Does the Russian model represent ideal technique?

[altius]

In the context of the immediate discussion ADTF Academy is right to restate the importance of the shortening of the pole in allowing many ordinary vaulters to jump relatively high. In fact I have always thought that the ease with which they could do this was a major reason for Don Braggs irritation with those who subsequently jumped higher than him using truly flexible pole. However superpipe's analysis of the advantages of the Bubka method in this phase of the vault is as accurate and concise as anyone could wish. The emphasis on the importance of an extended leg leg swing throughout the inversion is especially timely, since film is appearing of the present range of elite vaulters who flex it into a tuck, and as he suggests, therefore waste the chance to put more energy into the pole.

That said many vaulters are forced to tuck because they still don't take advantage of the advantages the Petrov Bubka model brings in the run. plant and take off. Difficult to believe but......!

Finally I would suggest that if anyone has the time to do the calculations, it would interesting to know what the differential would have been in Bubka's winning jump in 97. The one he said would have cleared 6.40 -a claim made reasonable when we look at film of that jump - especially when the overlaid technical information indicates that his COM was over 6.50M.

[botakatobi]

Of historical note,

The world records that surpassed Bragg were first achieved by Davies and Uelses on glass poles.

Both held lower than Bragg, yet jumped higher.

Due to the almost zero hand spacing of the earliest glass vaulters, their top grips were relatively low, compared to vaulters from 1963 on who found a wider handspread necessary to better untilize the advantages of the glass pole.

Bragg commented that "Vaulting has become catapulting", as he believed that the pole was now doing all or most of the work.

Jenks probably picked up on the word "catapulting" for his new company Catapole.

[charlie]

BEST post yet of telling like it is!!!! You are dead on! Your opinion is carbon copy of mine!!! Look out, they will jump all over you like they have me! Tell them to eat their heart out!!! Ask them what happens when you put an arrow in a bow and pull it back!!! You don't have to be a ROCKET scientist to understand that!! Had a dissscussion this weekend with a 19'6" vaulter and he said, coach you are in a class by yourself and you are DEAD ON on your analysis!!!!

[charlie]

Sorry, my response was to the response of SUPERPIPE!!!!

[altius]

Make sure you read ALL of ALL the posts carefully Charlie!!

[altius]

You might also find pages 39,40 and 41 of BTB2 interesting, Charlie. A pretty good analysis of the advantages of the flexible pole, even if I do say so myself.

[grandevaulter]

Keep going further BTB2, to page 42, paragraph 6 , illustration 7.6 that describes the differences of end swing angles between Bubka and Warmerdam and the affects of pole shortening and lengthening. Magnificent book!

[ADTF Academy]

I beg to differ. The technique has been there for a long time to accomplish big push offs well over 4'. The problem is 95% of the world refuses to use the same technique as Bubka. More specifically, a straight trail leg swing. Most vaulters are taught the "tuck and shoot" method ( even if they use the bottom arm correctly ). People love to fight physics for some reason.

If you go based on hypothetical height than my woman has jumped near 16'.... The only thing that matters in our sport is did the bar stay up or did it fall? The goal does need to be accomplished as safe as possible. We do not get scored for how the vault looks only if the bar stayed. Vaulters now can't settle the bar with their hand or even touch it with short pegs for that matter. What would the WR be if those factors were in effect. How many clearances where done 100% clean with no touch from the first bar to the WR? These are things we can only talk about like drugs. If it was height x score to determine winner this would be a much different sport. If your girl loses to an ugly looking vaulter well teach her to jump higher, don't trash the other athlete for jumping ugly. Personally that makes you a horrible coach if you do that. She beat your girl by the rules of the sport. I'll make the point we need to be safe but there are too many people out there forgetting the fact we need to go HIGHER..... The objective of athletics is to run faster, jumper further and jump higher. I don't see HJ coaches teaching their athletes well you can't try to jump high till you master the flop. Than we can jump high. No they jump as high as they can and learn on to do the flop as they go. It's not quite that easy in the vault, but has been done safely for years.

