The Bryde Bend (Jump to the Split)

[KirkB]

Volteur, I could probably break your post down and discuss it line by line, but I'm short of time today. Perhaps another day. In the meantime, the short answer (IMHO) is that:

1. The hands and feet are always connected to the floor - in the full "system", so I don't really get your need to separate them.

2. The hands are used only for hanging onto the pole or the bar, so I don't really get how they have more utility than that.

3. The tap or whip or snap are somewhat identical on both the bar and pole.

4. There is no push on the bar because [almost] all of the work is done in the downswing, culminating in the tap. After that, you're somewhat "coasting" to a handstand. I believe that this is the most efficient way to get inverted - on the bar or on the pole.

This last point is perhaps the crux of my Jump to the Split technique. The split sets up the ability to tap (or whip or snap) on the DOWNSWING instead of the UPSWING. By the time you get to the upswing, if you haven't "whipped" you get in danger of getting behind the recoil of the pole. As you mentioned in the "Dropping the Lead Knee" thread, you need to stay ahead of the pole - to give you more time to explode off the pole straight upwards.

I hope this provides more food for thought, but I realize that we're still nowhere near agreement on this part of the vault.

Kirk

[KirkB]

I guess PP has been out in his back yard, building his high bar so that he can try out the hinge/whip drill. I thought I'd wait 3-4 days for him to report back to us, but it's been over a week. He must be down at the hardware store now, picking up a few supplies.

I had quoted Petrov awhile ago about Isi "crushing" her pole ...

In Bruce Florman's translation of the interview from In Sport-Express (ISINBAEVA: A RECORD WITH AN INTERMEDIATE FINISH) that he entitled "Post-Monaco interview with Petrov" here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=6922&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=petrov&start=180

Interviewer (Yuri Yuris): On her second attempt at 5.04, Isinbaeva bent her pole so much that it seemed from the side insufficiently stiff…

Petrov: This was a technical error: crushing the pole too much. In this case it doesn’t add to the height, but on the contrary, it drops the vaulter.

So here's a clarification that I feel is necessary re Petrov's comment about this ...

I don't think there's any difference in the elasticity qualities of a pole as it bends more. I think a pole will only break for 2 possible reasons: (1) If it has a flaw (a damaged area, or a manufacturing flaw) which gets ripped apart while stressed during the bend to the point of breaking, and (2) if the pole is bent so extremely that it exceeds its elasticity limit.

I also don't think a pole "fatigues" at all. I think the adhesives used to bond the fibers together also have elasticity properities, and the elasticity of the adhesives far exceed the elasticity of the fiber itself. I don't know too much about the manufacture of poles, so if I'm wrong about this, I would appreciate a clarification from someone with better knowledge.

So if my assumptions about the physical properties of fiberglass poles are correct, when Petrov says Isi's "crushing" the pole, that's a nice colorful word to use - and I'll use it too - but I don't think he's referring to any physical deficiency that she was imposing on the pole. Instead, I believe that he was simply referring to the fact that when you over-bend, everything goes into slo-mo to the point that the entire motion - albeit still a "continuous chain" becomes more passive than active.

So that's another term I want to clarify. Active and passive are not white/black terms. There are shades of grey. A PAUSE during your vault (like when you drive your chest forwards - TO THE EXTREME - after takeoff) is definitely passive, and a vigorous action (like a vigorous takeoff or vigorous whip) are definitely active. But what if it's a slight pause? Or a slo-mo action (like a slow swing that could have and should have been quicker)? These are signs of passive actions, and are sub-optimal.

As you might already suspect, I'm leading up to admitting my recent realization that my pole-bend was too extreme.

Yeh, I admit it, I was crushing the pole!!!

Kirk

[volteur]

nice Kirk - and why did you crush it? Just going back to the previous post to look into our disagreements I am in italics

1. The hands are used only for hanging onto the pole or the bar, so I don't really get how they have more utility than that.

Are you not working with your shoulders/shoulder girdle/arms/hands in some way other than just hanging?

3. The tap or whip or snap are somewhat identical on both the bar and pole.

Yes but it's within the somewhat that is important. What are the differences? For me you can definitely overemphasise the amount of power put into the swing on the bar moreso than on the pole. On the bar it will simply cause you to swing under and then back - preventing the ability to continue to pull and handstand. On the pole though this swing through will quickly stop the vaulters momentum dead (if he doesn't let go of the pole).

