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this weekend my school hosted an invitational. my coach allowed me to compete in it and some of the guys from another school did an interesting warm up drill. these vaulters would do a back flip on a low hand hold on the pole. when i say beck flip i mean they would go inverted then continue to flip their feet over their head and come completely around and land on their knees on the mat. they said it helped them with getting inverted and getting over the fear of being inverted. so i was just wondering what yall thought of this. i can see where they are coming from with getting inverted but it might also be dangerous and i do not want to try it without seeing if its a legitimate way to improve your technique or just a "cool trick".

A bad drill - do not do it! It encourages the athlete to shorten up in order to increase their rotational speed = at a time after take off when they should be keeping their body fully extended. Just showing off -but probably because they know nothing about effective technique. It will not help them invert better- in fact in the long run it will have the opposite effect.

yeah it didn't look like good form when they did it but the guy jump 13' and almost 13'6" so i didn't know.

thanks for the insight

If they do that drill very much, like altius said, they probably don't finish their take-off well... It's a short cut.

It's a "cool trick"

Some kids pick it up naturally, and I don't think it, in and of itself, will ruin a vaulter, but it's not that useful for teaching pole vaulting technique. It's not something I would encourage kids to do regularly, maybe a fun treat every now and then for those who are so inclined to show off.

Remember that this is a straight-poling trick. And yes ... it's just a trick.

I did it myself, just about every practice and every meet. Only a couple times per day, just for warmup. I used it to warmup and "psych myself up", and yes, I was definitely showing off when I first did it. But it's not difficult to do at all ... once you get the hang of it. So even after it wasn't very challenging to do, I still did it ... to finish off my "takeoff" warmups.

The way I did it ... and remember that the warmup goal was simply to get your muscles warmer with some quasi-vault movements ... especially the takeoff ... was to jump off the ground in a way that simulated your REAL takeoff ... [EDIT] and then to stretch into a quasi-C ... which isn't that great because the pole isn't bent ... so not much time for that ... and then to swing your trail leg ... kinda like in a real vault ... but not as good ... [/EDIT] kinda ... but then instead of hanging on with your top hand, you release it and continue to hang on with only your bottom hand. Simultaneously, you switch quickly from a stretched takeoff position (well before the C) to the back-flip by quickly tucking in BOTH legs.

Today, I might have done jagodins instead of this drill. I didn't know what jagodins were back then ... and I don't like them today, but to each his own. Since I never tried them, I should not criticize them. So I won't ... much.

But instead of a jagodin, the drill that I just described helped me warm up, and FOR SURE the tucking of both legs is NOT good technique to ingrain into your brain ... but I didn't do many of them [EDIT] ... and come to think of it ... I did finish my straight-leg downswing before I tucked ... kinda [/EDIT]. If you compare how many Whip Drill reps I did on the highbar, I probably did 100 Whip Drill reps for every "back-flip" rep. Something like that. Not enough to worry about confusing my body on whether to swing straight-legged or to tuck.

I'm not saying the drill was the greatest ... I already admitted it was partly just showing off ... but I also don't think it was harmful to my technique in any way.

Just for the fun of it, I think every vaulter should learn how to do this. [EDIT] There's also SOME technique benefits, but admittedly quite advanced ... not for beginners or even intermediates. Remember that it's still just a warmup drill, so you don't actually LEARN anything by doing it. But if you're already advanced, and you want to warm your muscles up with a coordinated motion that you'll be using in your ADVANCED real vaults, then you're excercising some of the right mucsles by doing this drill. Just be sure to use the drill in the proper context. [/EDIT]

Oh ... one more thing ... you don't just let go of the pole as you flip into the pit. Instead, you release your bottom hand grip for a split second (else you'd break your wrist) ... and then you grab the pole back again, landing in the pit standing ... with the pole to your side. If you didn't do this, it might hit you, or you might land on it. This way, you know where it is at all times. Besides, it's quicker to just clear the pit for the next vaulter, with the pole already in your hand!

