Moving up poles

[vault3rb0y]

This might get off topic just a little so im sorry.... but what would happen if they just made a pole the same all the way from top to bottom? You have that much pole, why not have it all bend equally?

[gvvault]

This might get off topic just a little so im sorry.... but what would happen if they just made a pole the same all the way from top to bottom? You have that much pole, why not have it all bend equally?

hmm, my guess would be that there would be WAY too many points of stress on the pole and that it would be very unstable, the slightest "leak" in energy could create multiple bends in the pole. Using a sail-piece centers the stress and energy in one specific and strong location (I think..).

Anyways, that's just a complete guess and I have absolutely no facts to back that up...

[drew]

This might get off topic just a little so im sorry.... but what would happen if they just made a pole the same all the way from top to bottom? You have that much pole, why not have it all bend equally?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Skypole EZ Plants are made without a sailpiece.

[superpipe]

You definitely have to stop pole-pushing. Without getting into too much detail, it's impossible to have correct running technique and it's completely inefficient. As mentioned earlier, to push something means you need to lean into it, however small the lean is. This is absolutely a position you never want to be in when running with the pole. It causes your shoulders to be rolled in too instead of them being in a more neutral position. You want to be tall and erect when running. You can also never be in the perfect position at the plant/take-off point. Again, you don't want to be leaning in one bit at take-off. You'll have a lower take-off angle every time. Plus, you don't want your shoulders to be rolled in even the slightest amount at take-off. The point is, pole-pushing should only ever be used for beginners if ever at all. Even for beginners, it's much better to carry the pole over head to alleviate the full plant motion.

The inefficiencies with pole pushing are more obvious. It's friction. You loose the natural speed increase with a pole drop. You loose the natural "up" momentum from the pole drop to plant motion. There's a ton more.

You may think it feels better, but it's actually killing your technique.

[bel142]

Post some more footage of you.

If you start to transition your pole usage let us know, need any help just ask, it would be a difficult habit to break but it can be done quickly if done correctly.

[VaultPurple]

Post some more footage of you.

If you start to transition your pole usage let us know, need any help just ask, it would be a difficult habit to break but it can be done quickly if done correctly.

start to transition pole usage? not quite sure what you mean.

But im trying to get on new poles.

Yesterday jumped and used a 14' 160 instead of the 14'7 150.... i was killing the 14 155 so stoped using it after my first jump.

Here is probably my best jump or basicaly what they all looked like on the 14' 160 holding what i think was 13'6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQA012NB ... annel_page

I keep flagging out on the bigger poles. I feel like when i start to invert im not going to make it in, so i come off the pole early and barely make it in. Where I know that finishing the vault I will accualy drive the pole farther into the pit, but I cant just tell my body that when Im up in the air. And sometimes I do invert but I think im just trying to invert so i dont swing and i get shot up really high but almost land in box.

[rainbowgirl28]

This might get off topic just a little so im sorry.... but what would happen if they just made a pole the same all the way from top to bottom? You have that much pole, why not have it all bend equally?

The amount of stress in the different parts of the pole is not equal. You can leave out the sail piece on really small poles (like 10 footers) and they're fine, but on the bigger poles they would either be too bendy or you'd have to have more body wraps and it would end up being really heavy.

[Bruce Caldwell]

I use to find it a real problem moving from one size pole to the next when I was vaulting and always wondered why. IN the year 2000 we saw why the poles were so inconsistent. We had a set of patterns for Catapole and a set of patterns for Accelerators 15" on up poles.
the patterns had different body wraps, different shaped sail wraps and when going to a stiffer pole the whole pole was actually different from pole to pole. So it took a week to get your timing down, the most crucial part of the vault was interrupted by a stick that was not engineered consistently. Earl Bell and I worked on a system to rid of this problem.
Throughout the patterns we have math equations to insure the consistency. such as The width of the body wraps will never be dominate to the sail wrap and visa versa, other words each mandrel size has the same hoop wrap and body wrap and same shape of sail wrap. Only the width of the sail is altered to provide a stiffer pole that acts and feels the same.
SO you get a pole that is very consistent and an equation for each aspect of the pole design to keep it that way, consistant.
I am the first to admit that makes a very expensive pole to maintain such consistency throughout the line and many other manufacturers may not find it as important as I do!.
Building a pole without a sail creates a training pole or an old thermoflex pole. The sail in the beginning was a way to lighten the pole in areas where the pole did not bend such as the hand grip area and some of the butt area. As time progressed in pole making they found that the sail also determined the distribution of energy in the pole. The key here is this moving from one pole size to another with the same timing is crucial to the overall program of the vault especially towards the end of the season when you have fewer meets and practices to get your timing back on a new pole.
recommended reading
http://www.therightpole.com
Bruce Caldwell ESSX

[bel142]

Purple...