4. There is no push on the bar because [almost] all of the work is done in the downswing, culminating in the tap. After that, you're somewhat "coasting" to a handstand. I believe that this is the most efficient way to get inverted - on the bar or on the pole.

I definitely agree with the downswing. Are you saying that all the energy from your leg/foot swing is delivered downward - ie vertically or is some directed forward as well? Also did you mean that with a correct downswing the pull to handstand is coasting (ie passive). I'm thinking the pull is active.


This last point is perhaps the crux of my Jump to the Split technique. The split sets up the ability to tap (or whip or snap) on the DOWNSWING instead of the UPSWING. By the time you get to the upswing, if you haven't "whipped" you get in danger of getting behind the recoil of the pole. As you mentioned in the "Dropping the Lead Knee" thread, you need to stay ahead of the pole - to give you more time to explode off the pole straight upwards.

This is really good. In a timing sense this would be preparing to tap on time or ahead of time, whereas i think you are correctly stating that most vaulters ara inverting too late so the energy from the tap/swing is not optimally delivered.

I hope this provides more food for thought, but I realize that we're still nowhere near agreement on this part of the vault.

no but we are pretty close i feel. You have broadened my thinking through all of this. I didn't expect to find a feel vaulter who can also express it rationally. But then i checked your profile and saw analyst and inventer and thought ahha

Kirk[/quote]

[powerplant42]

I recently tried the hinge/whip drill... with one of my athletes. What I have access to is, at the least, pretty, uh, limited... So I don't really 'fit' on it, but she did. So, what I saw: A strong down swing and an almost perpendicular 'whip'.

[KirkB]

Just when I think I've explained it thoroughly, you ask more questions. Not that I'm complaining - I'm happy to answer your followup questions, and it shows that you're thinking deep about this stuff, so I guess we're getting somewhere.

One at a time, then ...

... why did you crush it?

The short answer is that I purposely bent the pole to the extreme, to get the most I possibly could out of my extension. I wanted to be inverted as soon and as low as possible. The longer answer will come soon, when I compare my long run to my short run and note the differences.

1. The hands are used only for hanging onto the pole or the bar, so I don't really get how they have more utility than that.

Are you not working with your shoulders/shoulder girdle/arms/hands in some way other than just hanging?

Well, you said "hands", so I took you literally. If you mean your entire upper body, then yes. Going from the "C" to the "I" (i.e. hinging and then whipping) is not just a lower body motion. The motion is initiated by the trail leg foot, but really, you're whipping all the way from hand-to-toe. As Launder explains it in BTB2, your body is streteched like an elastic from hand-to-toe, and the whipping action ripples thru your whole body. (I guess "ripples thru your whole body" are my words - not his.)

But even if we're square on that point now, I still don't see much of a difference between this action on the bar or on the pole.

3. The tap or whip or snap are somewhat identical on both the bar and pole.

Yes but it's within the somewhat that is important. What are the differences? For me you can definitely overemphasise the amount of power put into the swing on the bar more so than on the pole. On the bar it will simply cause you to swing under and then back - preventing the ability to continue to pull and handstand. On the pole though this swing through will quickly stop the vaulters momentum dead (if he doesn't let go of the pole).

Hmmm ... I don't get your statement as an entire, single thought, so I'll have to break it down ...

... you can definitely overemphasise the amount of power put into the swing on the bar more so than on the pole.

I assume you're comparing my whip drill on the highbar to the comparable action on the pole. Yes, it's exagerated on the bar - purposely. But the purpose of this exagerated drill is to get the feel for lifting your trail leg back and up TO THE EXTREME. If you don't FEEL THE POWER of doing this on the highbar, then you won't feel then need to do it on the pole. Am I a broken record on this point, or what!!!

There is one other difference worth mentioning ...

On the bar, the bar and its uprights are static - fastened to the floor. On the pole, the pole is "fastened" to the box, but it's not "static". When the pole hits the box, you have all of your momentum built up from your run and jump that you're putting into the pole. To compare apples to apples, the two motions would be more identical if you took a running leap onto the bar, THEN did the whip drill. I don't suggest you do that - I'm just pointing out the difference. By over-emphasizing the lift of the trail leg on the upswing, you can simulate the momentum generated when the pole hits the box. But that's not the primary reason. The primary reason is to get your muscles - and your muscle memory - tuned to make this upswing/downswing/whip strong and a quick, intuitive action.

