extrapolated by continuing the downward trend out to 75. The result is the smooth band chart and the per-five-year standards table. Values shown between the anchor ages — and all values below 12 or above 65 — are modeled estimates. The age 12 anchor itself is also modeled: it is scaled downward from the 15–19 thresholds (boys at roughly 78%, girls at roughly 85% of late-teen values), since the underlying age-banded source begins at 15.

How to Read the Standards Table

The standards table lists one row for every five years of age and one column for each of the five levels. The header labels are color-coded to match the chart bands — on a phone the headers shorten to single letters (L · I · A · S · E); tap any header to see its full name. Every value is shown in the unit you have selected (cm or in).

• Each cell is a single number — the minimum. It shows the smallest jump distance needed to enter that level at that age. If your jump reaches or exceeds it, you have reached that level.
• The Low column is the exception.Low has no real minimum — it runs from the bottom of the scale up to the Intermediate threshold. The number shown is just a representative point inside that range. Because Low spans from the bottom up to the Intermediate cutoff, the number shown there is a representative value for display only, not a threshold you need to hit.
• Your exact age appears as its own highlighted row.If your age isn't a multiple of five, an extra row is inserted at your exact age. This guarantees the threshold values shown in your row are exactly the ones the calculator used to classify you — no rounding to the nearest five-year band. Even if your age is between standard 5-year increments, an extra row is added at your exact age so the displayed thresholds always match the ones used for your classification. Your level cell is filled with that tier's color.

Jump Age

Your Jump AgeThe age at which your broad jump would be considered typical (mid-range) performance. Conceptually similar to the "fitness age" or "VO₂ age" used in cardiovascular testing. is the age at which your jump distance would be average. If your jump is greater than typical for your actual age, your Jump Age is younger; if less, it is older.

The calculator scans the smooth age model to find the age whose median jump distance matches your result, giving an intuitive single-number summary of where your horizontal explosive power sits on the aging curve.

Percentile Estimate

The percentile estimates the share of people in your age-and-sex group who jump shorter than you. Because the underlying norms are expressed as tier boundaries rather than a full population distribution, the percentile is approximated by mapping each tier threshold to its corresponding percentile and interpolating between them:

Your jump distance is placed along this scale to produce an approximate percentile. It is a reasonable guide, not a precise population statistic.

How Age and Sex Change Your Score

Both inputs change the numbers your result is measured against:

• Age changes the thresholds. The calculator recomputes the jump-distance requirement for every tier at your exact age. Because broad jump declines with age, the same jump is judged against lower requirements as you get older — so an identical jump can place you in a higher tier at 55 than it would at 25. This is why the standards table and chart drift downward from left to right.
• Sex selects a different table. Choosing male or female swaps in a separate set of normative values. Men's thresholds sit higher across most age bands, so the same jump is scored against different benchmarks depending on which table applies.

Why Broad Jump Matters

The broad jump is one of the simplest and most informative tests of lower-body horizontal explosive power — the ability to generate large forces forward in short time windows. It correlates strongly with sprint acceleration, change-of-direction ability, and athletic performance in sports that involve sprinting, cutting, or rapid first steps. It is used in the NFL Combine, the Eurofit battery, and the entry standards of police and military forces around the world — including the Royal Military College of Canada, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the Brazilian Federal and Highway Police.

Beyond sport, broad jump performance is a sensitive indicator of neuromuscular function. Age-related declines in jump distance appear earlier and progress faster than declines in raw strength, making the broad jump a useful early-warning marker for losses in muscle quality, fast-twitch fiber recruitment, and rate of force development. In older adults, lower jump power is associated with increased falls risk and reduced functional independence.

The broad jump complements the vertical jump rather than replacing it: vertical jump captures explosive force upward, broad jump captures explosive force forward. The two are correlated but not identical — sprinters and running backs often jump further horizontally than vertically, while volleyball players and high-jumpers show the reverse. Together they give a fuller picture of lower-body power.

Important context: a single jump number does not predict injury or athletic potential on its own. Treat your broad jump as one general indicator among several, most useful for tracking your own progress over time as you train, rather than as a standalone verdict on your athleticism.

