Isi technique compared to chelsea,lacy,stacy

[powerplant42]

realitycheck:
WHO ARE YOU?

[KirkB]

I don't think we have the power or the right to insist on anyone exposing their true identity on a public forum.

I fully understand why an elite vaulter might not like to expose himself, and I also fully understand why a coach might not want to.

I can even understand why a beginner might not want to expose himself - for fear of asking dumb questions. Ask away anonymously! There's no such thing as a dumb question! We're all here to share and learn from each other!

For providing advice to elites (and to be taken seriously in doing so), there's a higher bar to clear. You must have credibility - earned only by exposing your Q & E (Qualifications and Experience).

It's just that - as others have said - for your anonymity you pay the price of people losing respect for your opinions.

It's each person's choice whether they want to remain anonymous or not, isn't it? Just my opinion.

Kirk

[VaultNinja]

I agree. If you want to stay anonymous that's your choice. But if your going to critique US elites your going to get beat up on a bit, regardless of who you are.
The idea of having one model that the country bases all its technique off will never work in the US, and I highly doubt it does overall in other countries. I've been around alot of athletes from all over the world, and most guys from the same country don't look the same or extremely similar from one to the next. You can point out similarities sure, but you can do that for just about anyone. People never want to point out the differences, or the deviations from the standard pole vault "model" (whatever that may be) that are effective. That's the stuff that I like to look at. You can't fail to recognize the fact that every vaulter is different, and what works for one, might not work for the next, and so on. Whatever happened to creativity in coaching, adaptation, adjustment. Fuel an athletes strengths. You can't coach everyone the same way, you can't have one model. I just won't buy into it. And i've been kicked around this forum many times for saying so.

And the list of examples of greatness with different methods is a long one.
My favorite being Rian Boitha jumping 5.90m gripping 5.20m and taking off at 12'. The guy was barely 6 foot, so who's perfect model does that lie under? No ones? Maybe his? There's more than one way to be great.

Toby Stevenson coined it best in 2004 "I'm just learning how to vault like me."

-Paul Litchfield

[vtcoach]

in all the other countrys i have studied there is one centralized technique.(germany poland russia)of course there is variation of the centralized technique but allways the same basic model for the country at every level.this makes countrys much smaller with much less participants competitive with our us.

And from the diversity of the U.S. system has come the Fosbury Flop, the shot put spin technique, the hitch-kick long jump, and fiberglass pole vaulting (and in swimming the crawl). All revolutionary techniques that pushed out the world records in their respective events.

[heather3]

I think that people should be able to respectfully state their opinions on this forum freely, even if they wish to remain anonymous. People are constantly critiquing the techniques of elite vaulters because we are all striving to achieve higher heights. These vaulters all have their own way of jumping, and there is not one right way to pole vault. However, through constructive criticism our eyes can be opened up to different vaulting techniques that could help anyone jump higher (even elites). I don't think realitycheck was purposely bashing any US vaulters. He specifically pointed out areas for improvement as compared to the world record holder, and he should not be punished for doing so. Perhaps we need to open our eyes and stop thinking so much about nationalism and more about the actual event and learning to improve ourselves. I think he makes some good points, but nobody is ever 100% correct.

[VTechVaulter]

its not that people are disagreeing with what he says. he makes some good points. everyone just would like to know if hes coached high level athletes, or if he is more of a free lance coach, or anything. if someone came to your door and said, " i have the cure for the common cold let me share it with you". You would probably like to know his qualifications before you go jamming a needle in your arm. Thats all

[dj]

“Substance’ should be the judgment criteria for a post and not “who’ or the experience level of that person. The best questions can come from any direction, experienced or none experienced.

On the experience level I can stand on equal footing with anyone on PVP. No brag just fact. My “experience” level is equal too or greater than Petrov, (and I only state this to emphasize that experience alone should not be the basis of accepting or rejecting an idea) but that doesn’t mean that anything I post should not be scrutinized based on the “physics” and the application of force.

And it has been: I have posted directly from more then one “experienced” world class coach on here only to have the post criticized as falsie or a “joke’, not because it was wrong but because I was the one that posted.

Post and discuss based on substance and not the personality…

If you have experience as a coach you more than likely have learned by now that there are many, many, many ways to say the same thing. Numerous times in my career I have asked other coaches to work with my athlete in hopes of “opening” a part of that athletes brain to help them understand or make a change.

Coaching is about improving weakness of an athlete; whither they are physical or technical. If the physical is not there the technical “picture” will not be the same… only because the “forces” must be applied in a different way.

The key in any/all technique is how it stands up to the test of “physics” and “application of force.”

In the real world a free takeoff (like having 10mps speed on a skateboard at the takeoff.. with the top hand and body fully extended up on the tip toe when the pole smacks the back of the box!) is the “perfect” takeoff.. with 10mps on the last two steps. With a free takeoff there should be little or no “leverage” with the bottom hand and the rotation would be around the shoulders and top grip. if you hang an “inanimate” object on the end of a pole you can catapult that object high above the top of the pole. That all comes from the speed of the rotation of the pole to vertical, which is created by approach speed and a correct plant that transfers that speed into “force’ on the pole.

But, in the real world we have to accept (unfortunately) something a little less than a free takeoff and 10 mps at the takeoff.... of course when we adjust we have to try and create force, speed up or slow the rotation etc…. those adjustments generally cause use to lose force and consequently we jump something less than a world record…. with those adjustments we get variations in the “visual” technique that we see from the athlete.