On the bar it will simply cause you to swing under and then back - preventing the ability to continue to pull and handstand. On the pole though this swing through will quickly stop the vaulters momentum dead ...

It sounds like you're expecting the action on the high bar upswing to somehow equate to the action on the pole after you pass the chord?

This isn't the intent of the highbar whip drill. It's only the upswing/downswing/whip part that's important.

I used to call this drill by various names (even on this thread), but I think I'll settle on "the whip drill" to keep it short. This goes along with my tagline, where "swing/hinge/whip" is shortened to just "whip".

Back in the day, I think I might have called it the "hinge/rockback" drill. The hinge was the swinging from the hip fulcrum. The rockback was simply the result of the whip/snap. I wasn't practicing getting into a rockback, I was simply finishing off the drill in the only motion possible on a fixed bar. I couldn't shoot THROUGH the bar, or I'd hit it. (Ouch!) I was simply "coasting" to the rockback under the bar, much in the same way that a gymnast doing giants "coasts" to a handstand on the bar. In either case, there's no reason to simulate the action on the pole after the whip to the action on the highbar after the tap. They're 2 completely different actions. I can see where you might have thought that the rockback part of the whip drill was an integral part of the drill, but it's not (although it does get young vaulters used to hanging upside down).

On the pole though this swing through will quickly stop the vaulters momentum dead ...

I'm stumped here. What do you mean? The intent of the vaulter is to swing thru in a "continuous chain" - and this will happen after a good whip - so I'm not sure what you think may cause his momentum to stop. Please explain.

4. There is no push on the bar because [almost] all of the work is done in the downswing, culminating in the tap. After that, you're somewhat "coasting" to a handstand. I believe that this is the most efficient way to get inverted - on the bar or on the pole.

I definitely agree with the downswing. Are you saying that all the energy from your leg/foot swing is delivered downward - ie vertically or is some directed forward as well?

Well, I might have already covered these points in the paragraphs above. But it's complicated, due to so many things happening on the pole at once. You know them, but for any younger readers, I'll repeat a bit here: (1) Your pole hits the box, creating a fulcrum there, which the pole "rolls to vertical" around. (2) When the pole hits the box, your top hand "hits" the pole, causing another fulcrum at the grip point of the pole, which your body rotates around (this is the "normal" swing - if you did nothing to change this rotation). (3) This grip point also defines your INITIAL pole length, around which the pole is rolling to vertical. But as the pole bends, this pole length is effectively lowered, which allows the pole to roll to vertical easier. (4) To delay this swing, you drive your chest forward, and your trail leg back/up. (5) Your momentum from your run and takeoff carry thru, causing your entire body (and pole) to carry forwards, towards the pit, but a bit upwards (depending on the angle and intensity of your jump). (6) You hinge your trail leg, creating another fulcrum about your hips. (7) With all these forces going in all these different directions (but in harmony), these motions are all culminated roughly when your body passes the chord of the pole.

I would say that passing the chord is a key "milestone" in the vault. It's not very visible, but it's there. It marks the end of the downswing, and the start of the upswing. On the bar, the downswing ends almost exactly under the bar. On the pole, it's harder to pinpoint, but it's roughly when your CoG passes between your top hand and the box. I would say that in the Bryde Bend, it's earlier than in the pure Petrov model. That's because I moved everything back a bit. My "C" had more of a backwards tilt, and my whip came thru earlier, thus I whipped earlier (before passing the chord). But due to the forwards momentum from your runup and takeoff, the entire motion has a bit of a forwards tilt compared to the highbar. To compare to vaulters that are under, and load the pole before takeoff, you can visualize that their entire motion would be quite an extreme forwards tilt.

Also did you mean that with a correct downswing the pull to handstand is coasting (ie passive). I'm thinking the pull is active.