Data Sources and Methodology

The norms and benchmarks used here draw on established sport-science and field-testing references:

• Marathon Handbook (2026). Average Broad Jump By Age And Sex: Standing Long Jump Charts. — the source of the age- and sex-banded tier thresholds (15–19, 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60+), themselves synthesised from general-population field-testing observations.
• Topend Sports field-testing references. — general broad jump benchmarks ("Excellent > 250 cm for adult men, > 200 cm for adult women"), the convention of jumping at least one's own height, and protocol guidance.
• NFL Combine published results. — used to calibrate the upper end of the Elite tier. The 2021 NFL College Pro Day average of 116.3 in (295 cm) and the all-time Combine record of 12 ft 3 in (374 cm, Byron Jones, 2015) define athlete-tier reference points.
• Tomkinson, G.R. et al. (2023). FitBack European normative reference values for physical fitness in children and adolescents (n ≈ 1.35 M). — informed the structure of youth-age scaling for the modeled age 12 anchor.
• ACSM's Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription (11th Edition, 2021). Wolters Kluwer — standardized power and field-testing principles and interpretation.

A note on the tier values: unlike a test with a single canonical normative table (such as the FitBack European children's dataset), broad jump norms for adults come from observational compilations rather than one definitive longitudinal study. The Low, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior thresholds in this calculator map directly to the published Below Average, Average, Above Average, and Excellent bands. The Elite tier (the fifth level) is calibrated separately at roughly 118% of the Superior threshold, anchored against NFL Combine sprinter averages so that "Elite" represents the top of the healthy general population — not the top of professional athletes. The 10–14 age band is also a modeled estimate, scaled down from the 15–19 thresholds. These choices are flagged explicitly in the source code and in this note.

Limitations and Important Caveats

This calculator provides an estimate, not a laboratory measurement. Several factors affect how precisely it reflects your true power:

• No validated peak-power formula. Unlike the vertical jump (which has the well-established Sayers equation), the standing long jump has no widely validated formula for estimating peak mechanical power from distance alone. This calculator therefore reports Relative Jump (jump ÷ height) rather than estimated watts — a more transparent and broad-jump-specific metric.
• Representative, modeled norms. The tier thresholds are representative values rather than figures from a single longitudinal population study, and per-age numbers between the anchors — plus values below 15 or above 65 — are interpolated or extrapolated.
• Approximate percentile. The percentile is mapped from tier boundaries rather than a full population distribution.
• Measurement accuracy.A long-jump mat or marked tape line on a firm surface gives more reliable readings than improvised measurement. If you change measurement methods between tests, the numbers may shift even if your actual jump hasn't. Self-measured jumps using improvised setups have noticeably more variability than a calibrated long-jump mat or marked court. Keep the method consistent between retests.
• Warm-up has a large effect. Maximal jump performance is sensitive to warm-up state. A cold test reads lower than a properly warmed-up one; static stretching immediately before testing can also slightly reduce power output. Use a brief dynamic warm-up and a few submaximal practice jumps.
• Surface and footwear matter. A slippery take-off surface or a soft, energy-absorbing one (like deep grass) reduces jump distance. Use a firm, level, non-slip surface for the takeoff, a soft mat or short grass for the landing, and consistent footwear across retests.
• Technique affects distance more than vertical jump. The optimal broad-jump take-off angle is around 22°, and timing of the arm swing has a large effect. Two athletes with the same legs but different technique can post jump distances 10–20 cm apart. Improving technique alone can lift your number considerably.
• Single-test snapshot. Time of day, recent training load, sleep, and hydration all affect a single test. For tracking progress, retest under the same conditions every few weeks.

Disclaimer:
This calculator provides an estimate based on representative normative ranges and a modeled age curve. Real broad jump performance depends on training history, body proportions, technique, warm-up state, surface, footwear, time of day, and individual variation. Always warm up thoroughly before any maximal-effort jump test, land on both feet with bent knees on a forgiving surface, and stop immediately if you experience pain in the back, knees, hips, or ankles. This tool is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered medical, fitness, or training advice. Consult a healthcare provider before performing maximal-effort tests, especially if you have a pre-existing knee, hip, ankle, back, or cardiovascular condition, are over the age of 45, or have been sedentary for an extended period.