By pole usage I was trying to convey the difficult-ness of changing your pole carry, from pole push to drop.

Indeed if you did plant the pole the take off angle would be higher and the pole would role over a tick more and this might help for you not to flag out. But that transition would take you backwards for about a week.

[master]

What exactly does it mean when people say the sail piece is higher? what is the sail piece and how does it affect the jump?

This will not tell you why, but it will show you the construction techniques and 'pieces' of pole manufacture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJGXaaQzX-E
At about 45 seconds in the video, the person is cutting a sail piece. At 2:10 into the video he is attaching/wrapping the sail piece on to the mandrel. The actual dimensions and the attachment position relative to the pole ends are variables that the pole designers use to adjust the response of the finished pole.
Although they don't say this in the video, the two (opposite direction) spiral windings were the major design improvement in poles. They increase the hoop strength of the hollow cylinder structure which is the pole, and the hoop strength is what reduces the propensity of a pole flattening out and breaking while it is bent. So with this pole design the pole could be lighter (less material) and stronger.

- master

[VaultPurple]

Purple...

By pole usage I was trying to convey the difficult-ness of changing your pole carry, from pole push to drop.

Indeed if you did plant the pole the take off angle would be higher and the pole would role over a tick more and this might help for you not to flag out. But that transition would take you backwards for about a week.

Don't really see how planting the pole can increase pole angle, since I push straight up instead of in. You can tell from my videos I do not reach for the box. I think some of these main problems people see from pole pushing are only a problem when someone learned how to pole vault by pushing, and stayed pushing. Since I carried the pole for three years up to now I think that I easily incorporated a lot of my vault from pole carrying to pole pushing.

Out of my vault specifically I have noticed a change in...

A) Taller, higher, and more free of a take off and have in some cases had pretty good "pre-jumps"
- Up until March I was taking off around 9 foot with my 14 foot poles and on some vaults now are close to 12'.
B) Decreased amount of run-through and late plants
- I used to spend about every other practice running through on every vault no matter what, either I would just feel
'wrong' , or if I did manage to take off my plant was all out of wack and I would get rejected.
With pole pushing I may run through once a practice, and that is just when I am exhausted and my body just knows I'm not running fast enough.

Some people have a million reasons why they think pole pushing is bad, but they are all just guesses or from the pole pushers they have seen (most of witch are high school girls jumping around 8 foot). But the truth is, not enough people do it for anyone to really know the positive and negative effects. Superpipe had a lot of reason that he wrote as fact but I think don't apply to everyone. Yes you have to lean forward a little to start your run, but once I get back to enough strides, by the time I am really turning over in the last few steps I'm up just as tall and straight as if I were carrying the pole.... Accelerate to the mid, then sustain the speed and get the feet down over the next 3 lefts! Then there is the whole positioning of shoulders and stuff at take off, I don't think pushing has anything to do with that, I feel my vault is Identical once my last left foot hits the ground, weather I am pushing or carrying.

All I am saying is don't knock it till you try it! You can try and interpret anything by making assumptions or going off what you have seen from a select few people, but don't try to use those assumptions to disprove something without really testing it... Like someone saying "Friction, its science", How bout "weight" its science, or "momentum" its science. The friction from pushing is almost negligible, and it has "almost" been proven you can run faster pushing than carrying. (only real test have been from Tye Harvey because he is only elite pole pusher, but his runway speed was something like .3 or .4 m/s faster when he pushed compared to when he carried). But if you want science on what model makes you run faster, just simply run 40m with pole up, then push for 40m and see what speed changes, i bet its a lot faster when pushing.

ps. And people always mention a simple bump in the runway or lip of the box messing you up... not true, my indoor place we overlap the runway pieces then duct tape them down so about every 20 feet there is a nice little ramp for my pole tip to shoot up in the air, then the box in the ground sticks up a little but we put duct tape on it to make it smoother, but tips till bounces there but falls back down right after and slides into box fine. Only reason id see it really hurting is if you were at a really crappy high school where there was a gap between the runway and box (was one like that in my high school conference... but that it dangerous for a pole carrier too if he drops it a little too early)

[bel142]

You can vault however you want... As my first couple of posts said, nothing wrong with it.

But you are mis-informed when it comes to catching a lip on the box. This year at the D1 NCAA east regional championships one of the competitors missed the competition because during warm ups he was pushing the pole caught the lip of the box and went down, hard... I can consider it general consensus that 'A and T' Greensboro is not a crappy high school, nor are the vaulters in that competition. The competition was flipped and a nice little head wind ensued.