The pull is definitely active. But if you're already inverted (i.e. you're ahead of the recoil of the pole), then you don't need to continue swinging on an "upswing" - you're already upside-down! Instead, you can put all your energy into the next part of the vault - the extension. I'll break this down a bit: (1) whip to the inverted position, (2) start extending your lead leg - to catch up to your trail leg, (3) start straightening your hips and your back - to the "I" position, (4) when you're in the "I" - then and only then - start pulling with your shoulders, (5) when your shoulders have done all they can - then and only then - start pulling with your arms (bending your elbows), (6) when your arms can bend no more - then and only then - push off to a handstand, (7) release the pole and fly-away.

These 7 steps are all done in harmony, just as you would lift free weights from the ground to your shoulders - like in the first half of a clean-and-jerk. By applying more and more weight to your clean, you can't help but get the various muscle-groups working together - almost exactly as per steps 1-5 above. As I've said many times before, this was the best part of my vault - no one did this better. I had a very, very strong back, and I used it very, very effectively. I forget what I cleaned-and-jerked, but it was exceptionally good, compared to my fellow UW vaulters (including Jeff Taylor).

I have very good personal experience with parts 1-5. I never did perfect part 6 (long story). So no, Volteur, as you can see from these 7 steps, I definitely did not mean to imply that the "pull to handstand" was coasting. All I meant was that it wasn't part of the highbar whip drill.

This is the part of my vault where I think I have some very good pics that explain what I'm doing. Go back to my first few posts on this thread, and take another look at my pics. Although they're still photos (vids would have been far better), you should be able to follow what I'm saying in the paragraphs above, with what my body is doing in those pics.

This last point is perhaps the crux of my Jump to the Split technique. The split sets up the ability to tap (or whip or snap) on the DOWNSWING instead of the UPSWING. By the time you get to the upswing, if you haven't "whipped" you get in danger of getting behind the recoil of the pole. As you mentioned in the "Dropping the Lead Knee" thread, you need to stay ahead of the pole - to give you more time to explode off the pole straight upwards.

This is really good. In a timing sense this would be preparing to tap on time or ahead of time, whereas i think you are correctly stating that most vaulters are inverting too late so the energy from the tap/swing is not optimally delivered.

You got it!!!

... I realize that we're still nowhere near agreement on this part of the vault.

no but we are pretty close i feel. You have broadened my thinking through all of this. I didn't expect to find a feel vaulter who can also express it rationally. But then i checked your profile and saw analyst and inventer and thought ahha

I come by this quite naturally. I was an amateur inventor as a kid, long before I became a polevaulter. I trained with a younger vaulter in high school (Rick Weins) that had better speed and natural talent than me. He learned by copying me. When I left for UW, I corresponded with him, explaining what I learned and discovered, and giving him advice. I remember my high school coach (Gerry Swan) commenting on how many pages and pages of detailed technical information that I sent to Rick each week. That was long before the internet, so they were hand-written letters. Some were up to a dozen pages. It would be interesting to see now what I told Rick back then. I certainly didn't use the same vocabulary, but the content was consistent with my writing today. Maybe this is another reason why I remember this stuff so vividly.

BTW, I'm proud to say that Rick soaked up most of what I taught him, and he broke my high-school record!

Kirk

[KirkB]

In my post a few days ago re Petrov saying that Isi “crushed her pole” on one of her jumps during the Olympic Finals, I admitted that I too “crushed the pole” during my career – not just once, but ALL THE TIME during 1971-72.

That was the first in a series of admissions (realizations actually) of “flaws” in my technique, 37 years after I first "practiced" the Bryde Bend.

Yes, I realize now that I bent the pole TOO much. I bent it to the EXTREME. It bent so much that I had problems in the pole hitting the side of the box, and the side of the pit.

Being usually the only left-hander in a competition, my first step in preparing for my next vault was to shift the pit as much to the right as I could. This would be tough to do with the big pits you guys have nowadays, but they were much smaller back in 1971-72. Airbags (pits filled with pressurized air) were the worst. They were big but bulky, bulging near the box. If I didn't shift them over, I was in danger of hitting them with my extreme pole-bend. The foam pits also didn't have the slant around the box that they have now, so the top corner on the right side of the box was usually where my bend would hit the pit, throwing me to the left.

And as I already mentioned in a previous post, if I didn't aim (and hit) the left side of the box on my plant, then my pole would strike the top-right edge of the box. I wore a rut into my pole about 8" up from the butt plug due to this - even tho I taped it there.

