Wrong Perspective

[dj]

good morning

it appears to me that most coaches and athletes have the wrong "perspective" about pole vaulting..

i feel this is one of the reasons we end up with "arguments' that have little proof other than someone jumping higher or winning.

bubka may have been approaching the vault from a different "view" himself but was not doing anything different than those that came before him, some of the things he did were just better than those athletes, including Bell and Tully.

what he did was; run faster, hold higher and bend the pole more.. and most of the time with a high efficiency.. fortunately and by intent the poles he was jumping on were better designed, better made, had better materials, etc... than many poles prior to that time.

from where he was gripping on the 5.00 and 5.10 poles he could bend the pole more without it breaking. higher grip = higher jumps.

from the very first data collection that peter mcginnis did of all the vaulters, there were only minute differences in 2/3 items, off ALL the 10 to 20 pieces of info presented.. those were speed, grip and % of pole bend.
what we are missing here is that fiberglass pole vaulting is about shortening the swing radius (cord of the pole) so the athlete can move a higher hand grip to vertical.

joe dial had his great jumps because of these same items.. speed, shortening of the pole radius... and a great "kip" above the grip.

the pole vault is NOT a catapulting event... i'm not sure how we can use "how much energy is stored in the pole" or the test that were done to see how far a 180 lb pole can "flip" a 180 lb weight!!! 180 lbs is just an arbitrary number used to "label" a pole that states, from experience, a 180 lb jumper shouldn't break this pole.. but we know a lot more than 180 lbs of force is applied to the pole to make it bend properly and keep moving at the takeoff. (and i don't mean "force" bending.. but a natural bend from a proper tranfer of the mass with speed onto the pole)

The fiber glass pole was presented to the IAAF as "artificial" bamboo.. not as a "catapult".. why did bamboo work better for most vaulters in that day and time than steel??? because bamboo would bend more and allow for a higher grip.. the only problem was they would break..

fiber glass made the same technique better...

bubka with the right pole made the technique better.. and jumped a world record not because the pole was stiffer and was "throwing" him higher but because he maximized the "shortening" of his swing radius and was still in position to maximize his height above the grip ....as the pole reached vertical.

in 1983 earl and mike were gripping 16' and bending the pole 28%. bubka was gripping 16'6 and bending the pole 31%.

do the math and see how much of an advantage bubka gained in grip..



dj

ps.. it is illegal in track and field to have any spring or spring like catapulting mechanism.. the IAAF would not have accepted the fiberglass pole as a "catapult".

[master]

Using dj's numbers, at full flex, Bell's pole chord length was 11.52' and Bubka's was 11.39'. Bubka's effective pole length (for the time it was at full flex) was 1.62" shorter than Bell's, at the same time his grip when the pole is straight was 6" higher than Bell's.

That would seem to imply the combination of Bubka's technique and physical abilities provided an advantage. Assuming his physical abilities were not that significantly better, the technique would seem to be the major source of the advantage.

- master
(I hope I did the math correctly.)

[Barto]

Dave,

Have you ever had access to the numbers from Kjell Isakson's best jumps? I would be interested in his % bend.

[AVC Coach]

Great data DJ and Master! I'm interested in seeing how this topic unfolds.

[dj]

good morning

i hope we do get a lot of responses..

one of the points i was hoping to make was..

i may not always be productive to go to a bigger pole flex...
and shortening the pole cord is one of the primary ingredients to vaulting correctly.

for example.. we found that tully could stay on the same pole that he was bending 28% .. grip a little higher... run..plant and swing correctly and jump higher and more efficiently...

in the '84 trials he would not have made the Olympics after going to a 12.5 flex!! he went back to the 12.7 flex.. and ended up jumping a trials record and gripping 16-5 .. the point is the stiffer pole would not allow him to bend the pole 31%... and get a short enough cord length that he could swing and rotate to vertical..

i see this happen often .. almost every time a vaulter goes to a bigger pole..

we need to remember that if you are not already bending the pole you are jumping on 30% + you will not have much chance of bending a stiffer pole more.. unless you create a better, faster impulse at the takeoff..

check and compare the last four jumps t-mack took at the 2004 trials.. one at 5.90 and three at 604.. those give you exactly what you need to know about the importance of shortening the pole cord radius in pole vaulting...

