Mental Challenge To Coaches and Athletes

This is a forum to discuss advanced pole vaulting techniques. If you are in high school you should probably not be posting or replying to topics here, but do read and learn.
ADTF Academy
PV Follower
Posts: 494
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2005 12:57 pm
Location: South Bend, IN

Mental Challenge To Coaches and Athletes

Unread postby ADTF Academy » Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:16 am

The Figures I'm about to give you are approximations to help challenge the mind and to possible aid in rethinking the vault in terms of passive moments you may have.

I realize the numbers are not perfect because the pole bends and unbends on a parabola, but it still gives a general idea of how quick the entire vault needs to take place.

In the vault the objective is to get the hips as high into the air as possible and land safely in the pits in doing so. Many ways to skin a cat on how to get there and terms people use.

However, take a look at the following figures and think to yourself is there things I'm doing that makes this a challenge. What passive moments am I creating that makes this not happen.

We must leave the ground with the hips under our shoulders performing a jumping action, create a swing to get the hips as high as we can and we must make a 180 degree turn. I do not wish to turn this into an argument as to how to perform those things. My goal on this post is to simple challenge the minds of some coaches and athletes into thinking about how much time exactly are they spending doing or thinking about any one aspect of the vault. Is that time being used wisely or is it taking away from the total time available in the vault.

Vaulter A: 18' Vaulter who is taking off at 13' with standards at 80cm (2 ft 8")
Vaulter B: 16' Vaulter who is taking off at 12' with standards at 80cm (2 ft 8")
Vaulter C: 12' Vaulter who is taking off at 10' with standards at 80cm (2ft 8")
Vaulter D: 20' Vaulter who is taking off at 14' with standards at 80cm (2ft 8")

Its been agreed upon that the average vault from toe off to max height should take 1.5 seconds or faster. With this in mind. Think in terms of the following.

Vaulter A must rotate the pole 15'8" horizontally to land safe and has roughly 23'11 on linear diagonal to complete takeoff, move hips from low to hips high and to perform a 180 degree rotation all in 1.5 seconds or faster or he will knock the bar off.

Vaulter B must rotate the pole 14'8" horizontally to land safe and has roughly 21'8" on a linear diagonal to complete takeoff, move hips from low to hips high and to perform 180 degree rotation all in 1.5 seconds or faster or he/she will knock the bar off.

Vaulter C must rotate the pole 12'8" horizontally to land safe and has roughly 17'6" on a linear diagonal to complete the takeoff, move hips from low to hips high and to perform a 180 degree rotation all in 1.5 seconds or faster or he/she will knock the bar off.

Vaulter D must rotate the pole 16'8" horizontally to land safe and has roughly 26' on a linear diagonal to complete the takeoff, move hips from low to hips high and to perform a 180 degree rotation all in 1.5 seconds or faster or he/she will knock the bar off.

Take a stop watch and try to hit 1.5 seconds on it. Notice how relatively fast it gets to 1.5 secs. Now watch video of your vault and time it. See what time your hitting from toe off to max height. Are you able to complete every aspect of the vault in 1.5 seconds or is something wrong. See where you're at in the vault when 1.5 seconds occurs. For a right handed vaulter if your left hip is in the way you have a passive moment opposite holds true for a lefty. I hope this way of looking at it helps some of the coaches and athletes out there really understand why so many coaches here preach there can be no passive moments in the vault. To many things have to happen in such a short period of time and space to operate.

Finally everything we do in the vault has a cause and effect. If the effect of an action takes us outside 1.5 seconds to complete the vault there is an issue. I realize and agree you must perfect point A before you can worry about point D. There is also a whole way of thinking and that is defined simply as entire vault completed in under 1.5 seconds.

User avatar
VaultPurple
PV Lover
Posts: 1079
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:44 pm
Expertise: Former College Vaulter, College Coach, Pole Vault Addict
Favorite Vaulter: Greg Duplantis
Location: North Carolina

Re: Mental Challenge To Coaches and Athletes

Unread postby VaultPurple » Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:56 pm

Where did you get the distance for linear diagonal to complete takeoff? Like how did you come up with the numbers?

Also, who came up with the 1.5 seconds?

I am not disagreeing, just wondering.

ADTF Academy
PV Follower
Posts: 494
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2005 12:57 pm
Location: South Bend, IN

Re: Mental Challenge To Coaches and Athletes

Unread postby ADTF Academy » Thu Jan 13, 2011 11:07 am

Majority of the Data from DJ and from personal timing of vaults and jumps of hundreds of vaulters. It is a rough benchmark not a must.


Like I said the linear diagonal is an estimate to show rough spacing and how little time we have. A^2 + B^2 = C^2...... Is this the exact distance we have? You would need to take into account grip height, pole length, amount of bend etc..... This is just giving people a rough understanding of how little time and distance we have in the vault to execute every segment.



If you think or have a pause in your jump you will not have enough time to complete the jump and land safely in the mats.


Return to “Pole Vault - Advanced Technique”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 34 guests