What comes first - athleticism or technical ability?

[Lax PV]

I'm sticking to technique. Think about it! I don't care how strong you are, if your technique sucks, you're never getting on a 5.20 Pole, period!

The same could be said for exactly the opposite. i.e. as technical as you can get, not everyone can jump a 520 pole.

Also, I like the quip about Hartwig, but you have to notice the "pinnicle of his performance" was in his early 30s, namely June of 2000 when he jumped 603, when he was 32 I believe.

[KYLE ELLIS]

I don't think there is really an arguement... This is why I say that; can anyone jump elite heights without good technique and being a terrific athlete? The answer is no, they are both needed...

The reason I took the athlete is because if you recruit a kid who runs a 10.5 and long jumps 24ft, he obviously has the potential to be a worldclass vaulter... Or do you take the kid who runs a 12.5 and long jumps 17ft (me in highschool) and doesn't have the potential to jump 19ft even with perfect technique???

And Joe I didn't like the shot you took at roth, i don't know him but I know he is a good jumper and i have seen him with excellent technique (when he jumped 18ft his freshman year) Lets not to that.

If you are going to make a pointuse a better example.... Tommy Skipper jumped 18'3 after not polevaulting for several months in like his third meet of the year in highschool... That is an example of what a natural talent can do, even without practicing their technical model.

[KirkB]

There's some really good discussion going on here. Keep it rolling!

... I am confused about the question? ... If we are talking about what is most important to develop first I would say this would depend on age...

Yes, this is the primary question. How can you learn and execute proper technique without having adequate physical fitness and strength (athleticism) first? Yet when is enough enough? i.e. If you spend too much time in HS on getting strong, fast, and coordinated, you might run out of time to be a "good enough" HS vaulter to open the doors to a college career.

To give you one specific example I have in mind: Abs aren't naturally strong in HS athletes, but I think you need strong abs to vault correctly. (Only those that already HAVE strong abs will argue this point.) So if you develop a technique that works despite your weak abs, THEN develop your abs, THEN change your technique to utilize your new-found ab muscles, is that the best training route? Or should you just not start vaulting until you have sufficient core strength (including abs) to execute proper technique from the get-go?

... Are we asking what we would rather start off with as far as coaching goes, a good athlete or a good technician?

Yes, this is a secondary question. It's like the first question, but from the coach's perspective. But if you're the first PV coach the athlete ever had, of course he won't be a good technician yet. So maybe think about the feeder system, where there's a Jr. High and a Sr. High coach. If you're the Sr. High coach, how would you prefer the Jr. High coach to train these prospects? For the sake of this discussion, assume that there's no Jr. High competitions - it's all just training in prep for Sr. High meets.

If the question is what would we rather inherit a superior athlete or a good technician I would take the athlete...

This sounds almost the same as the previous question, except for the word "superior". I wouldn't quibble about the difference.

To try to restate the dilemma, it's this ...

What is the best training path to follow, to progress "best" thru the HS, college, and elite ranks? What path has a "documented history" of working best? What are some of the success stories?

Are there any failure stories? e.g. Why did Casey Carrigan excel in HS (5.30) but not in college (5.05) or beyond(5.45)? Can it be attributed to his training path?

I was purposely vague and open-ended in stating the topic. There's some good points being made so keep them coming! Just qualify what question you're answering!

Kirk

[KirkB]

And Joe I didn't like the shot you took at roth, i don't know him but I know he is a good jumper and i have seen him with excellent technique (when he jumped 18ft his freshman year) Lets not do that.

I will also defend Roth. After a phenom HS career, he was a 2-time All-American in his freshman year at UW, then got injured, so sat out last year. I expect he'll be back in top form next year!

No need to doubt him. That's not what this forum's about. Would you say the same thing if he was here on this forum with us?



Kirk

[rainbowgirl28]

because when he tries to go back and fix his problems, he's gonna loose all his will-power because it's gonna 'take too long' to fix. {cough}scott roth{cough}.