Furthermore, I think my black Catapole 550+ and brown Skypoles bent symmetrically, whereas today the poles apparently bend asymmetrically - more at the top. That might have helped mitigate some of these problems, but to my knowledge, there was no such thing as a "sail" on a fiberglass pole in the early 1970s.

When they broke, they broke into 3 somewhat equal length pieces, so I wonder now if maybe the middle one-third was re-enforced with a “sail”, leaving weak points on either side of the sail where it always broke?

Today, when poles break, do they break into 3 equal parts?

I'm describing physical problems with the pole, but the root cause of these physical problems was due to my EXTREME bend. So I'm not blaming it on my poles, I'm just telling it like it was. With modern poles, I would still be "over-bending" (or “crushing”, as Petrov would say).

I did not break a single “competition pole” by my extreme bend - crushing the pole. It wasn’t THAT extreme.

I broke lots of poles in high school and in my first 2 years at UW. But once I first learned the Bryde Bend technique early in my junior year (1971), I only broke one pole after that, and that one was due to an accident earlier in the day. That story is a bit of a digression, but I’ll tell it anyways ... in my next post.

I will get to my short run vault comparison in due course, but I also have one more definition to clarify – now that we’ve clarified “crushing the pole’.

Kirk

[KirkB]

Here’s how I broke a pole during the prime of my career – on April 17, 1971 to be exact …

We were in the LA Olympic Coliseum for a dual meet against USC, and there were swirling winds. We got there early, so we were lazing around on the pit, doing a bit of stretching, socializing, and mental prep for the meet that was going to start in about an hour or two. They hadn't yet set up the standards beside the pit. The groundskeeper had just brought them in on a hurdles trailer, dropped them off, and they were standing upright, next to the pit, but not yet bolted down.

Well, a gust of wind caught a standard, and while I was face-down on the pit stretching, a peg on the standard struck me in the head. Long story short, I went to the hospital, got stitched up, and then got back to the meet when the bar was at 14'6” (4.42m). I hadn't jumped that low all year, but I wasn't feeling all that sharp (I wonder why!) so I pulled out a warm-up pole and took a jump. Despite my head injury, my legs were fine, and I was simply running too fast for the pole I was on. I admit that my thinking wasn't so great that day either, so my choice of poles was shall we say "sub-optimal".

I got a nice takeoff, broke the pole, and got a big gash on my right hand when the pole broke. It wasn't quite so bad as to require another trip back to the hospital, so we taped it up the best we could, got on a bit heavier of a pole, and ended up placing 2nd! I remember the biggest problem being gripping the pole, due to the blood leaking out from the bad tape job!

Why bother jumping after the stitches in the head and the gash on my hand? Well, I could say that “we needed the points”, but to be honest, if you feel like it’s your mission in life to vault, why NOT keep vaulting until you miss 3 times in a row?

The standard falling on my head could have been far, far worse. It was a “near-miss”, which could have resulted in death if the peg had struck my head just a little differently. I actually didn’t even count this incident in the “5 serious accidents” that I had in my career, since I didn’t lose any training or competition days recovering from it. But there is a serious lesson to be learned here – especially for groundskeepers and officials: Loose standards are dangerous!

But that’s not the only lesson learned. My personal lesson was “Don’t leave it up to the officials to check the pit and standards – it’s YOUR life that’s at stake!!!”

I might have been a bit reckless in my career, but I now take these “lessons learned” seriously. For example, at the Alki Beach Vault this year, I was just a spectator, but I noticed a spare cross-bar that was lying in the sand, near the right side of the pit. The elite male vaulters were sometimes landing towards that side. So I pointed out the danger to the kid putting up that side of the bar, and asked him to please put the spare cross-bar at least 5 feet away from the pit. I explained that if anyone missed the pit, it would still be a tough landing into the sand, but not nearly as tough as if someone did a face-plant (or fell on their back) onto the cross-bar!

OK, sorry for the digression.

In my next post, I intend to define the term "scalable", which will be needed when I finally get to comparing my long run vault to my short run vault - which I've said were EXTREMELY different.

I am leading up to what I consider some good advice to modern vaulters, so please don't think I'm wasting your time. I'll get to the “lessons learned” re my technique eventually. Just bear with me.

In the meantime, feel free to comment.