(by the way the pole must be designed to bend this way... without breaking. and my disclaimer is ... this info is not being put out there for everyone to go out and see if they can bend there pole "double"! i hope we can all read this... discus this and see how it pertains to higher, easier vaults..)


later

dj

[Bubba PV]

DJ coached me in 1997 when I was preparing for the World Masters Championships in South Africa in the M40 division. He kept pushing my grip an inch a jump as long as I had a good jump and my grips ended up 3-6" higher than they had ever been on those poles. The objective was not only to bend the pole more but to bend the top of the pole over in order to roll back further. It's scary how far back you get and how easy it is to do so. He may want to explain that.

I won Nationals that year and got 3rd at Worlds and DJ is a HUGE reason that happened. I'm back on that same program now with him providing guidance along with my coach, Kris Allison. Bubba

[SlickVT]

DJ,

Interesting post. I am curious to know if anyone has calculated the average pole bend % of Tarasov or Bubka. Both did not bend the pole (at least from observation) anywhere close to 30%.

I believe (assuming the above is correct) that the reason for this is a quick, efficient swing and/or free takeoff that allowed for a very early shoulder "drop" and alignment with the pole.

I think it would interesting, if someone could get enough numbers, to create (what would have to be a 3-D) plot of data points with the axes being the following:

Grip height
% Pole Bend
Time elapsed through swing phase

This may lead to a common correlation and a smooth 3D curve that would link all of the models that have been discussed on here. Shading that curve with different colors for the different vaulters that utilized each model would shed a HUGE amount of light on the pro's and cons of each.

At the same time, up and coming vaulters who are looking to improve their technique and would benefit from information about all models could see the model they are currently performing, and from the graph see what to focus their efforts on to achieve the model that they are shooting for.

Just a small thought that entered my head.


Bing

[dj]

slickvt..

I think it would be interesting, if someone could get enough numbers, to create (what would have to be a 3-D) plot of data points with the axes being the following:

Grip height
% Pole Bend
Time elapsed through swing phase

i did all this in the early 80's with the info peter mcginnis collected.. i had a layout sheet 2 feet wide with the vaulters names and 10/15 pieces of data.. line up to compare... it's probably in one of my files in storage..

i'm sure he still has the papers he sent the vaulters.. or at least access to them..

bubka was bending 31% in those days... earl and mike 28%... mike changed and jumped higher and won silver in 84... m tully jumped "at" 19-5 during five of his vault practices that year...

and i'm sure peter has the data you mentioned on the current jumpers...

i did the data on tim macks 5.90 jump from the trials.. he had 30% + bend but completed the vault from Take off to max height in 1.46 seconds which matched bubka's swing speed, maybe a little faster...

later

dj

[SlickVT]

Interesting.

With a large enough table of information on a large number of vaults, some very interesting information could be gathered.

I would be interested to see the graphs that you created.

Good stuff

[Lax PV]

First off... very interesting post... often times I skim... I read this one entirely... weird. I helped out with Dr. McGinnis at the AT&T meet this year, and yes... the man has more data about the pole vault than any one person probably should. I know much of the data is on runway speed, however I know he has some full 3D plots of jumping based on the multiple cameras we had set up.

I find that many people always want to get to the next pole, even if they are hardly bending the pole they are currently on. Not that over bending is good but you are right in that poles should be bent to an certain amount. I have noticed this especailly in settings were poles are a premium and people end up holding 13' on a 15' pole (sometimes people just dont have the resources). But why not just work up to that 13'6" 14'6" grip range on the same pole... I feel as though it helps in the 'getting around a pole' and also makes the pole act more efficiently.

That being said, we should all go out and get 2D biomechanics video software to see how much the pole is shortening.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

We started a post earlier that relates to this one to a degree. As DJ and I have cussed and discussed for very long periods of time, I believe that the poles will perform much more efficiently if there is a distribution of forces applied to the pole both above the top of the sail piece with the top hand and somewhat below the top of the sail piece with the bottom hand. This will allow the most effective and consistantly symmetrical bend of the pole for the vaulter. That said we should all try to get our grips (and our athletes') as close to the top of the pole as possible.

[Tim McMichael]

I definitely started jumping higher and more consistently when I started trying to swing faster on softer poles instead of going to bigger and bigger sticks. I realized this when I hit a wall. I kept going to stiffer and stiffer poles till I hit one that moved faster than I could possibly swing to catch it. After that jump I knew there was just no way I could ever catch up with the return of a pole that big. This caused me to reconsider what I had to do to jump higher. Even though I was capable of moving a 195 to vertical, I did my best work on 180s and 185s.

Scott Huffman told me the same thing about his jump when he suddenly started going over 19' consistently. He said he jumped much better with poles slightly softer than the biggest ones he could get in on.

I don't have any hard numbers or data to add to this discussion, but I think this anecdotal information supports what dj is saying.