Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

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Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

Unread postby superpipe » Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:37 am

David Bussabarger just wrote an article in the latest edition of "Track Coach" that I feel is very unfair to the world wide pole vault community and attempts to drive pole vault education in the wrong direction. We have all read his theories in this forum. This article appears to be more of a "back lash" article than a serious constructive article on pole vault technique and proper coaching methods. I guess the scientists that helped establish the Petrov/Bubka Model with Petrov had no idea what they were doing. I apologize for my original statements as they were not professional so I attempted to "tone" them down in this edited version.
Last edited by superpipe on Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

Unread postby superpipe » Sun Jan 13, 2013 12:11 pm

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Re: Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

Unread postby 73-vaulter » Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:13 pm

You need not be so critical of the author, he was merely stating his opinion, granted I dissagree with him, but it is his opinion. Note, he adds no calculatable, or graphical, reasonings for his statements. Also note his statement; a push-off of 3'3" proves the efficiency of his method. Remember there are those that do not beleive in the moon landings, therfore, all things are possible.

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Re: Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

Unread postby superpipe » Sun Jan 13, 2013 1:35 pm

Sorry. You are right as it is not very professional to be as critical as I was and I admit I got alittle carried away. It is quite a bit more than opinion going on here though. This is much more of a "back lash" article against all of the disagreements on David's postings in this forum as apposed to a good constructive article on pole vault technique. I think that's extremely unfair to the world wide pole vault community especially considering the "eliteness" of the "Track Coach" journal for Track and Field education.
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Re: Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

Unread postby altius » Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:46 pm

Don’t get your knickers in a knot folks! When a chap is frustrated he should be given the chance to vent – it is good for one's mental health. And there can be nothing more frustrating than being an ‘expert’ whose expertise is now outdated and therefore unappreciated. With any luck I will die before it happens to me. The sad thing is that this article diminishes the journal that published it.

Kozak was a great athlete and his performance in Moscow, at a time when Russian/Polish relationships –never good – were particularly low, was both exceptional and timely. But I believe the world record mentioned was 5.76m??? - almost forty centimetres/ 16 inches below Bubbys' wr and a height since surpassed by perhaps a hundred vaulters. So it might have been more interesting to take a look at the technique of Kozak’s training partner Slusarski, who won the Olympics in 1976. Because he clearly used a free take off and this may well have been the stimulus for Petrov and his crew to take another look at vault technique. The coach of both athletes, the great Anje Krsysinski, believed in a “Toe tip take off”, which is to all intents and purposes a free take off. This can clearly be seen – as can Kozak’s technique in a fantastic black and white dvd Sean Brown has for sale on Neovault. This film also shows all of the great vaulters of the 80s and 90s and should be in every coaches library!!!

Incidentally I spent two weeks in Warsaw with Anje in late 79 and watched both athletes train. Learned that Kozak liked to do his own thing. Also learned not to drink Vodka on an empty stomach – or at all really.

To the article in question and the single statement
“Based on limited video evidence Kozak appears to reach top speed halfway through his run and then retains his speed through to take off.”
So much for empiricism, where it is important to study and accurately record a phenomenon many times before one can draw a conclusion.

However be that as it may, the sentence – if it is accurate – does capture a major weakness in the technique being described compared to the Petrov/Bubka model, which stresses the need to continue to accelerate through into the instant of take off. This is borne out by data from many of Bubka’s vaults which show that he did indeed continue to accelerate over the last 10/5 metres.

Just a thought – to revisit another old battle! This continued acceleration, which depended upon a highly controlled planting action, was probably one of the reasons why it was always assumed that he had incredible basic speed. After all he could grip higher on bigger poles than his competitors, many of whom were known to be very fast runners – so obviously he must be faster than them – hence the mythology that developed around his physical qualities. In fact it was the sophistication of his entire technical model – Carry/Plant/take off/continuous energy input/ that enabled him to optimize and exploit the speed he did have.
Its what you learn after you know it all that counts. John Wooden

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Re: Track Coach 202-Winter 2013

Unread postby AVC Coach » Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:20 pm

Interesting "take" on how it's supposed to be done. Imagine how high Kozak could have gone had he done a few things differently! I would be interested in the flex numbers on the poles he used. Weight ratings don't seem like a very good indicator, especially due to the changes of rating systems over the years. As said above in a previous post, everybody's entitled to their opinion though. Bussabarger likes the way Kozak vaults and seems to understand why he did things the way he did. That's all I got from the article.


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