pushing back out during the swing?

[PVDaddy]

So what do I take from all of this? I believe Altius is saying that the best way to develop as a coach is by Coaching. The problem I have with this is that if I would have started coaching back in 2005 when I knew very little about PV, I would have had no idea of what type of foundation from which to build upon? I was not ready. It took me a long time of study to even get to the point were I felt I was truly beginning to understand the vault and of course I am still learning something new every day. I learned a tremendous amount from reading other peoples personal experiences here on PVP and articles, Books and videos from Petrov, Launder, Butler, Werner, Pfaff, Clymer, Etc. For me personally the greatest learning (what truly brought all my prior knowledge home and helped me separate what I felt was the wheat from the chaff) occurred by studying Bubka in his best vaults from the very first step to landing on the pad and studying it to the finest of detail and then trying to describe what I saw and learned in Agenda 21. I highly recommend the process of developing what you feel is the proper method of vaulting by actually studying who you feel exemplifies that model and put it in writing.
You will be amazed at what this depth of study and the process and putting it all down in writing does for your level of understanding. I would never be able to vault like Bubka but it is almost as if you are experiencing his vault in your own bones if you take the time to do that. I think that what Altius is saying is that only through the process of coaching is one able to develop the ABILITY to communicate these feelings "from your own bones" to others? The problem for me was that I didn't have these feelings (understanding) to communicate until just this past year.
We need a high bar and we need it now! The schools not going to put one in any time soon so I think I will see if they will let me build one at my expense and time.

ADTF:

Watching video is a great tool. It would be interesting though to find out exactly what the athlete is actually looking at. Coach shows video to point out a movement and athlete is stuck only focusing on something that is of no importance yet in their brain they have said that is what is important. I want to bend the pole or I want to be inverted. Video is great but can be a negative to learning to feel. Just my opinion.

Very good pint and I have already thought about that. We spend time watching Bubkas video almost every day and I comment through it the entire time to plant very specific thoughts in their mind on what I see as critical points, sometime we focus on specific points as well.

ADTF:

I really challenge all coaches to take a step back and measure your success not by how many champions you had, but on how many you didn't destroy. To me this is the biggest issue with our college system. How many athletes are destroyed in college? Why? It's not always the coaches fault social plays a major role as well, but if it is because of a major change in their technique than yes chalk that up to the coach destroyed their career.

As a high School Coach I feel my job is to build a solid foundation for preparing my vaulters to vault in College and possibly beyond. For me that solid foundation is the Petrov/Bubka Model. I believe Coaches that are willing to take a short cut method for winning a State championship by advocating methods such as Blocking out, rowing ( I view rowing as applying downward pressure, down the pole toward the box as an attempt to get the vaulters hips up to early (The swing is not complete and it causes a break in the tension of the top hand on the poles fulcrum and tells the pole to uncoil.) The method I have advocated here is a forward pressure WITH the bend of the pole to accelerate the torque of the whip (through the full body coil) all the way to the top of the pole as a method to inversion) and tuck and shooting are only doing a deservice to the long term potential of their athletes into college or possibly beyond.

[PVDaddy]

Altius, As I have said in a previous post, were is your closest clinic to Michigan in JULY?

[altius]

Minneapolis St Paul 5/6/7 July. Contact Chris Milton --- chris.milton@gmail.com -- look forward to meeting you.

The ideal initial preparation for any profession involves both early practice and relevant theory. I say this as one who set up a world class teacher education program in physical education in Adelaide on that basis, and have had some impact on coach education here. Happy to post some thoughts on coach education - one 1500 word paper gained me a trophy and $5000.

I also say this from the perspective of one who - over sixty years ago - spent three months in classrooms learning all about the theory of everything related to flight, cloud formations/ communication systems - even how to use a parachute etc and then discovered that when we did aerobatics I became so sick that I was virtually unable to control the plane! That probably saved my life, as I doubt would have ever survived more than one carrier landing.

[ADTF Academy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91yDbVLzwHI


just saw this. Short version of jump broken up. But you will notice no tuck for Renaud..... Seems to be a short approach jump for fun.... What we see isn't always the truth its just what is showing up at that moment in time. Learn movements not moments in time.

[PVDaddy]

i said 2005 in my previous post and i meant 2010. i have only been studying the vault for three years.

Altius, you seem to be advocating a bent arm bottom arm at plant and It seems to me Petrov advocates a straight bottom arm at plant in his Reno 2005 speech? I do agree with you that it would be very difficult to have a perfectly straight bottom at plant unless you widened your grip. Bubka does seem to have his bottom arm fairly straight in my opinion but I would agree it has a very slight bend. What is the best way to determine ideal hand placement and amount of elbow bend at plant for most vaulters? Can you do it by standing erect with top hand covering ear fully extended with pole in the box and move bottom hand to the ideal position? What is that position?
I have an idea but wanted others opinion on this?

