Biomechanics Project – Berlin 2009

[Pogo Stick]

http://berlin.iaaf.org/news/kind=101/newsid=52655.html

Biomechanics Project – Berlin 2009

Berlin 2009 logo (c)
Berlin, Germany - The German IAAF Member Federation, DLV, in cooperation with the IAAF will be carrying out a major Biomechanics Project during the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, Berlin, Germany (15 – 23 August).

The aim of the project is to continue the international work in the field of biomechanics of the past years, in order to support athletes and coaches in optimization and improvement of their training and competition performance.

The finals of all events will be covered by the project, except combined events.

- For sprint, hurdles, relays and running events split times will be analysed, and along with the race distributions will be shown in graphics.

- For Long Jump, Triple Jump and Pole Vault the distribution of run-up speed will be measured and calculated by LAVEG laser equipment.

- High Jump and all throwing events will have detailed analysis of the techniques (e.g. angles, velocities, time based structure of the movement etc…)

There will be 18 people involved in coordinating the project, specialised for the different events.

Equipment will all be placed outside the infield in the stands and will be composed of digital camcorders, laser speed measurement and computer equipment. The calibration of the cameras will take before and after the competition times.

[CB]

The results of the measurements during the World Championships in Helsinki (2005)

http://www.iaafacademy.com/helsinki%20reports/Helsinki%202005%20Pole%20Report%20-%20Pole%20Vault.pdf

[achtungpv]

If those times are representative of their true runway speed ('05 WC had heavy rains and bad wind) then the main reason the men are jumping lower now isn't short pegs, it's that across the board they're a lot slower than the top guys in the 80s & 90s.

[Run2Niels]

I'm not sure I'm calculating this right, but it looks that Rens Blom had a 1.19meter pushoff (2cm's more than at the world record of Bubka...). His gripheight was 4.81 (minus 20cm box) and the barheight was 5.80. Thats a worldclass pushoff!
How did he do this? What was so good about this jump? His video can be found at http://www.stabhoch.com.

[Lax PV]

I'm not sure I'm calculating this right, but it looks that Rens Blom had a 1.19meter pushoff (2cm's more than at the world record of Bubka...). His gripheight was 4.81 (minus 20cm box) and the barheight was 5.80. Thats a worldclass pushoff!
How did he do this? What was so good about this jump? His video can be found at http://www.stabhoch.com.

A great push off, but not the record--according the 6m Club link, Tim Mack has the record at 121cm. Also, the guy jumped 580 and won worlds... in my humble opinion, that is a world class effort, necessitating a world class performance. However, the author does define his grip height as "the distance between the middle of the upper grip hand at the pole and the deepest point of the planting box at the moment of the pole straight position." I have always thought of grip height as the highest point in which your hand is on the pole (the forefinger of your top hand grip) to the end of the plug. That alone is another 4.5 to 5cm on my hand (I actually just measured it with a closed fist). So depending on definition of grip height this number can change a little. Final point to be made is that is the difference between grip height and bar placement, not peak center of mass--this could be a very different comparison if you chose to look at peak CM rather than bar height--Bubka killed bars (although personally, I think bar height is a better metric--at the end of the day, your bar clearance is what matters--not the height of your CM).

It is interesting about the runway velocities though--the author makes note of that early on in the paper.