Kirk

powerplant42 wrote: If they do that drill very much, like altius said, they probably don't finish their take-off well... It's a short cut.

Don't knock it til you've tried it!

Does my explanation above change your thoughts on this any, PP?

Kirk

Not really. A tucked back flip is not what is necessary. Piked or Layout is better.

Rick Baggett

Filmed back flip during warm-up

http://avedam.xs4all.nl/polsstokspringen/leiden_20060610/Rens%20Blom%20-%20Salto%20achterover.mpg

"yeah it didn't look like good form when they did it but the guy jump 13' and almost 13'6" so i didn't know."

Big time indeed -until you realise that Lizzie Parnov jumped 13'2 as a 13 year old - and yes she is a girl. And she certainly does not do back flips.

Don't knock it til you've tried it!

Does my explanation above change your thoughts on this any, PP?

I don't have to try it. All I have to do is watch others... I'm sure you finished your take-off well KB, but most people (that I see) DON'T when they use this drill or something similar. And this can be dangerous if you think about it! Especially in the SAND! (Which you once suggested to me!)

There are a few chapters in BTB2 on this sort of thing... Check out "Risk Management", "Dangerous Myths", and "Training for Young Vaulters".

baggettpv wrote:Not really. A tucked back flip is not what is necessary. Piked or Layout is better.

I had actually forgotten about how I first started doing this drill, until you mentioned "Layout".

In the vid above, Rens Blom (according to the URL) has a fairly good takeoff angle, then a fairly good downswing, with his trail leg fairly long. Not perfect ... but not too shabby.

In my rendition of the drill, I actually started out by doing the classic Layout warmup drill, whereby I would swing to an inverted "I" position on the pole, and then just hang on until I fell into the pit on my back. This started out as just a basic straight-pole warmup drill, using a stutter-step approach of about 5 steps or so.

What evolved over time was that I started putting more and more of my Bryde Bend technique of "Jumping to the Split", then downswinging vigorously with a completely straight trail leg.

I recall now that what "pysched me up" by doing this was that I was actually feeling the POWER of my downswing. Once I passed the pole, I would tuck both legs in a bit (unlike what I did on a bending pole), and then kinda hang upside down in the "I" until my momentum carried me into the pit. When I was in this "I" position, my bottom arm elbow was on the opposite side of the pole to me.

But what I found was that the better I got at doing this drill, the faster my swing became, and the more of an abrupt collision the armpit of my lower arm had with the pole. With the elbow on the outside of the pole, there was no way to continue my rotation, so I was stopped abruptly.

This wasn't that great, as I (a) didn't see any benefit in hitting the pole with my armpit; and (b) didn't see any benefit in hanging upside down for a prolonged time on the pole ... other than getting used to being upside down, which was no longer a problem for me at that point in my career.

Really, the valuable part of the drill was over by the time I WHIPPED past the pole. The rest of the drill was just a question of how to finish it off and land in the pit. There was no expectation that what I did after the Whip ... by tucking a bit ... was part of my technique training.

So my solution to the dilemma of hitting the pole with my armpit was to simply keep my elbow on the INSIDE of the pole ... and let go with the top hand ... so that my body could continue to rotate about the bottom hand ... without my armpit hitting the pole. This is how I developed this drill.

When I mentioned in my previous post that I tucked immediately after finishing the takeoff, I was mistaken. I had simply forgotten, since it was 37 years ago.

And NO ... this drill is not anything like a jogodin ... come to think of it. On a jagodin, you purposely block your bottom arm out, to PREVENT yourself from finishing the vault. On the back-flip drill, you purposely put your elbow on the inside of the pole (and let go with the top hand), to ALLOW your body to continue its rotation.

The more I recall about how I did this drill, the more I remember how much I liked it. I retract some of my comments about "just showing off". It did turn some heads, but it really did have a practical purpose!

I editted my previous post in 3 different places earlier today (visually delimitted by [EDIT] and [/EDIT] to reflect my improved memory about this drill.

Kirk