What does the bottom arm do????

[agapit]

Because the chest is driven through and up and in front of the top hand you should be able to swing just like on a high bar. And like how you do not have to pull to swing up on a high bar, you do not have to pull to swing up on the pole vault pole. You should think about pushing that pole up and driving it to vertical.

No, you do not HAVE to pull to swing up on a high bar or a pole, but the question is not about "HAVE to". The question is, can you speed up the inversion, and get into a straight vertical position faster? The pole does not constitute a high bar. First of all, the pole is angled differently to your body. One hand is lower than the other. Is there ANYTHING you can do with your lower hand, that enables your hips to rise faster?

http://www.stabhoch.com/pages/19920713_Bubka_611.html

Look closely on his left arm, just after his hips start to break and notice what it does as his hips rises. Now, his body is hindering us to see the pole, but other videos of Bubka shows, that the part of the pole between his hands seem to straighten out a bit. Apparently, is the lower hand pulling.

Excellent analysis golfdane! And this is 6.11m!!! not 5.80m look at the potencial! So much speed is generated during the pull and the center of gravity acceleration that his legs are still moving up when he releases the pole. That is the difference! He was about 181cm or 6' and ran his 9.6-9.8 m/s on the last 5m, so what made the difference?!!!

[VaultPurple]

Because the chest is driven through and up and in front of the top hand you should be able to swing just like on a high bar. And like how you do not have to pull to swing up on a high bar, you do not have to pull to swing up on the pole vault pole. You should think about pushing that pole up and driving it to vertical.

No, you do not HAVE to pull to swing up on a high bar or a pole, but the question is not about "HAVE to". The question is, can you speed up the inversion, and get into a straight vertical position faster? The pole does not constitute a high bar. First of all, the pole is angled differently to your body. One hand is lower than the other. Is there ANYTHING you can do with your lower hand, that enables your hips to rise faster?

http://www.stabhoch.com/pages/19920713_Bubka_611.html

Look closely on his left arm, just after his hips start to break and notice what it does as his hips rises. Now, his body is hindering us to see the pole, but other videos of Bubka shows, that the part of the pole between his hands seem to straighten out a bit. Apparently, is the lower hand pulling.

Excellent analysis golfdane! And this is 6.11m!!! not 5.80m look at the potencial! So much speed is generated during the pull and the center of gravity acceleration that his legs are still moving up when he releases the pole. That is the difference! He was about 181cm or 6' and ran his 9.6-9.8 m/s on the last 5m, so what made the difference?!!!

I see no proof in the fact that his left arm bends as to the fact that he is pulling... Weather he pulls it or not, it will bend because the pole is straighting out, so unless he keeps the left arm straight to go into the superman position like some people do in drills, it is going to bend. Is there an account of Bubka actually saying that he pulled during his swing? I know there is accounts of him saying that if he could give any advice it would be to continuously keep the arms up. But the only people I have heard talk about pulling are coaches who made their own assumptions as to what he was doing. I am not saying he is definitely not pulling, just that I do not see the proof. And since he has already hit the cord of the pole when his arm starts to bend, the main power from his swing is done, to me it appears that any pool from this point on would only serve to hold his body close to the pole but little to do with speeding up the swing.

[vaultman18]

I see no proof in the fact that his left arm bends as to the fact that he is pulling...

Vaultpurple are saying there is no pull?

Is there an account of Bubka actually saying that he pulled during his swing?

It is possible that he was doing it without actual thought.

[vaultman18]

The question still remains... what does the bottom arm do? We all know where I stand - it pulls.

I specifically want to know what happens after the take-off toe leaves the ground. Lets assume we have all mastered the free take-off.

[VaultPurple]

The question still remains... what does the bottom arm do? We all know where I stand - it pulls.

I specifically want to know what happens after the take-off toe leaves the ground. Lets assume we have all mastered the free take-off.

You drive both arms up and continuously push until your swing reaches the cord of the pole, then it breaks (or as some people believe pulls) as you break at the abs and transfer swing energy up.

[altius]

These were my responses to the same topic a few days ago. Havent changed my mind since then. Would only a** that “A man convinced against his will remains f the same opinion still” or you can Lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink –take your pick.


