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Something i have seen for years but felt was a style variation rather than technique has popped back into my head. I am talking about a jump where the pole moves JUST to vertical, and the vaulter separates from the pole near the top as the pole usually sits upright or even falls back to the runway.... VS a jump where the jumper stays connected through the entire vault and the pole goes under the bar to land straight on the mat. To Illustrate.... this is what i mean:

Pole stays at vertical/falls back-
Danny Ecker 5.80m on 27.01.2001 http://www.stabhochsprung.com/
Derek Miles 5.85m on 12.02.2005 in UKR
Toby Stevenson 5.90m in Athens 27.08.2004


Pole moves with vaulter past vertical-

Bubka 6.10m Sydney practice jump 2000 http://www.stabhochsprung.com/
Guiseppe Gibilisco 5.85 in Athens 27.08.2004


I dont want to hear you say that because petrovites do it one way, it must be best. I want biomechanical evidence. Just look at Patrick Jesser in BTB2 case study to see that he comes away from the pole at the top as well. At first glance you would assume its obviously better to stay in line with the pole the entire time. However if the pole stops at vertical, ALL the horizontal energy put into it is being released, when if you take it with you and your hips stay in a line with the pole, even 3 feet above the pole like guiseppe's jump, some of that energy is taken from vertical and given to horizontal. We've all felt it, on jumps when we feel like we might not make pit, we sometimes get the most pop. If we leave the pole at vertical, we can still continue to put pressure on the pole but all the energy that was in the pole is transferred UP rather than in. We simply let our bodies take us in. What do you think- Stay in line, come away, or no difference?

Note that on bubka's 6.01 jump he stays in line but it's argueable whether he actually comes away from the pole as well, along with some of his other jumps too.

I would start by thinking about all the forces involved. To get a pole to fall past vertical there has to be more force on one side than the other. Im am going to try and explain this how it makes sense to me, but I really would enjoy someone else take on this too...

If we were to think about the top of the vault where the pole is not at vertical and the angle that the vaulter comes off and the pole to be the two short legs of a triangle, the hypotenuse (space between feet and plug) can change, the angle at hand and pole can hinge, producing a less solid push off, however if the vaulter stays in line their feet can continue to be part of the lever of the pole and their horizontal energy pull the pole past vertical...

Perhaps think about pushing on a door, you push on a door knob door moves, it is hinged physics tell us you both move in opposite directions, however push on side of the door where the dead bolt comes out, in line with the hinge no movement left or right will happen, but you should move backwards... This is how I see it...

I need more time to think about this, but let me get a few thoughts/questions out there to help facilitate more discussion...

1. How might this affect placement of the standards?
2. Is the key at WHAT ANGLE THE CHORD IS NO LONGER SHORTER THAN THE POLE (total recoil), or is it what angle the athlete is coming off of the pole? A combination most likely, but HOW?

I'd definitely say this is more 'advanced'! (Very 'theoretical' and what not...)

What I am saying is this-

The highest possible hip hieght in the pole vault would theoretically come if ALL horizontal energy was converted to vertical, and the vaulter did a hand stand, or extended from, the pole. And the standards would therefore be on 0, so would the hips.

HOWEVER, there are two choices to avoiding doing this, assuming you jump with exactly the same amount of energy.
1.) before the pole fully recoils, take your hips out of alignment with the pole to maintain forward motion.
2.) go down a pole and come off the top at the SLIGHTEST angle with your hips still aligned with the pole.

Now the question is, which would provide a bigger jump? In #1, taking your hips slightly out of alignment is going to speed up the recoil of the pole. But you should also be able to keep pressure on the pole just as long. This looks very similar to Tim Mack at the olympics in '04 (check out the slomo on neovault).

Upon thinking about it in terms of energy, i believe that the energy lost by the fact that the pole is JUST past vertical would be more than cancelled out by the chance to have a full pull through on the pole. However if you can pull through with just as much energy as if your hips were aligned, perhaps you would go higher.

It's funny you mention Tim... I've always noticed something a little different about his push-off... The pole always seems to 'snap' a little as he comes off of it. Thoughts?

vault3rb0y wrote: I want biomechanical evidence.

That shouldn't be all you want. You should also want to know what the best INTENT of the vaulter should be. They're not the same, because even setting the standards on 0 and going straight up and straight down with only 1" of horizontal momentum to carry you over the thin bar, the biomechanical proof of this as an OPTIMAL technique doesn't mean it's advisable. What's advisable is what's going to be optimal MOST OF THE TIME, allowing for fluctuations that will occur in terms of wind, takeoff point, how you feel, and other somewhat random factors. They're only random within a certain tolerance, and the smart vaulter will factor these into his decisions on how to clear MOST bars at MOST heights.

