pole impacts

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Tim, do you know where your bottom hand was in relation to the top of the sailpiece on these poles and was it consistant from pole to pole?

[dj]

good morning

i think what dave is asking is what grip, length of pole and lenght of sail were you using. that way we can determine if the sail ended between the hands, near the bottom hand or near the top hand.. ie.. was it a 164 inch sail and where were your hands placed in relationship to the top end of the sail?

and back to ladyvolspvcoach's original question.. do?are? pole designs and materials effecting technique? and how?

and i guess we have to decide which "thought" process we use.. # 1 do we think of the vault as a "shortening of the "grip to tip radius" so we can move a higher grip to vertical? or # 2 do we think the vault is a "catapulting event?

or possibly some of both?.. which is how i saw joe dial's best jumps.. the best of both worlds.. correct use of physics.. correct use of the pole and a highly efficient/effective use of "application of force."

the pole and how it is used is a major varible..

later

dj

[Tim McMichael]

the pole and how it is used is a major varible..

Dean Dial thought pole design was the most important variable of all. He believed that technique was determined by what kind of pole the athlete was using. A lower bend meant that, to be successful, the vaulter had to take a higher angle with less bend. A higher bend meant the opposite. He tailored the poles Joe and I used to fit the form he was teaching us. Without the right design nothing he said would help; it might actually make us jump worse. If he was telling us to drive the pole, and the pole we were on required a higher angle, it was hopeless. Mr. Dial saw this as one of the major limitations of Buckingham's jump. He was always coming up short. About one out of every ten jumps he would get his pole to roll over, and he made whatever bar he was attempting by about a foot. Mr. Dial believed that if he was on the same poles that Joe was using, he would have jumped at least 19'5" back in '83.

[Tim McMichael]

Tim, do you know where your bottom hand was in relation to the top of the sailpiece on these poles and was it consistant from pole to pole?

OK, I finally got out to the barn with a tape measure. It is super hard to see the sail piece on the yellow Cata-Poles, so I couldn't measure those. All the poles are 16'1 1/2" long. On the Mean Green and blue Sky Poles and on the Spirit poles, the end of the long side is 23" give or take about a half inch from the top of the pole. My lowest grip was 15' 3' and my highest grip was 15' 10". My grip width was 22". So I guess that means my bottom hand on my lowest grip was 10 1/2" below the top of the long side, and on my highest grip it was 3 1/2" below it. (That is, if I am doing the math right.) At any rate, my bottom hand varied in distance from the top of the long side quite a bit. My lowest grip was always on my softest pole, and then I raised it 2" at a time as I went up poles. I'm not sure how the engineers made my poles stiffer. I am assuming the length of the short side got longer. I don't know if body wraps were added. All the poles were built on number 4 mandrels.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Tim, Thanks that's exactly why I posted this thread. I was hoping to bring up the need to know more about the pole designs as I, like Dean Dial think pole design is the most important variable in the vault. It is probably the most misunderstood or non-understood variable there is. I think we coach to the athlete's behavior rather than being knowledgable enough to recognize when an athlete's behavior is a reaction to the pole variable and not something he or she is doing deliberately..

As to the sail piece question- I've had discussions about this and have concluded that to apply proper pressure to a pole (at least one with a symetrical bend) that the bottom hand has to be 10" or more into the top of the sailpiece. I think that's pretty much what you confirmed.

[Tim McMichael]

That is interesting. I would like to know why you think the bottom hand needs to be 10" into the long side. Even though I gripped 15'10" at one point, my best jumps came with the lower grips. The poles definitely seemed to work better with grips under 15'6" which puts the bottom hand right where you indicate it should be. If the long side needs to get longer as the grip goes up, doesn't that make dialing in flex numbers a lot more difficult?

[ladyvolspvcoach]

I believe that the reason that the placement of the bottom hand being 8"-10" or so from the top of the sail piece and the top hand as close to the top of the pole as possible loads both the pole and the pole's reinforcement (sailpiece) instead of having your bottom hand above the sail piece where you are loading the pole an asking the pole to distribute the load uniformly to the reinforcement. That should also help to generate a maximum bend as well as a more symmetrically shaped bend if the pattern permits a symmetrical bend. I'm sure that by now the behavior of the pole patterns are so well known by the manufacturers that identifying the flex is pretty easy for them.

I also think that it suggests that we will get our best results when we get our athletes closer to the top of their poles as soon as they are able, and it should help us match them up to poles that will give them a maximum bend.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

So another aspect of pole impacts is how many coaches out there believe that the pole actually propells you or catapults the athlete!! or is the catapulting effect is the reason to go to bending poles??

[dj]

good morning

i watched the jumps last night from the world champs...

i have to say that with the quick glimpse i got of the jumps, the poles seemed to be bending symmetrically and very well for what the athlete needed.

A good question would be, what is the sail piece design and how is it positioned in the pole? mandrel size, wieght, length? And have there been any design changes from some of the previous carbon poles.

If anyone has the jumps can they post them or better yetr, email them to me so I can break them down frame by frame??

davidfjohnston@aol.com

dj

ps did anyone notice that the coverage seemed to be better and more in line with what we have been saying for a long time.. ; ) except for Carol not wanting to admit the Russians were kicking our quarter milers butt.

[rwelch]

I would be surprised if they didnt have the vaults up shortly...