[altius]

I am saying that the arm should never be fully extended during the planting action -in the main because with a right handed vaulter, the left elbow must always be outside and beneath the level of the left hand. IE the arm must necessarily always be flexed. This positioning is a critical element of a free take off because it means that the left arm can never be extended into a position from which it locks out and causes and early bend - i.e. before take off. But it is all in the book - take a look at the images of Bubka there and on the dvd and you will better understand what I mean.

I would also add that - if you accept Romans argument -and I do - the apparent pushing away is an illusion - the hand/arm is simply chasing the flexing pole so that in fact the athlete is pulling during this movement - even though it clearly looks as thought they are pushing. The post in which I put up my reasons for this can be found somewhere on pvp -essentially the case is that if you accept that vaulting on a flexible pole is biomechanically like vaulting on an infinite series of stiff poles - i.e. the same as vaulting on a stiff pole, then you should pull - because that is what the stiff pole vaulters did in order to accelerate - for them - the all important swing.

Now that should give you something to get your teeth into - that is if you want to waste time you could better spend coaching athletes. But I am not debating it with you or anyone else. As I indicated on the dvd, I teach my athletes to simply swing on the pole as if they were on a high bar - no pushing, pulling or anything else. It seems to work - as most simple approaches to apparently complex issues do. Remember Bubka's AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

[grandevaulter]

That is a great post Altius. I believe that many of the movements in the technical model that you are teaching us are illusions or can easily be misinterpreted.

I would also add that - if you accept Romans argument -and I do - the apparent pushing away is an illusion - the hand/arm is simply chasing the flexing pole

The images in the book that illustrate the series of straight poles and the comparisons to the flexible pole are eye and mind opening.

[KirkB]

I teach my athletes to simply swing on the pole as if they were on a high bar - no pushing, pulling or anything else.

Yes. That's certainly what I did. That's exactly the reason I didn't push or pull. My swing on the pole was the same as my swing on the highbar, except that on the pole it was basically a one-armed swing until the pole approached max bend. This was merely a consequence of the pole not being as horizontal as a highbar until then.

After tens of thousands of highbar reps, I couldn't have vaulted too much different than how I swung on a highbar even if I tried - the actions were built into my muscle memory by then.

And if you think about it, to swing quickly (as quickly as possible) on a highbar, you use your lats as well as your core and legs. It's a FULL BODY SWING. Remember the "lat pull" interpretation of the 640 Model a few years ago? If the 640 Model says you swing exactly as you do on a highbar (with a lat pull as well as the rest of the body), then I think we're all in agreement on this point - Altius, Agapit, and myself!

Remember Bubka's AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

Yes, but this is after tens of thousands of reps, so he also didn't have to think about it any more - it was already built into his muscle memory by then.

Kirk

[PVDaddy]

Wow great post Altius! You are giving me a ton to think about in those few sentences. I'm not sure I can by into it all because as you say it appears Bubka is doing the opposite and it does, but the very fact that you have coached so many High Schoolers to 17 feet will probably make a believer out of me! Gonna be chewing on this one for a while!

[altius]

Unfortunately you may have missed the real point. I did not have my epiphany re the pull of the bottom arm until I had spent two weeks skiing in France arguing with roman about five years ago . Then I suddenly realised the link with stiff poling and it all became clear - or at least made sense.

However I did not understand this when I was coaching the athletes in question over ten years ago -as I continually stress I taught athletes to swing as if they were on a high bar. In fact we are now improving the ability of athletes do just that by using the simple sequence - High Bar whip swings/ straight to long swings to land on the back first(then the left side)/then to jumping from eight steps over a bar. The is precisely the sequence we used with our group on sunday morning -followed of course by 10 full pole runs on the track, emphasising the Bubka model. The close relationship between these three activities - and the fact that this relationship is clearly understood by the athletes - along with the close time links involved - means that transfer of learning is more likely than not to occur.

The key point is that athletes do not need to understand they should pull - all you do is give them plenty of jumps - up to 40 - from six steps stiff pole over gradually raised bars. The brain/body nexus (marvellous thing that it is) sorts the problem out without conscious thought or the need for any cues and the athlete will begin to the right things in the right sequence without any help from you. In the same way that it will do the right things when you ask athletes to swing on a rope to get their feet as high as they can up the rope.

Without seeming to be too bumptious one of the advantages of being a professional sports educator is that you can readily understand what is going on here - but it may need to be spelled out for someone who is trying to graft coaching expertise onto a career selling cars or hedge fund management.

[PVDaddy]

Altius said:

High Bar whip swings/ straight to long swings to land on the back first(then the left side)

Are you saying you have the student let go of the bar when they swing over it and land on a mat? If so how do you coach that safely?

[altius]

Sorry again -'long swings' are shown on the dvd and described in the book so I assumed anyone would know that they were onto a pad -but perhaps you are being clever?? Pity because there was some very valuable information there related to the issue of transfer of training that many pole vault coaches do not understand, because as I implied they are trying to graft some knowledge of the event onto an almost complete ignorance of sports science.