Let's say ... for the sake of argument ... that these random fluctuations may be plus or minus 5 cm in both the horizontal and the vertical directions. So the smart vaulter will set the standards, aim for a takeoff point, and perform a technique that will get him over MOST bars, even if at the extremes of these tolerances. A so-called optimal technique cannot be called optimal if you can only hit it once out of every ten attempts ... you only get 3 chances at each height!

In addition to this argument, I suggest that the psychological factors involved in knowing that you'll be landing well into the pit ... with 99%+ confidence that you won't stall out over the box ... is worth its weight in gold.

Neither of these arguments have biomechanical proofs ... but they'll win you more meets than a purely biomechanically "optimal" technique.

vault3rb0y wrote: HOWEVER, there are two choices to avoiding doing this, assuming you jump with exactly the same amount of energy.
1.) before the pole fully recoils, take your hips out of alignment with the pole to maintain forward motion.
2.) go down a pole and come off the top at the SLIGHTEST angle with your hips still aligned with the pole.

I don't really understand either of these arguments ... perhaps due to lack of personal experience with either of them.

It seems to me that you're proposing to FLAG OUT ... even if only slightly ... to keep some horizontal momentum of your body going. The uncoiling pole while you're flagged out is ONLY going to cause rotation ... not horiz momentum!

I look at this quite differently ... almost the complete opposite of what you're describing. Your speed on takeoff should be sufficient to land well into the pit ... assuming you picked up the right flex of pole and held it at the right grip ... and assuming "good" (not necessarily "perfect") technique. The variables left for you to play with after takeoff (assuming Petrov) are the speed of your downswing, and the timing and speed of your extension. Again, let's assume a "good" swing.

So now you can either extend FASTER or SLOWER, depending on how everything else has gone so far. If you pull too SLOWLY, you'll blow thru. So you must pull FASTER. The faster you pull (meaning fully extend with your back, then pull with your arms ... all in unison of the uncoiling pole), the more vertical (upwards) energy you'll gain at the expense of horizontal energy. This will get you over the bar ... instead of blowing thru it.

So that's the way I personally thought thru it when I vaulted. I can't speak for any other Petrovers, but I think that's the main issue ... converting horiz momentum into vertical ... not this aligment with vertical" thinking that you're talking about. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has similar or different experiences than myself, as it's not anything that I ever discussed with anyone back in the day. None of them did it "my way".

vault3rb0y wrote: Upon thinking about it in terms of energy, i believe that the energy lost by the fact that the pole is JUST past vertical would be more than cancelled out by the chance to have a full pull through on the pole. However if you can pull through with just as much energy as if your hips were aligned, perhaps you would go higher.

Again, if you change your viewpoint to something close to what I described above, you'll see that the LOSS of energy by going just past vertical shouldn't be your focus. Instead, try to think of PULLING HARDER. As soon as you start thinking in terms of pulling anything less than as hard as you can, you're not applying OPTIMAL energy into the system (i.e. not shooting UPWARDS hard enough). Just let the natural momentum that was generated on takeoff carry you horizontally over the bar ... just focus on optimizing your VERTICAL (upwards) energy!

Having said all this, I'd say that we've already focussed too much on a part of the vault that is worth less than 10% of the whole jump. I'd rather discuss why you think it is that Gibilisco is tucking his trail leg in so much ... so early. For a so-called Petrover, didn't you find that odd? What he's doing in the bottom half of his vault is the 90% that we should be discussing!

Kirk

This post was for fun and to satisfy my curiousity. i would say 95% of the posts on this board are pre-pull through. Its refreshing to discuss a part of the vault rarely talked about inteligently. I've talked about the other parts and i'm curious about this part.

I am separating what you should be "thinking" about, and what you are actually doing. Obviously a vaulter thinks about pulling as hard as possible. I'm talking about the highest hypothetical vault. Not practical. Not safe. Not reproducible. Just biomechanically how it would be done, then working from there to make it safe, practical, reproducible, and only then talking about what a vaulter should be "thinking" about doing in order to do so.

In thinking more about this topic, I started to feel like its not as much about the speed of the pole, but the speed of the vaulter. In the highest possible vault, it's not the pole that stops at vertical, it's the vaulter. So it would only occur if the vaulter landed right in the box. Obviously this is not safe. Concordantly, in order to have a shot at "working" the bar, the hips would have to peak about at least 50cm past vertical (approx). So in the highest vault that can be executed over a bar, I guess the pole speed doesn't really matter, it's the vaulter speed .

vault3rb0y wrote: ... So in the highest vault that can be executed over a bar, I guess the pole speed doesn't really matter, it's the vaulter speed .

Until the vaulter releases the pole, the speed of the pole and the speed of the vaulter are ALMOST the same. At least the speed of the top hand is IDENTICAL to the speed of the pole!

Kirk

Exactly my point.... When extending off the pole, the pole can fly back to the runway or hang there for a few seconds, or whatever. Its the movement of the vaulter once off the pole that determines how much horizontal energy there was.