Kirk

[powerplant42]

We're all anxious for WHEAT!

Good stuff. I enjoy it, and I do learn. Keep it up, you're certainly not wasting any of MY time...

[KirkB]

Another digression – I hope you like it. This one’s on Highbar Drills.

In the Dave Roberts Video thread on the Historical Forum, 3 highbar drills were mentioned:

1. Giants
2. Standing Shoot-to-a-Handstand Drill
3. Hinge/Whip Drill

Here’s the post, in part …

One was the "Standing Shoot to a Handstand" drill. I never did perfect it, but the idea was that you stand under the bar, jump up, grab it, and invert to a handstand - all in one smooth motion. Usually, I would just clear the bar with my chest, and land back on the mat.

The other was what I now call my "Hinge/Whip Drill" - I forget what I called it back then. It looked like the downswing part of this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn5LIiHmPlY

Notice the straight trail leg!

There’s also the Hip-Circle Shoot-to-a-Handstand Drill, which I forgot to mention. To me, it’s the one that simulates the EXTENSION part of the vault the closest.

Then there’s this recent dialogue between myself and Volteur (a few posts above, in this thread) …

4. There is no push on the bar because [almost] all of the work is done in the downswing, culminating in the tap. After that, you're somewhat "coasting" to a handstand. I believe that this is the most efficient way to get inverted - on the bar or on the pole.

I definitely agree with the downswing. ...

Thinking about those concepts and drills, a couple things have nagged at me over the past few days.

One is that I looked at Amy doing her rings drill, with a tremendous backswing / downswing / whip, and also a good upswing (with a slight extension) to finish each rep off. I didn’t really like the upswing part of her drill, but I couldn’t put my finger on why I didn’t like it. It actually looked quite a bit like the Bubka highbar drills that are posted here: http://www.polevaultpower.com/media/video/skillsanddrills/

So what’s the problem?

Well … I think it’s the distinction between a TECHNIQUE drill and a STRENGTH / COORDINATION drill.

The backswing / downswing / whip part of Amy’s drill is great – it simulates the downswing / whip part of my Bryde Bend almost exactly – albeit a little (a lot!) exaggerated in how high she backswings her trail leg before each downswing.

But her upswing, on the other hand, doesn’t simulate a real “swing to inversion” on the pole very well at all. There’s nothing wrong with her doing that part of the drill as a STRENGTH / COORDINATION drill – it’s just not a TECHNIQUE drill.

But she’s just doing the Bubka drill on the rings instead of the highbar, right? True, but remember that the Bubka drill isn’t intended as a TECHNIQUE drill either! As you can see in the subtitle on the Skills and Drills page, they’re “High Bar STRENGTH” drills! I’ve also seen vid of Bubka “slink” up his pole in this fashion on some of his poorer jumps (if you can call a mere 6.00m poor!), but IMHO, it’s not good TECHNIQUE. (His body’s not kept straight enough while he’s inverting – a la Agapit’s 6.40 model.) It’s simply a means of recovering from a poor takeoff – such as if he was “under”.

I hope this explanation makes sense to you. I had to dig rather deep for that.

The other thing that bothered me was regarding my “Standing Shoot to a Handstand” highbar drill. What’s the point of it? How did I do it? And why?

Frankly, I couldn’t put my finger on that in the past few days either, but I think I have it now …

For starters, you must realize that this is a VERY ADVANCED drill. I doubt that many high-schoolers could do it. Not many elite vaulters could do it either. Eh, Dave?

The idea for this drill started simply enough. From standing under the bar, I wanted to jump up, grab it, and [somehow] end up in a handstand above the bar. Simple enough concept, eh? If I could teach my body to do that on a highbar, then surely I could transfer this technique to the vault, right?

Well, it turned out that I was good for just one (and maybe two on a good day) attempts at it, where I could catch myself above the bar, ready to press it to a handstand. If I wanted to, I could then finish the press to a handstand, but that’s simply a balancing/muscling act – no direct application to the vault – I didn’t need bigger biceps. Each rep took considerable energy, and I usually did highbar after I was already quite exhausted by my running workout. (Gym work was usually kind of a warmdown for us.)

So instead of doing that, I focused more on the bottom half of that drill, where I simply tried to “clear the bar” without hitting it with my chest. I found that I could usually do about a dozen reps per day (< 2 secs rest between reps), before I was fatigued. That became my routine then, using this drill more for a test to see how many reps I could do in a row.

