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Height Clearance.
The height clearance consists of two variables; grip on the pole and the “pushâ€Â

Without the push I see the 19 8 jump, with the left arm push i see @ 18 ft and an ugly jump. I have never read a credible method that stressed pushing with the left arm. And have never seen results in my own vaulting from a left arm push

This from a separate topic are my feelings on subject

The bottom arm is very important its realy help you get ur bend in the pole if its strait its alot easier to bend

I think we are misled by elite vaulters strong left arms and long take offs. The strong left arm is a consequence of running fast and having a high plant angle.

That left arm is not forced to say out any longer than required for the speed of their run. Notice people running slower but still vaulting effectively Isbanyeva Dragila Fefanova etc all have shorter left arm extensions, they swing very quickly from their top hand. Which i believe is proportional to their run up. If any of those athletes attempted to stick out their left arm they would "block" and sit on the vault.

A quick test you can do is take a soft pole from 3 steps, if you stick your left arm out purposely, then swing you will go high but have an ugly vault. If you make no attempt to hold your left arm out and swing from the top hand you should get @ 1 foot more hip height with a very good looking jump.

"A quick test you can do is take a soft pole from 3 steps, if you stick your left arm out purposely, then swing you will go high but have an ugly vault. If you make no attempt to hold your left arm out and swing from the top hand you should get @ 1 foot more hip height with a very good looking jump."

Yes, i learned that the hard way...some coaches teach big left arm but i think that the left arm is not the action to be preformed, but is in fact the product of the action, being the run and the plant...

Why not look at the video of a guy who has jumped 6.40 - according to Japanese sports scientists! They analysed Bubka's 6.01 clearance in his final World Championship win in Athens and concluded he would have cleared 6.40m if the bar had been set at that height. They believed that two earlier jumps would have cleared 6.34 and 6.32.

Now look at his left arm at take off and during the whip. One of the keys to jumping 6.40metres is clearly shown there.

I'm not sure about 'pushing' - but it does look like he is putting pressure downwards on the pole the whole time with his left arm(if that makes sense).
Agapit, could you please be more descriptive in what you mean by 'pushing' with the left arm? Some have taken this as you meaning something along the lines of locking out your bottom arm at take off - but I dont think that is what you were talking about...
Altius, could you please tell us exactly what 'key to jumping 6.4m' we're seeing there?
And while I know what I see and what I think, I personally believe these posts have caused a bit of confusion amoung some of those who have read them. Some clarification would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Also - here is the clip (via Stabhochsprung ) of Bubkas 6.01m clearance that has become oh so famous (and for good reason)

To me it seems as though the longer (stronger) the left arm is, the easier it is to get upside down and the more push they have at the top of the pole (according to the video's)

Do you guys think Sergei's 6.11m vault could be 21ft ? It looks like he has enough clearnace. well, on hip hieght. what do you think?

In reply to USMC vaulter I believe that this debate goes to the heart of effective vaulting. Clarifying the issues is critical if other vaulters are to jump higher than Bubka. With grip heights in the 5.10- 5.20 range (Bubkas was around 5.17 on many of his jumps) there is a lot of pole to move towards to the vertical. This can only be done if the athlete puts energy into the pole throughout the vault, not just at take off! This was suggested by Roman Botcharnikov in his notion of the "continuous chain' and by myself in a more recent article "Bubka -Unique, a one off? Or did he represent a generic technical model of pole vaulting"? There I suggested that it would be worthwhile thinking of Bubka's technique as a four stage rocket in which each stage fired in a well timed sequence.
I will concentrate on the second stage which begins immediately after he left the ground. Here he put energy into the pole with a long whipping swing of the body around the top hand. To increase the amplitude of that whipping swing Bubka drove his chest 'through' the shoulders after take off while allowing the left hand to move back over his head in a relaxed but controlled manner - think of his left arm as being made of elastic steel cable. This is evident in all his jumps!

These actions increased the displacement between his chest and the take off foot, which had just driven off the ground, while at the same time they set him up to swing around the TOP hand - just like the stiff pole vaulters of earlier times. Now with the muscles from sternum to knee pre stretched - therefore in elastic mode - he initiated the whip with a vicious kick of the take off foot - then - as the lower leg caught up with the knee the elastic contraction of the pre stretched muscles mentioned above kicked in and continued the acceleration to whip the take off foot in a long arc above his head into a postion covering the pole.

While this was happening -and to some extent BECAUSE it was happening - the pole was rapidly flexing and the lower arm simply 'chased' the pole as it bent away from the athlete. Towards the end of the swing - at a point determined by the athlete on virtually an intuitive basis - the left arm regained contact with the pole and exerted pressure on it. However this does not contribute much if anything to the pole bend but does something more important. It redirects the energy of the swing from the top hand to the bottom hand; this speeds up the rotation of the body and enables it to get into position covering the pole - and so ready for the third stage of energy input.

