Is Jumping Flat-Footed Good or Bad?

[golfdane]

I would certainly recommend padding. To ANY jumper!

I've looked at a lot of footage and video, and almost every jumper strikes the ground with a flat foot on the take-off foot at take-off (most are slightly pronating (striking with the outside first, falling inwards)). You can (and should) strike the ground with a clawing action, but the strike happens slightly in front of your CoM, and will almost inevitably put weight on the heel (only a select few with really short calf muscles and tight achilles tendons will not feel the heel strike, but it's probably there anyway).
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Bubka (and Mack) does seem to have almost no weight on the heel (he strikes with the ball of the foot first, but he has ground contact with the heel), but still used padded heels.

It would be really cool to have an impact pattern from a world class jumper, to see where the forces are the highest.

[ramenvaulter]

I responded to a topic on the Equipment forum - "The best spike for beginning pole vaulters...", but I now realize that my reply to Barto was off-topic for that thread, so I'm re-posting it here - in the Intermediate Technique forum (since I don't think it's Beginner Technique, nor is it Advanced Technique).

This issue arose from this inquiry of mine ...

I notice that TJ spikes are popular with pole vaulters. Is this for training or for competitive vaulting? The reason I ask is that in a competitive vault, your heels shouldn't touch the runway, so why the need for a padded heel? Wouldn't the existence of a padded heel make it more tempting for a vaulter to use bad technique by taking off flat-footed?

Kirk

Barto replied by saying ...

Your heel always contacts the ground when you takeoff.

Really?

Mine never did.

And according to Petrov, you should roll on the ball of your foot on takeoff. The ball of your foot is just behind your toes - nowhere near your heel. Thus, you should not be flat-footed.

I can understand that you do take off flat-footed if you're under, but if you do a free takeoff, you're not going to jump as strongly flat-footed - there's considerable leakage (loss of energy) if you takeoff flat-footed.

Kirk

I do the same thing to!
The way i thought of it was at the end of your run your supposed to be sprinting so naturally I thought you would take off on the ball of your foot.

I'm starting to have doubts after reading these comments though

[txpolevaulter_k25]

I have always heard the last three step should go toe, heel, toe (the heel being the penult.). I guess that is why you should have padding on the heel.

[golfdane]

I do the same thing to!
The way i thought of it was at the end of your run your supposed to be sprinting so naturally I thought you would take off on the ball of your foot.

I'm starting to have doubts after reading these comments though

Nobody is questioning the take-off (that you take-off on the ball of the foot). It's how much force that is applied to the heel when the take-off foot touches the ground (the initial impact) at take-off.
Triplejump shoes has more heel padding than long jump shoes, since it needs to protect the heel in the other phases of the jump (step and jump). It's been advocated, that the take-off of the polevault is almost similar to that of the longjump (hybrid between TJ and LJ, ), but with less lift from arm action. I think the ideal shoe for polevaulting is a longjump shoe.