I realize that I still haven’t explained exactly how I was able to raise my legs and hips above the bar, starting from a standing position. I never took any vids of me doing this, but if I did, I imagine that we’d see a “front lever” in one of the frames. The rest was sheer guts and determination - there was no specific technique that I can describe.

The real point of this drill (the way I did it) was that it was a SPEED / STRENGTH / ENDURANCE drill. If you didn’t IMMEDIATELY start your upswing as soon as you caught the bar, then you’d miss. And you had to be in really, really good shape (core strength) to execute this drill cleanly.

I laugh now, but it actually even affected my diet. My strength-to-weight ratio (a very important ratio for a gymnast and for a vaulter) needed to be optimal for this drill to work right, so I watched my weight in order to do this drill better! What I’m saying is that the drill was a good incentive (and a good measuring stick) to see how fit I was – as each season progressed.

But HOW did I do this drill? I can’t really explain it. My body just got my legs and hips above the bar, without my brain consciously controlling my lower body. This gave me enough momentum to shoot my legs, hips, and then chest over the bar.

Clear as mud, right? Probably, but I hope this makes SOME sense to SOME of you.

OK, so where am I going with this? Well, here’s what I’ve figured out today (and I certainly didn’t have this figured out back in the day) …

1. The backswing / downswing / hinge part of Amy’s ring drill – which is like my Whip Drill on the highbar – simulates the lifting of the trail leg, then swinging it down – culminating in a whipping action on the pole. It’s a very good TECHNIQUE drill for this.

2. The Hip-Circle-Shoot-to-a-Handstand is a very good TECHNIQUE drill for simulating the feeling you get on the pole when you’re inverted, as the pole recoils. You pull up on the pole just like you pull up on the Hip-Circle-Shoot-to-a-Handstand drill (and also just like the clean part of a clean-and-jerk) - especially in the extension of the shoulders and back to the “I” position.

3. There’s the part of the vault between these 2 actions (after the Whip but before the Extend) that’s very hard to pin down to a particular gymnastic movement – on any apparatus. This is the MAGIC part of the vault. I say MAGIC only because it’s so hard to explain. You do follow the Laws of Physics during this vault part, but there’s some mystique about it, thus MAGIC is a good word to describe it. And it may be the part of the vault where every elite vaulter does it slightly differently. Your hips are below your torso when you Whip, but then suddenly your hips are inverted – above your torso! How?

My conclusion (suspicion?) is that your brain knows that it needs to steer the legs and hips straight upwards. Some vaulters do this by rowing. Some by tucking or cowboying. Some by coasting after the Whip (that would be too passive, Volteur). Some by “slinking” or “slithering” up the pole (Lukyanenko on his good vaults; Bubka on his bad vaults). Some by “shooting-to-a-handstand” (me).

That’s the MAGIC of it. Your body knows it needs to get your hips above your CoG, so it just goes into “automatic” and does it!

How did I do this part of the vault? Well, my Whip was so fast that I just MAGICALLY got into the inverted position VERY EARLY! I just “shot-to-a-handstand” (actually, more of a “shoot-to-an-invert” – the handstand came AFTER the full extension). The entire Extend action is the "shoot-to-a-handstand" - done in harmony. And don’t forget that my Whip gave me most of the momentum to get there, without too much “steering” or “shooting” required at all.

On a good jump, the shooting was usually just a slight steering adjustment, but on a bad jump, the shooting became quite important – and more than just a slight adjustment.

I think my intent (whether it was intuitive or cognizant) was not much different than the intent of modern-day elite vaulters. Shooting (or steering) during the swing-to-invert phase is essential to prepare for the uncoiling of the pole.

I guess telling you all this doesn’t really give you much in the way of training tips. Coaching a vaulter to just “let the MAGIC happen” isn’t very constructive. So here’s my attempt at rationalizing all of this …

You need to get your body into the best shape that you possibly can, so that when you Whip to an Invert, your body will instinctively know what to do, and will automatically shoot the hips and legs above the CoG in perfect balance - and in perfect timing - with the recoil of the pole.