A straight trail leg swing will keep loading a pole allowing a vaulter to use a stiffer pole AND have the COM in the right position to exploit the recoil of the pole ( assuming correct usage of the bottom arm at take-off ). A Straight trail leg swing provides more leverage and therefore high rotational force is applied to the pole. It also keeps the pole "rolling forward". "Tuck and Shooters" apply very little rotational force to the pole not only because it's less leverage, but also because they are applying the rotational force under their top hand ( "under" the pole instead of "over" the pole ). This combined with their COM at a point farther towards the runway than if a straight trail leg swing was used, means less loading of the pole and a poor position on the pole to exploit the recoil. Bubka made the inversion look easy. He doesn't fight to get there, instead he can easily move with the recoil to add even more energy coming off the top. "Tuck and Shooters" are fighting like hell to get aligned with the pole since their COM is too far back. Instead of moving with the pole's recoil and adding more energy, they are loosing energy fighting to get aligned and catch up with the pole's recoil that started before they even finished their tuck.

How many times have we seen Bubka let go early off the top and still "explode off the pole"? Regardless of why he felt he had to "bail" off his pole early, he still has a crazy amount of released energy off the pole because he loaded it more and was in the right position to work with the recoil of the pole.

Coaching in a bubble is easy. You get a theory and you stick to it. Coaching in reality makes you look at the big picture. For me I look at these exact comments and I go ya makes sense in a bubble. I look at the actually experiences and I go well Bubka like vaulting as explained here utilities the swing to create the energy to get the blow. A Tuck shoot kind of vaulter is trying to catch the bend and hopefully get thrown. Physics states either is a reasonable logic so it because our own personal opinion. Either way still doesn't dismiss the point I was trying to make. We are not getting that much more blow on average than what stiff pole vaulters were getting we can just grip a ton higher than them.... PERIOD>>>>>>

A beginner girl can jump 8' the first day by pulling her body over the bar. The result looks amazing and what she did "worked" for 8', but will she jump much higher? "Tuck and Shooters" jumping 19' looks amazing and it worked, but will they jump 20' or 21' like Bubka? There's a million ways to jump 18' mostly based on speed, body height, and vertical jump capability, but why not use human biomechanics and the simply laws of physics to make the best use of your athletic qualities instead of literally fighting the laws of physics?

Like I said before at the end of the day its not how it looks. The question is what was cleared. This needs to be done as safe and effective as possible. I've seen hundreds of vaulters who spend hours trying to be like Bubka just to jump 12'....... That doesn't sound like being like Bubka to me. It's like the whole be like Mike.... If you can't dunk than sorry you can't be like Mike. Go be like Larry Bird and shoot the "3". If you own a factory making widgets stick to making widgets vaulters are born not assembled.

My comments are to the vault community, not directed at you ADTF Academy. I was just using your observation of alot of vaulters as a starting point.

Same!!!!! I don't take anything personal on this site. I like a good technical discussion as much as anyone else. I learned a while back its one thing to say something is doable its another thing to prove it. Trust me the same problems you have working with an 8' girl are the same problems you will have working with a 15' woman. Difference is you can't go back to square zero to learn it 100% correctly. You either jump high or don't eat. You must learn to adapt, adjust and alter on the fly. The vault like any other movement based event is one you learn by doing not by theories.

If you ever made the comment in your head if only I had an elite to work with boy would I do well. Id show all these people how to coach. Sorry elites are born and molded they don't just randomly appear. I've seen more coaches run for the woods once they get an up and coming elite jumper than actually own up to the fact its not as easy as it may seem. The life of zero pay and tons of pressure. Wouldn't want it any other way!!!!!!!

[superpipe]

I beg to differ. The technique has been there for a long time to accomplish big push offs well over 4'. The problem is 95% of the world refuses to use the same technique as Bubka. More specifically, a straight trail leg swing. Most vaulters are taught the "tuck and shoot" method ( even if they use the bottom arm correctly ). People love to fight physics for some reason.