I trust readers will understand that it is very difficult to convey complex concepts like these without diagrams. This is why i suggest that readers find the article mentioned above. Finally may I say that I believe that the point at which a vaulter regains 'contact' with the pole in the swing is probably height specific - this needs to be investigated further.

Thats exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I've also read the article (posted on beginnertobubka.com correct?), and see exactly what you are talking about.
It definitely gives much to think about, especially since some of these things are subtle and unnoticeable to many when just simply viewing videos and pictures.
Thanks again for sharing your expertise.

P.S - I've suggeted Beginner to Bubka to all of the vaulters I jump with/help coach, and keep a copy of it around during practices (the diagrams definitely help to convey meaning as opposed to me trying to explain things with just words).

what i dont get is how pushimg with your left arm would help you push off more? if you block yourself off from getting into the pocket you wont swing any faster resulting in a less of a pushoff?

USMC Vaulter wrote:Agapit, could you please be more descriptive in what you mean by 'pushing' with the left arm? Some have taken this as you meaning something along the lines of locking out your bottom arm at take off - but I dont think that is what you were talking about...

This may seem radical to you, so you may not want to read further.

By pushing the left arm I mean applying ANY resistance* against the pole with the left arm unless the resistance** is directed to enhance natural body swing acceleration.

*I should say push on the pole to avoid scientific discussion of what the resistance means from physic’s point of view.
**Pull on the pole. It is still a resistance from physic’s perspective but in the opposite direction to pushing.

Yes, yes, what I am saying you must pull on the pole immediately after the take-off.

Most will argue that this is impossible and that no one has ever done it. Well if you study videos you will find that you are right!!! Perhaps this is why no one has really fully adopted the model yet. Again, you must think of the intentions of the vaulter not the actual performance. Perhaps that is why sport scientists have difficulty coaching (I hope, I did not offend anyone).

Pulling on the pole with the left arm immeadeately after the jump to enhance your body inversion is exactly what you should attempt to do. Imperfections will delay the pull. Flat take-off, late plant, and other imperfections will demand more of the chest penetration. On the contrary better take-off performance will require less of the chest penetration (see different Bubka’s videos) and or push with the left arm.

I must say that even during very bad take-off performances, Bubka has never pushed the pole with the left arm. His left arm at worst collapsed, letting the chest to go forward delaying the inversion and after that it would move (noted correctly by altius) chasing the increasing bend of the pole until it is biomechanicaly in a position to enhance the speed of the body inversion by pulling on the pole.

I can bet you that Bubka has never trained the left arm chasing action, because it is a compensatory reactive action and in perfect performance this would be an undesirable and non-existent action.

altius wrote:Why not look at the video of a guy who has jumped 6.40 - according to Japanese sports scientists! They analysed Bubka's 6.01 clearance in his final World Championship win in Athens and concluded he would have cleared 6.40m if the bar had been set at that height. They believed that two earlier jumps would have cleared 6.34 and 6.32.

Now look at his left arm at take off and during the whip. One of the keys to jumping 6.40metres is clearly shown there.

I think I posted this somewhere else, but I don't know what film those scientists were studying. While his 6.01 jump at Athens was very high, there is no way it would have cleared 6.40. If you do a fixed-point analysis on the bar cam angle and one of the two slow motion angles that show where over the bar (left to right) he is going, it is not hard to determine that he would have cleared about 6.20--6.25 tops, even if you allow for his elbows, which he probably would have kept clear had he been closer to the bar. Obviously, 6.25 is still very high.

As for the other two jumps, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell either one of them would have cleared 6.30+. He was closer to the bar at 5.91 (I'd give him about 6.05), and he may have had 5.95 at most when he went over 5.70.

His first two clearances in that competition weren't very good...for him. You can see the frustration in his face coming off of the mats after 5.70. He was drifting to the right in each time. But with each clearance in that competition, he improved.

It is an awesome film to study, and I look at it all the time--probably more than any other of the 180+ elite vault clips I have. However, I have no idea what made the "sports scientists" think he had those heights on those jumps, especially on the first two. That is a gross overestimation.

P.S. altius, I know you saw bubka jump in person on multiple occasions, but I have never seen him grip at 5.17 in any film or picture I have ever seen of him. In every single one, he was holding more like 8-10 cm from the top of the pole than 3. On a 5.20 pole, that would put his grip at 5.10 to 5.12m. Many of the clips and pictures I am talking about are from his prime in the early 90s.