It’s hard work to train and condition your body to react in intuitive ways when you’re in the heat-of-the-moment on the pole, but it’s worth it. And once your body learns an action like this, it never forgets – it’s like learning to ride a bike! So even if you’re laid off for a few weeks due to injury, there’s nothing to re-learn – it’s automatic!

It’s like having a built-in gyroscope in your inner ear that automagically points your legs straight up. I recall that in high school, it took me a long time to become comfortable getting upside-down on the pole. It’s not natural. But after training hard for several years on rope, rings, and highbar, I became totally comfortable in the inverted position on the pole. I guess what you’re doing when you do inverted gymnastics drills is to literally TRAIN YOUR INNER EAR (your vestibular system) to become accustomed to this.

In summary, if you do the “Standing Shoot-to-a-Handstand” drill on the highbar, your brain and body will condition its motor actions to do this intuitively. So after all this hard training, things just “fall into place” – THAT’S the MAGIC!

NOW is this beginning to make sense? I hope so! Actually, I'm just now beginning to make sense of this part of my vault (and training) myself. Better late than never?

PowerPlant (not to be confused with CopyPlant) - the WHEAT is coming!

Kirk

[Barto]

Kirk, I'm curious to hear your anaylsis of the Duplantis videos as compared to what you were trying to do in the early 70's. Could you give us some break down?

[KirkB]

Well, I'd heard about Greg Duplantis. It's amazing that he cleared 19' yet is only 5'6". I'd heard he was really fast, but I hadn't seen his vid until you posted it. To state the obvious, WOW, IS HE FAST!!!

I didn't really want to critique it, as what he does worked very well for him, and he's absolutely amazing.

But since you asked, yeh, I'll post something on that thread sometime soon. The shortest guy I ever saw vault in my day was Kjell Isaakson at 5'7". Back then, we never realized that lack of height was a disadvantage, because Kjell was ranked #1 in 1971 and #2 in 1972, and was setting WRs left and right - indoors and out.

According to "Who's Who in Pole Vaulting III", Greg's prime was 1988-89, when he was ranked #11 and #15 with 5.79 and 5.72. Y'all understand that by then, being a shorty in a big guy's game wasn't as easy as in the early '70s.

But he wasn't too shabby even way back in 1981, when he first cleared 18'0" (5.48) - 5th best Jr. in the world that year!

Strangely, WWPV3 has him at 1.70m. That's 5'7", but he's actually 5'6" - I posted that on your Duplantis thread just now, so go there. http://polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=16077

I also saw the vid of his son Mondo set a WR for his age group. What a chip off the old block!!! Look for him to continue to vault > his age for many more years to come!!!

[volteur]

Just when I think I've explained it thoroughly, you ask more questions. Not that I'm complaining - I'm happy to answer your followup questions, and it shows that you're thinking deep about this stuff, so I guess we're getting somewhere.

Hi. not much time lately, new job and all (new country as well)! just one thought for now

on the highbar, in order to get a continuous motion (chain) as the foot is 'tapping' the shoulders also need to be going through the action of the back uprise.

this means that from side on, firstly the forward C shape is created prior to the tap/back uprise (ie when the body is mostly in front of the bar) and THEN a reverse C is created where the majority of the body is behind the high bar, led by the shoulder action. From this position there is now enough potential energy to invert and pull to hand stand. Here things connect to Agapit and his manifesto i believe. For enough energy to be created to pull to handstand, the pulling action begins with the back uprise action which begins exactly at the same time as the tap. So for this version of the swing to handstand required the pulling action to be simultaneous with the tap. I was taught by my coach to do this simultaneous upper/lower body action.

There was a guy in Melbourne who jumped 5:15 i think and his name was Andrew Stewart (no relation to Mark) who competed at a Commonwealth Games before my time. He was an ex-elite gymnast i believe. Anyway he trained in our gym a few times back when i was say 19-20 (so maybe he competed in Auckland in 1990)

He could hang from the high bar and in one single action end up in a handstand on top of the bar. From hanging still - to activating into forward C then reverse C then into handstand - marvellous to watch and a key image for me as i was taught to vault. Of course i never achieved it but i could get high enough to then muscle/push into a handstand - for a 5.10 vaulter this is probably quite good. (actually i had to have a slight jump off the ground to get into this push handstand - but then our high bars were adjustable so we could put it in a position where the bar was at eye level)