“Suggest you ask Roman about that because he certainly believes that Bubka represented the 6.40 model - and Roman certainly does know him. Also if you read the posts on this topic you might find one where I confirmed my belief -already stated in BTB - that after the vaulter leaves the ground their behaviour is almost completely intuitive - rather than cognitive -so it is possible that even he could not tell you exactly what he did after he had left the ground. In fact it may have varied with every jump depending on all of the preceding elements. Indeed we have his almost hilarious response to Romans question "What do you think about after you leave the ground?' when he replied "The pole vault for me is RUN. TAKE OFF AND THEN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

My position on the use of the left arm changed when I returned to the notion of pole vaulting simply as stiff pole vaulting on a flexible pole. Indeed I posted a mea culpa on that topic last year to explain my view. As always you can take it or leave it - but you do not have to take it personally. This may indeed remain one of the great uncertainties of the vault for most folk.”

AND

“If you have tried this and it did not work for you I can understand your opinion - although it might be interesting to discuss how you tried to modify your old method -what drills did you use - and, I suppose - was the rest of your technique up to and including the take off good enough to build on. I am not commenting here, just asking the question.

" I have never seen 1 jump by Bubka that remotely resembles a pull." That may be the problem because when you watch even slow motion film the left hand always appears to be moving away from the shoulder - so how can that be a pull? So instead consider this. Beg borrow or steal a 2.1 copy of the BTB dvd and take a look at the second of the black and white clips of Bubby there. The first focuses on the pre jump take off - remember when nobody believed THAT was possible??? The second clip shows the other element of this technique that Vitali was so proud of - Bubby covering the pole -for he does indeed 'cover' the pole here as well as, or better than, any jump I have ever seen in this clip. No one else has got close to this. And the question you have to ask is - how did he get back fast enough to get into that position??? By his standards it was still not fast enough because in BTB I quote him as saying his aim was to be vertical before the pole started to recoil! Romans answer - and I am inclined to agree with him - is that he was able to do this because he accelerated his swing with an early pull.

I have met Sergey on several occasions and I think it is fair to say that he would regard me as a friend; but I must admit I never thought to discuss this with him - just focussed every time on his notion of the correct take off. I would also admit that I never specifically taught my own athletes to do this. However we did an immense amount of stiff pole jumping which I believe is the key to doing this intuitively - where my definition of intuition is that 'it is the distilled essence of past experience'! But this may remain one of those areas that will not be resolved until we have much more sophisticated sports science available - and another Bubby!

Been writing all day and cant get to sleep at 1.30 in the morning - hence these musings!”

[kcvault]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syvSaxVj ... re=related

What do you suppose he means at 1:10 about kids needing to have a nice left arm does this mean big bottom arm.

I was watching video of Lawrence Johnson it is clear to me that he keeps pressure and swings from his top arm but the left arm does not appear to pull until he breaks it in to accelerate the hips upward. IMO if you Have a nice free take off in the proper backwards C position and you swing from the top arm as fast and long as you can your bottom arm is going to do whatever it needs to to accelerate that swing. I don't believe it would be as useful to teach pulling with the bottom arm when by teaching the vaulter to swing as fast as possible from the top hand will intuitively achieve the proper result.
--Kasey

[vaultman18]

What do you suppose he means at 1:10 about kids needing to have a nice left arm does this mean big bottom arm

Personally I believe he is referring to the plant and not to anything off the ground.

I was watching video of Lawrence Johnson it is clear to me that he keeps pressure and swings from his top arm but the left arm does not appear to pull

This to me confirms the idea that what you see is not necessarily what is happening. I would say it was CLEAR to Agapit that Lo was not keeping pressure with the bottom arm.

proper backwards C position

Are you sure the "backwards C position" is proper? I would argue that you should try to avoid the "C" position or any position for that matter. Positions are passive the "C" or "pocket" or whatever else. The goal should be to leave the ground and invert to hand stand push off the pole in as little time as possible without tucking.

[kcvault]

Are you sure the "backwards C position" is proper? I would argue that you should try to avoid the "C" position or any position for that matter. Positions are passive the "C" or "pocket" or whatever else. The goal should be to leave the ground and invert to hand stand push off the pole in as little time as possible without tucking.