And that is why we have these discussions…

dj

ps.. I don’t want to “shut down” this discussion or turn it into a @##$#@ match.. just continue the discussion based on substance rather than personalities or the name of the person.

[VaultNinja]

I didn't mean to bash or scrutinize either. I was just posting my own opinion, and was expecting to get a great deal of flack myself. I hope that realitycheck hasn't taken any of this topic personally. Some people just want to know who he is, I could care less. An opinion is an opinion regardless of who spits it out. I've listened to world class lectures and walked away with nothing before, and have also received a que or question from someone with little or no experience that has stuck with me. I agree with alot of what DJ has to say, and even though he most likely outranks me in the experience department, I still don't think there is a perfect takeoff, or a perfect jump, but there is a fabulous base of research and method to work around. The physics might be there, the statistics might be there, but those numbers can't define all athletes. And I believe that someone can break the world record jumping with a different format than the all mighty Sergei Bubka, who the vault community has built up into a god and in my opinion is far too idolized. He's a badass, we all know that, but he's not perfect.
So there's something for everyone to squawk about

[dj]

good morning

VaultNinja ...........I agree with all you have to say.. there are several ways to apply force to rotate the pole to vertical.. in a perfect world some are better than others but we all don’t have “perfect” speed and perfect technique… should we aspire to go in the direction of “perfect” for us, our body and our skills? Absolutely..

We know that the greater the angle toward vertical we can create at the takeoff the better we should be… but if you/we are not Mike Tully tall, what do you/we do? The answer is speed…speed on the run so you can potentially apply more force..

Of course if you have the speed and technique to have a free takeoff… and to bend the pole “naturally” you can swing from the top of the pole “naturally” without adjustment..

If you have to “stay down” and force bend the pole to get it to vertical you will have to “tuck” more to get inverted to come off the top.. one of the reasons the short run works for this type of vaulter is runway “speed” makes things happen to quickly for the vaulter to “tuck’ and catch up with the pole.

In a perfect world with speed and technique the “natural” vault is, in my opinion, is the best.. and I coach “with speed” as my base. Have I occasionally let the two (or more) variations of technique (application of force) overlap in my coaching? Yes… when I had not had enough time to create the proper running posture and speed so the forces could/would be applied “naturally”. Mike Tully and I focused for 5 years on getting a better run and takeoff… he was just getting it in ‘88 when his career ended with a bad Achilles…

A coaches job should be reasonably straight forward, maybe not simple, but reasonably direct.

First the coach is a set of eyes……..

Then the coach has to know the correct steps to take to make improvements and communicate those to the athlete..

Next is to analyze and find where the areas are that can be changed to add more “force’ to the system.

That said… we are making comparisons on here without actually having all the info… does that mean we should not compare? Absolutely not.. making these comparisons is the best why for all of use to become better jumpers and better coaches.

One of the major problems on a site like PVP is everyone has a slightly different “language” that they use to describe what they think is happening. It’s gotten much better on here over the years, but there are still misunderstandings… I have tried using several ways to describe the same thing (even using quotes from Petrov) but the responses I have gotten at times tell me that it was not understood at all…

Bubka was not ‘super human’… he had the right life time coach, the right physical skills, the right mental toughness, the correct poles and the opportunity.

Should we have had more Bubka’s by now? I think so… what has been our mistake? The speed of the run… that is where we can generate the force that is needed to jump 20 feet.

dj

[Barto]

At the risk of being politically incorrect.....

It comes down to guts.

The three fastest vaulters on the runway ever were Bubka, Duplantis, and Huffman. Two of these three I have intimate first hand experience with. If you are puting together a relay team from everyone who ever jumped 5.80m, I promise you would not pick Dup or Huffman. They were not particularly fast without a pole, yet they were among the fastest with a pole ever. Why? Because they had the cojones to run as fast as they could and pole vault.

It comes down to guts.

The reason we have not seen another Bubka is that there have not been enough guys with the right combination of talent and guts. Maybe a few have had it(that combination of talent and guts), but bad luck, injuries, or other distractions have stopped them before they reached their potential. We will never know. But I do know one thing.....

It comes down to guts.

[realitycheck]

absolutely no offence taken from vault ninja.this forum is for discussion and it is good for all.as for dj big statement calling out petrov,i wouldn't do it but bless you i respect the confidence and i like your style.I sometimes wonder about the great petrov and if the legend could be larger than the man.he has had a lot of great vaulters but also many who have not been successful,bubka did leave him and isi jumped over 5m with another coach first and then it took 3yrs for him to get her to pr,its not like she wasnt the greatest athlete ever to touch a pole.he has had three of his vaulters fail drug test including world champ (Giuseppe Gibilisco) .but unfortunetly the drug thing is standard training in some countries.but statisically petrov is the best and he has coached the greatest male and female vaulters.so he still gets my vote.barto did open himself to criticism (welcome to the club) but i have read many of his post and i must admit he has an incredable understanding of the event.not sure if i agree with his guts theory but no less he is one of the most underestimated coaches out there.as for me,i am not that important or significant.i just enjoy talking about pole vault and as dj said all should be considered.

[dougb]

and to bend the pole “naturally

[quote][everyone has a slightly different “language” that they use to describe what they think is happening]/[quote]

DJ You may have described "naturally" in another post, but I don't have a clear picture of what a natural bending of the pole is.
That is vs a unnatural bending of the pole.

I agree with your emphasis on the run. Posture, stride, speed. How about adding cadence?

Doug Balcomb
PV Coach, Colfax HS