Pole Vault Manifesto

[altius]

"In this view the pole somewhat catches the vaulter at the apex of his takeoff and then bends in order to flick him or her skyward."

I really would appreciate it if you could explain what you mean by this sentence - use small words please.

[volteur]

"In this view the pole somewhat catches the vaulter at the apex of his takeoff and then bends in order to flick him or her skyward."

I guess i could have been scientifically more precise about it but in general terms this is what the free-vault to me would entail.

If we stay free from the full resistance of the pole we would 'almost' bounce during the inversion as that would be when we would otherwise start to come down.

Similarly if you wanted to run up and jump off a box for maximum distance you wouldn't slow down to push off the box, you would speed up and bounce off it. The bounce would be very shallow and fast though and you wouldn't actually want to head downwards at all as that would take away from continuously gaining momentum. You would intercept the downwards just before it occurred and bounce then instead so the momentum continues to build. If you wanted to takeoff the box and send your feet vertically you have less time to apply this additional energy (from the runup) than if you wanted to jump the furthest distance forward.

I don't know how better to describe it.

[dj]

Inevitably both of you seem to be agreeing at about a 98 % level. I follow agapit’s “mental pictureâ€

[volteur]

We do seem to be mostly similar dj and i have been learning a lot so far. Interesting about the standard length of time of things, the vault, long jump and i'm sure all events are the same. In the distance running community i came across a statistic that we all take roughly 180 steps per minute when running, at any speed and for just about anyone. Pretty standardised! The timing is the timing and we lose a lot of energy when we mess with that i believe.

ps are you advocating a tuck over a pike as you kip?

[dj]

hey

that's for distnace running...

a sprinter is 4.5 to 5 steps per second.. 45 to 47 steps for under 10.00..


in the 100m for men the 4th step is at 16 feet from the start line, the 7th step must be 30cm or a foot over 10 meters for men and 30cm or a foot "before" 10 meters for the womens world record. same number of steps...

stride length and stride frequency.... that's why my chart for grip to "MID" is correct for everyone.......

thanks for your responses...

dj

[vault3rb0y]

I don't know if everyone shares your view. The way vaulterboy for one views pole vault seems similar to mine. His experience on the bungy showed that gravity is acting as we swing from takeoff extension into rockback. It occurs precisely as our leg passes the vertical under our hip. At that moment gravity begins to act on the body and if the timing is correct the swing occurs exactly at that moment. Instead of falling into a gravity hole as you think i am suggesting we instead use the gravity to invert so that the downward force of gravity is transferred vertically instead. In this view the pole somewhat catches the vaulter at the apex of his takeoff and then bends in order to flick him or her skyward.

I think you misunderstood what i was trying to say. Gravity is a constant force, and is not greater or less on our mass no matter what we do with it. Take a look at what you said in bold. Gravity is acting all the time, it does not begin to act at any point during the vault, it is always there. The bungee analogy was meant to show how a long swing action creates centripital acceleration, which adds energy to the bungee more than just gravity. BUT the point is not to pull DOWN on anything. Thats a great way to bust poles, it is only meant to show that energy can be added by swinging. Think of this- you are a bungee jumper and you step off a bridge. Gravity's pull on you puts energy into the bungee, a lot like you see the vaulter putting enerrgy into the pole, correct? Well how high does the bungee jumper come up when the bungee recoils? No higher than the hieght he jumped from, because gravity cannot act more or less at any one time. The same thing will happen in the vault, you can use the "pull of gravity" to bend the pole more, but you are just going to have to fight that same gravity on the top of the pole, and no additional energy is really added.

[volteur]

Yes i agree gravity is a constant force however its action on us is not constant, we can allow it to act to a lesser or greater extent on our body. As you say in your bungee example that when you arch into extension you rise and when you come out of that position, as if you were swinging, you lower. I assumed your arm position was constant.

What i liked was the fact that just by altering your body position you effectively allowed more weight to effect your mass. Somehow the very position of extension raised you and the opposite position of flexion lowered you. Somehow gravity acted on you moreso in flexion than not.

I guess when you do the same thing on a horizontal bar the bar does flex a bit, however, to achieve the easiest handstand or biggest flyaway that downward pressure should be minimised so that correct timing is maintained.

cheers

Volteur

[vault3rb0y]

The reason the bungee bent was because of angular momentum, not changing gravity or how it effects your mass. Otherwise there would be no reason to swing once your trail leg passes under your body, and we would be more encouraged to swing DOWN to load the pole than to jump up into the vault.