I am positive the backwards C is the best position to swing from I am not saying this position should be passive but look at all of bubkas jumps and his take off starts in this position. The trail leg is back and the body is upright making the pole rise if the take off leg is not stretched back at take off that would make the swing very slow.
--Kasey

[IAmTheWalrus]

A quick divergence, earlier it was asked what Renaud Lavillenie's speed was. According to an analysis of the 2009 world championships his run up veolicty was 9.54 m/s, in contrast to Steve Hooker's 9.34 or Brad Walker's 9.36 from 2007. These are just snapshots based on one meet, but you I would not be surprised if Lavillenie was one of if not the fastest current vaulter on the runway. I think its also worth noting that in a Heptathlon he ran a 7.23s 60m, which is fast, but not remarkable. I would imagine that Hooker and possibly Walker too are faster than Lavillenie on the track, but Lavillenie is very effective when running with a pole. Food for thought.

[AVC Coach]

Are you sure the "backwards C position" is proper? I would argue that you should try to avoid the "C" position or any position for that matter. Positions are passive the "C" or "pocket" or whatever else. The goal should be to leave the ground and invert to hand stand push off the pole in as little time as possible without tucking

I can't agree with these statements. I think that hitting correct positions is the foundation of jumping high. Simply leaving the ground and inverting to a hand stand push off isn't possible without being in the correct positions. I feel that the vault, as a whole, is compartmentalized and the overall goal is to flow through all of the correct positions as quickly as possible. I also believe this applies to everyone from beginners to elite.

As far as the "What does the bottom arm do????" question....Absolutely, the bottom arm is pulling after take-off. But not in the sense that most people think. I don't teach the pull because I believe it's something that happens naturally. Now, there's a difference in perception on this, in my opinion. When we think of pulling, we automatically envision pulling the hands into the body. That's not the pull we're looking for and that's why I don't teach it. I perceive the pull as a downward force created through the shoulders, not the arms or hands. The more force generated, the faster the swing. The faster the swing, the faster the hips move.

Just my 2 cents.

[agapit]

Are you sure the "backwards C position" is proper? I would argue that you should try to avoid the "C" position or any position for that matter. Positions are passive the "C" or "pocket" or whatever else. The goal should be to leave the ground and invert to hand stand push off the pole in as little time as possible without tucking

I can't agree with these statements. I think that hitting correct positions is the foundation of jumping high. Simply leaving the ground and inverting to a hand stand push off isn't possible without being in the correct positions. I feel that the vault, as a whole, is compartmentalized and the overall goal is to flow through all of the correct positions as quickly as possible. I also believe this applies to everyone from beginners to elite.

As far as the "What does the bottom arm do????" question....Absolutely, the bottom arm is pulling after take-off. But not in the sense that most people think. I don't teach the pull because I believe it's something that happens naturally. Now, there's a difference in perception on this, in my opinion. When we think of pulling, we automatically envision pulling the hands into the body. That's not the pull we're looking for and that's why I don't teach it. I perceive the pull as a downward force created through the shoulders, not the arms or hands. The more force generated, the faster the swing. The faster the swing, the faster the hips move.

Just my 2 cents.

Perhaps it would be easier to talk about and understand the pull in these terms:

Initially rotation/swing happens around the top wrist being the pivot point. The only way to maintain this pivot point and not shorten the rotation/swing where shoulders would become pivot point is to apply force that is perpendicular to the pendulum/body (pendulum being from pivot/hand to foot). If you apply force with left arm in any other direction, for example down the pole “rowing”, it will shorten the swing and shoulders would become the pivot point. Now most vaulters do not accelerate this initial swing of a “full pendulum” (hand to foot) and that is why they are “slow” on the pole and cannot generate 1.30-1.40 push at the end.

The question is, would it be better to accelerate the swing as soon as it begins after takeoff leg complete the takeoff cycle or not? I think it is essential that we do train to accelerate the swing at that early stage.

The question, by now should be how, and so far years of arguing about the possibility prevented me from communicating actual methods I have used to teach this to athletes.