If you go by hypothetical height than my woman jumped 16'.... The only thing that matters in our sport is did the bar stay up or did it fall? This goal needs to be accomplished as safe as possible. We do not get scored for how the vault looks only if the bar stayed. Vaulters now can't settle the bar with their hand or even touch it with short pegs. What would the WR be if those factors were in effect. How many clearances where done 100% clean with no touch from the first bar to the WR? These are things we can only talk about like drugs. If it was height x score to determine winner this would be a much different sport. If your girl loses to an ugly looking vaulter well teach her to jump higher, don't trash the other athlete for jumping ugly. Personally that makes you a horrible coach if you do that. She beat your girl by the rules of the sport. I'll make the point we need to be safe but there is to many people out there forgetting the fact we need to go HIGHER..... The objective of athletics is to run faster, jumper further and jump higher. I don't see HJ coaches teaching their athletes well you can't try to jump high till you master the flop. Than we can jump high. No they jump as high as they can and learn on to do the flop as they go.

I only made sense of the last 2 sentences, so I'll comment to them. Just as Alan states very clearly in his book AND my own clear evidence of using physics ( which again, why would anyone fight PROVEN Physics) in coaching all of my athletes, ANYONE that starts learning the vault, can start learning the CORRECT way to do it from day one and clear bars. Obviously you won't master the technique for a long time, if ever. That's true for anything, but you sure as hell wouldn't teach "bad habits" in the beginning just so someone can jump "high" as fast as possible. That's just irresponsible coaching.

A straight trail leg swing will keep loading a pole allowing a vaulter to use a stiffer pole AND have the COM in the right position to exploit the recoil of the pole ( assuming correct usage of the bottom arm at take-off ). A Straight trail leg swing provides more leverage and therefore high rotational force is applied to the pole. It also keeps the pole "rolling forward". "Tuck and Shooters" apply very little rotational force to the pole not only because it's less leverage, but also because they are applying the rotational force under their top hand ( "under" the pole instead of "over" the pole ). This combined with their COM at a point farther towards the runway than if a straight trail leg swing was used, means less loading of the pole and a poor position on the pole to exploit the recoil. Bubka made the inversion look easy. He doesn't fight to get there, instead he can easily move with the recoil to add even more energy coming off the top. "Tuck and Shooters" are fighting like hell to get aligned with the pole since their COM is too far back. Instead of moving with the pole's recoil and adding more energy, they are loosing energy fighting to get aligned and catch up with the pole's recoil that started before they even finished their tuck.

How many times have we seen Bubka let go early off the top and still "explode off the pole"? Regardless of why he felt he had to "bail" off his pole early, he still has a crazy amount of released energy off the pole because he loaded it more and was in the right position to work with the recoil of the pole.

Coaching in a bubble is easy. You get a theory and you stick to it. Coaching in reality makes you look at the big picture. For me I look at these exact comments and I go ya makes sense in a bubble. I look at the actually experiences and I go well Bubka like vaulting as explained here utilities the swing to create the energy to get the blow. A Tuck shoot kind of vaulter is trying to catch the bend and hopefully get thrown. Physics states either is a reasonable logic so it because our own person opinion. Either way still doesn't dismiss the point I was trying to make. We are not getting that much more blow on average than what stiff pole vaulters were getting we can just grip a ton higher than them.... PERIOD>>>>>>

Physics does NOT state either is logical, that's the whole point. A straight trail leg swing is better by ALREADY defined laws of physics AND what human biomechanics allows of human movement. This is proven science, not theory. Why are people trying to "re-invent the wheel" when is has already been done and proven?

Here's a young Abby Schaffer proving the straight trail leg swing perfectly. Not theory, proven science. No bubble, reality. "Tuck and Shoot" would have never allowed the same jump:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygNmb3gol3g

A beginner girl can jump 8' the first day by pulling her body over the bar. The result looks amazing and what she did "worked" for 8', but will she jump much higher? "Tuck and Shooters" jumping 19' looks amazing and it worked, but will they jump 20' or 21' like Bubka? There's a million ways to jump 18' mostly based on speed, body height, and vertical jump capability, but why not use human biomechanics and the simply laws of physics to make the best use of your athletic qualities instead of literally fighting the laws of physics?

