Raise the Grip or Bigger pole?

[nitro]

I have always been a person that has brought my standards up and went to a bigger pole. Now a lot of great coaches are telling me instead of going to the bigger pole maybe i should just raise my grip, and that seems to be what most college coaches do. I was wondering, besides the obvious reason of if you hold higher you can jump higher, why?

[GiVaulter09]

Well in the new Neo Vault Scott Slovers dad does an experiment with that and he concludes that moving your grip up will give you less of a push off. So it is better to just move up poles...

[Lax PV]

Well in the new Neo Vault Scott Slovers dad does an experiment with that and he concludes that moving your grip up will give you less of a push off. So it is better to just move up poles...

That scene from Neo Vault has a lot of sound information in it. I think for a solid answer however, we need to know more--what lengths are the poles, what are the flexes, where your standards are deep, where are they when are shallow.. etc. However, as a blanket statement, I would say bigger pole, NOT grip.

[bel142]

I disagree with the above... to a point, bumping up grip for the sake of gripping up, is going to be dangerous and although getting on bigger poles is a good thing, at some point if you are consistently needing heaver poles and not getting the top end results desired it is time to bump up grip. Getting on longer poles, and allowing more fiberglass between you and the box, increasing the cord of the pole will slow you down at take off, increasing the distance the body has to travel, give you more time to rotate and invert and initiate a more powerful pull through.

Hope that different perspective helps.

[VTechVaulter]

Well in the new Neo Vault Scott Slovers dad does an experiment with that and he concludes that moving your grip up will give you less of a push off. So it is better to just move up poles...

sorry but that segment is actually WRONG for most intents and purposes. if your not bending the pole, and blowing through, and you go up poles, nothing good will happen. heres what you need to look at

1. amount of bend
2. landing spot

heres the rules

if you have a lot of bend, and land deep - go up poles, no grip
if you have a little bend, and land deep - raise grip
if you have a lot of bend and land shallow - lower your grip
if you have a little bend and land shallow - go down poles

if you have a normal bend but land deep - go up poles, and 1 or 2 inches of grip
if you have a normal bend but land shallow - go down poles and 1 or 2 inches of grip

the goal is to land in the middle of the coaches box with a appropriate amount of bend

[cdmilton]

heres the rules

if you have a lot of bend, and land deep - go up poles, no grip
if you have a little bend, and land deep - raise grip
if you have a lot of bend and land shallow - lower your grip
if you have a little bend and land shallow - go down poles

if you have a normal bend but land deep - go up poles, and 1 or 2 inches of grip
if you have a normal bend but land shallow - go down poles and 1 or 2 inches of grip

the goal is to land in the middle of the coaches box with a appropriate amount of bend

Brian, you are right on!

Here is another reference the founder of our local club put together.

[Boomer]

Those rules are absolutely correct, and for all intensive safety purposes I hope you follow them !

[KirkB]

I think that VTechVaulter's advice is excellent. Heed his advice.

However, that's not what I did myself. I tried to keep things very simple. In my Bryde Bend thread, I'll explain this as one of my mistakes.

I tell you this now so that you don't repeat my mistakes ...

In keeping things simple, I didn't raise or lower my grip for almost 2 years. I kept the same 15'4" grip, and just went up or down a pole according to the wind conditions, temperature, and how strong and fast I felt on any given vaulting day.

The advantages of this process were:

1. It was very simple - very few variables.
2. My technique was very repeatable - especially in 1972 - resulting in consistently clearing bars. I had 16 meets in a row where I was consistently over 5.00m without an NH.
3. Even if I changed poles, I could do exactly as per my previous vault, without having to make multiple adjustments in the next vault.
4. By not raising my grip, I didn't sacrifice technique. I focused on technique only for almost 2 years. (I know - I was a slow learner!)

The disadvantages of this process were:

1. I never gained the advantage of a higher grip.
2. I didn't do well in extremely poor conditions, because I wasn't used to lowering my grip. In 1971, it was somewhat of an "all-or-nothing" attitude, so I NH'ed a few times.
3. I sometimes didn't have enough poles. I normally only traveled with 3. Today, that's like a pro golfer carrying only a putter, wedge, and driver!
4. If I was on my heaviest pole and was blowing thru (crushing the pole), landing so far into the pit that I was hitting the bar on the way up, even with standards all the way back, I would (by intent) shoot more backwards than straight upwards on my next vault. This was sub-optimal technique, as that's when I'd get too big of a bend. But it was my only choice, until I added a bigger pole to my bag on my next trip. (I chose not to lower my grip in this situation.)
5. No matter how heavy a pole I went to (it seemed), I would (in a matter of a month or so) "master it" to the point where it was too light for me. Meanwhile, I only raised my PR by 6 centimeters in 1972. In other words, I was getting on heavier and heavier poles, but I wasn't getting a corresponding increase in my PR.
6. Twice in 1971 (two weeks in a row), my technique progressed so quickly that I couldn't increase pole weight fast enough. I NH'd on these occassions.

Having said all this, my main goal was to land well into the pit, so that I'd didn't have to worry about stalling out. I always kept my standards all the way back. This worked very well for me. I always had the confidence that I would land safely. On the odd occasion, I was over-confident in this regard! It was probably due to my occasional wipe-out that I erred on the side of caution in 1972. However, I think some people would laugh at me today if they heard me say that I was a cautious vaulter. But they would be thinking of 1971 and the early part of 1972 - not the May-July timeframe when I hit 5.00+ 16 times. Honestly, my goals for 1972 were to become more consistent and to stay healthy for the Olympics.

This is just food for thought. A lot of non-elite vaulters don't carry many poles in their bag either, so can't really move up/down poles as much as they'd like. They have more financial restrictions on their pole ownership than elite vaulters. Top elite vaulters actually don't pay for their poles at all (unless this has changed drastically since the 1970s), since the manufacturers are happy to provide them for free.

Kirk