I agree with the other posters that you don't know what you are talking about. Pat is excellent at fixing takeoff problems in his vaulters. Most people who saw Scott vault in high school would not have guessed he would jump as high as he did his first year of college. He made tremendous progress in improving his takeoff. Injuries were what kept him off the scene last year.

[altius]

"a low 8'6" to 9'." We are talking about a ten year old here I take it! If so they should be playing junior soccer and baseball. not pole vaulting.

Although I see a lot of opinions on this topic - great to have opinions - I see no evidence that anyone has read the quotes I provided from Bartonietz and Bubka - dont they mean anything? -To anybody but me??

[VTechVaulter]

Ithink a lot of the issues US vaulters face can once again be attributed to having 3 different coaches in a 6-7 year span as they progress through high school and college and hopefully post collegiate.

you mention Bartonietz and his quote about how technical flaws engrained the from the start are difficult/near impossible to overcome. this is def. a valid point and one that comes about a lot in high school because these coaches get a good athlete and go, " i just need to get him jumping X high and i can score a lot of points at meets". So shortcuts are made to jump higher now rather than having the patience to make a solid technical foundation.

and im also gonna chime here in support of pat lacari and scott roth. if you look at much film of scott from his freshman year and how much improvement was made in just a few months, i think bink things will come for him if he can just get and stay healthy while he continues to learn.

[KirkB]

VTV, what has been your career history with respect to this issue?

Were you influenced to get started by your grandfather? (Irv Mondschein - NCAA Decathalon Champ 1948)

Did he initially coach you? What age did you get started? Did you start with PV technique training from day 1, or did you develop a solid base with other sports first?

What other sports? Which ones helped you the most? Did any interfere with your HS PV development?

Re my own history, I played basketball in HS, so I didn't start PV training until Sprint each year. I wanted to weight lift in the Fall, but my BB coach told me "it would put my shot off", so I didn't weight train. I weight trained quite heavily in my first 2 years of college, which coincided with a tremendous improvement in my technique. (I'm not saying cause-effect, I'm just saying they occurred simultaneously. But there were definitely technical things that I couldn't master until I had the strength to do them.)

And now fast-forwarding, what is your general training plan in prep of peaking for 2012?

Kirk

[vaultwest]

Hey Powerplant
I know, in your own mind at least, you are the leading pole vault expert on this board and of course that is the attraction for some people to post here, but be careful about putting people down that you have no idea of who they are, enough said.
I maintain my opinion and I am fine if others think that one or the other of the two points of view are correct, in my long carrier of vaulting and coaching I just happen to think that for each individual to reach their personal goals of jumping as high as they can a careful balance of those two equally important parameters is the best coarse of action, and of course throughout ones carrier and in each year's different training cycles the actual balance of the two will change, that is part of the art of coaching. Focusing on athleticism or technique to the detriment of the other I believe is counterproductive. I was just tying to state that to say one is more important than the other is to focus more on that facet and I think that is a mistake.
Vault On

[joebro391]

hey guys, I gotta go vault soon, so i don't have any time to post about the topic, but i just wanted to apoligize for the comment I made, about Scott Roth. I haven't seen him in a long while and thought he might have given up vaulting or something. I was ranting last night and didn't think about it, before i posted. I'm sorry. I hope he gets well soon so I can see more of his jumps. I guess deep down, i'm just jelous of his good looks hahaha

[powerplant42]

Hey Powerplant
I know, in your own mind at least, you are the leading pole vault expert on this board

Think what you want, I'm here for wheat, not chaff... I don't care very much about what you think of me. If by disagreeing with you fervently:

I hate to be a downer but to me this is a false question. They are both equally important. A person might just as well ask would, as a vaulter, it be worse to lose your right arm or your left arm. I mean you could argue which arm is more important but I think if you don't have both arms you are not going to be a vaulter. I think both athleticism and technical ability are equally important and emphasizing one aspect over the other is counterproductive. Balance
Vault On

So you would take a brand new vaulter and put him in the weight room just as much as out on the track!? ARE YOU SERIOUS? Think about that! They could spend 2 hours working on their plant, or 1 hour working on their plant and spend 1 hour doing squats and bench press... I think now you might see my point?