Like I said before at the end of the day its not how it looks. The question is what was cleared. This needs to be done as safe and effective as possible. I've seen hundreds of vaulters who spend hours trying to be like Bubka just to jump 12'....... That doesn't sound like being like Bubka to me. It's like the whole be like Mike.... If you can't dunk than sorry you can't be like Mike. Go be like Larry Bird and shoot the "3". If you own a factory making widgets stick to making widgets vaulters are born not assembled.

There's a BIG difference between "trying to look like Bubka" and having a coach that UNDERSTANDS the Petrov/Bubka technical model and how to train an athlete to progressively learn it. A good coach WON"T look at what was cleared at the end of the day, but instead look at HOW it was accomplished.

The vault like any other movement based event is one you learn by doing not by theories.

WRONG. If you have no theory to work with, what is your basis of learning? Again, the stuff I'm stating are theories that were proven eons ago by physics and known human biomechanics. I'm not pulling this stuff out of my butt.

[coachjvinson]

Here's a young Abby Schaffer proving the straight trail leg swing perfectly. Not theory, proven science. No bubble, reality. "Tuck and Shoot" would have never allowed the same jump:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygNmb3gol3g

I am not trying to get into the debate necessarily, as I have not stayed exactly current with this particular thread...

However, I simply want to state that the young athlete in the video has very nice form; nice work...!!!

[superpipe]

Ha. Not my athlete. She worked with Vertical Assault PV Club in PA. She came from a gymnastics background and most gymnasts seem to have phenom swings. Their approach runs and take-offs are usually the biggest issues for them. Yeah, crazy good form and a ridiculous jump for that pole size. That was her in high school. She's in college now. I'm originally from PA so I pay attention to athletes in that area. Plus I've met some of the clubs, like Vertical Assault at big meets. It's a great club and they have tons of athletes. It's semi-close to my home town, but unfortunately never existed when I was young.

[altius]

[quote="altius"
Finally I would suggest that if anyone has the time to do the calculations, it would interesting to know what the differential would have been in Bubka's winning jump in 97. The one he said would have cleared 6.40 -a claim made reasonable when we look at film of that jump - especially when the overlaid technical information indicates that his COM was over 6.50M.[/quote]

Since there has been no response to that question, and just to stir the pot -I will hypothesise that - given he was gripping at 5.07m - the differential on that jump would have been over 48" - probably similar figures on his other jumps in that competition. Grandevaulter touched on one major reason why it would have been possible for Bubka to exceed Warmerdam's push for example. And he reminded me that on Page 42 of BTB I wrote

"A comparison of the angles Warmerdam and Bubka left the pole illustrates another advantage of the flexible pole. Because of the continuing forward movement of the flexed pole as it rotated towards the plane of the bar, Bubka could swing back beyond the vertical (Figure 7.6) and then come off the pole at a very high angle, confident that he could reach the safety of the pad. Warmerdam on the other hand had to swing over the bar from a pole which had virtually stopped its forward movement; this meant he had to come off the pole at a much lower angle, thus sacrificing height for safety."

In fact the black and white clip of Bubka on the BTB dvd shows an incredible situation where he is continuing the inversion moving AWAY from the bar -while the pole carries him towards it. So the increased pole speed gained from the shortening pole enabled him to get into positions that allowed an increased differential. Superpipe's initial analysis above was spot on because pole speed was maintained by energy being continually put into the pole, and especially by the long swing of the left leg as he inverted. This is important because it suggests a major advantage over the tuck and shoot approach - which we are seeing more of at the elite level.

ADTF - I, and imagine most who know anything about the vault in the USA, appreciate your dedication and commitment - and your success - as a coach in the face of all manner of problems that make it difficult for you to achieve your goals. So I understand your emphasis on the practical nature of the challenges coaches face. However I hope you are not implying that folk who believe that theory can help us solve our problems are living in "a bubble", somehow removed from the real world. I don't think you are - but it would be nice if you could clarify what you do mean. My own philosophy is captured by the aphorism/proverb "Let not thy learning exceed thy deeds. Mere knowledge is not the goal, but action."