Also, that sinking you are talking about, is something vaulters should strive to reduce. I know you said you cited the petrov model in your work, but the petrov model is essentially based off of stiff pole principles. You want to keep your COM and hips moving throughout the entire vault, ideally to add the velocity of your take off with the rotational velocity of your swing.

[altius]

“Run and bend the pole into a high bar.. then…. kip and shoot into a handstand.â€

[PVstudent]

Volteur if you can run at the speed of light then Einstein's theory of Relativity may have something that will help you vault.

I am a student of the pole vault event and a coach of some quite well performed pole vaulters at state, national and international standards.

Despite the years of experience, study and testing in the arena of competition I have a lot to learn about pole vault. I do not consider that my forum Nom de Plume does anything other than tell the reader that is what I consider myself to be.

Congratulations to vault3rboy for the valiant attempt, in the nicest possible way, to correct your understanding of gravitational force and at the same time try to undue your misinterpretations of his position.

Words and ideas have been the root cause of wars! Volteur before wasting my time going to war with you I hold up the white flag of surrender. I find most of what you attempt to say to be nonsense.

I wish you well in your quest to tilt at windmills!

I am content to stay in the Newtonian world and continue to do the best I can to have a clear and rational understanding of pole vaulting and coach upon that basis.

The pole vault event will continue to be a "magical mystery tour" for those who persist in miscontruing basic laws of physics and adopting a private language within which to hold public discourse and debate.

[volteur]

hi

Einstein came along and proved that Newton's laws were only approximately correct. He proposed new laws that were adopted by the entire scientific community. This was in 1905 when he published two papers on the Special theory of Relativity. It didn't mean he rejected Newton's laws they just became modified. This modification was relativity. I've been wondering what relativity is for a while? I'll have an attempt and hope it isn't completely nonsensical.

Pole vault theory already contains the idea that things are relative. I just don't think it is something that is actively considered very much. The very action of carrying the pole means there is relativity between the pole and the vaulter. In other words there is a relationship between the pole and the vaulter. The 'vaulter-pole system' phrase used by vaulterboy indicates this idea.

What this means to me is that the pole and the vaulter counterbalance each other. We stand in a different position with the pole in our hands than without. Similarly as we run. The difference may be slight because the relative weight between our body and the pole means the pole moves more than we move as the counterbalance is occurring.

The most simple version of this counterbalance is when we walk. Our right arm and left leg move forward together and not our right arm and right leg. Earth controls the path of the moon through gravitational pull yet the moon apply its own pull on the earth evidenced through tides. Both are affecting each other and are two halves of a whole - the whole being the earth-moon system just as there is a vaulter-pole system.

Volteur

ps this sentence of yours is really ironic -

"Words and ideas have been the root cause of wars! Volteur before wasting my time going to war with you I hold up the white flag of surrender. I find most of what you attempt to say to be nonsense."

How do you surrender in one sentence and then throw out a challenge in the next? You didn't really surrender did you!

[altius]

Hi
Volteur - You have done a pretty good job of chewing agapit, pvstudent and myself up - at least in your own mind - so I believe that it would be a worthwhile exercise for you to put up your own manifesto on this site, Then we would know exactly what you believe to be true about the event at this point in time. Tim and Roman have both done that and I believe that BTB2 could be regarded as my manifesto.

It would also be helpful to know the extent of your coaching experience so that we can judge the value of what you have to say. After all it is easy to produce words - not so easy to help others produce performances. I accept that my own achievements have been limited to coaching juniors but I will interested to see how long it takes you as a coach to match the performances of the young athletes listed in BTB2 - there I go again -sorry about that - just kidding, not sorry at all.

However I would expect that you should get to guru status quite quickly - certainly much more quickly than I ever would have done, although you may find that coaching is not quite as easy as you seem to imagine it to to be. As I point out in BTB2 coaching is not so much about knowing as it is about doing. Whatever my limitations -and my wife tells me they are many and varied -i have been doing the business of coaching for fifty years now and I do not appreciate being insulted by someone whose name I do not even know and whose achievements as a coach I know even less about.

If you are British I suggest that you devote your time to doing something about the lamentable state of vaulting in that country - in relation to its potential - instead of wasting your time in a futile attempt to demonstrate how clever you are on pvp. Have I patronised you enough now or would you like more??

PS.Before you respond I think you should start preparing YOUR manifesto.

PPS. I dont give a stuff whether you get BTB2 or not.