Oh and it would be MUCH worse to lose your top arm... duh. And I bet you that there have been some one armed vaulters that have jumped some pretty impressive heights!

I am 'downing' you, then I don't know what to do. I could say the same thing back to you:

but be careful about putting people down that you have no idea of who they are, enough said.

Chaff.

Here's the wheat...

"a low 8'6" to 9'." We are talking about a ten year old here I take it! If so they should be playing junior soccer and baseball. not pole vaulting.

Although I see a lot of opinions on this topic - great to have opinions - I see no evidence that anyone has read the quotes I provided from Bartonietz and Bubka - dont they mean anything? -To anybody but me??

I did reference them! It is important to note the claims made by Bartonietz. I would totally believe that technique is like language...it should be taught from a young age as to have it be developped most fully by adulthood. Which is why:

I will be drawing some graphs on this this weekend. They'll be like periodization charts, showing percent volume of technical training versus weight training. I already have some ideas, and I think they will be quite interesting!

And sadly altius, we are talking about the generic male American vaulter in his early career (high school), after a few months of training. I would believe it to be a HIGHLY accurate depiction thus far.

[VTechVaulter]

My start actually was entirely my own. I was a basketball player through even much of high school. It was my first love. I knew my grandfather, uncle, and dad were all good/great track athletes, but I just wanted to play ball. One day in 8th grade, i went with my dad to the state track meet where he was coaching a 14' guy we had. I remember watching a kid by the name of Laban Marsh jump 16'1 that day to break the state meet record and thinking it was just about the coolest thing i had ever seen. So in the fall and spring i started training for pole vaulting, but the winters were all basketball.

Eventually I decided I had to decide which I wanted to pursue if I wanted to be serious, and since at best I was a mediocre basketball player, i decided to chase pole vaulting. My junior year I began year round training. My dad was my first and primary coach in high school. Although I spent time with Jan Johnson, Mike Lawryk, and my Uncle and Grandfather, all of whom teach about the same. When I left for VT, I remember my dad saying, Coach Phillips is now your coach, so my job is to stay out of it and support you, and your job is to listen to him and work hard. Throughout my entire college career my dad actually did an amazing job of helping out coach phillips by catching mids and such for us. Im sure many times he wanted to say something but, he knew it wouldn't be fair to Coach Phillips to butt in at all.

Though we never defined it as such, when i think about it my whole career has been teaching the basic elements of the petrov model, though we knew it was called that. We also made it an aim to not be under, to have both hands high and drive the chest in, and to try and swing long to cover the pole. Now unfortunately just because I have tried to do things doesn't mean that always work. But thats the process. I feel as though I have been blessed enough to have coaches that had the same basic beliefs, and I never felt as though I had to make a completely change to some new idea. Now what has changed is how I have gone about trying to accomplish new things. Each coach has his own ways of seeing thats and had their own ideas on how to make changes. But again, I feel as though I have been lucky enough to have coaches that understand the fundamentals and never sacrificed the future for the moment.

I would especially like to credit my dad for part of this. I can remember as a freshman and sophmore, competing my meets and training off of only 5 lefts. We never over gripped or used bigger poles just to try and get higher on one particular jump. I vaulted into the sand early and often, did many drills where i never saw a pit, box, or bar. For those who know me my high school PR of 15'10 was only on 6 lefts.

I guess since ive ranted about all this. It would be a great chance for me to say thank you to my dad, and Coach Phillips (VTCoach on here) for all their help and support over the year. My desire and drive to be a high level vaulter combined with (to be honest) a bit of a hot temper at times, I'm sure meant i was not the easiest to coach. So thanks again!!!