PoleVaultPower.com

Has anyone seen this Training device called the Catavault? If anything it looks fun...

http://sporttectraining.com/

Looking at their vid, it sure looks fun, and if I was young again, I wouldn't hesitate to give it a go!

But don't be fooled into thinking that this is a good substitute for REAL pole vaulting.

The actions that it imposes on the vaulter's body are NOT NATURAL. The only way you can really get your body posture into the same position, with the SAME MOMENTUM as when you TAKEOFF after RUNNING DOWN THE RUNWAY is ... by RUNNING DOWN THE RUNWAY!

Yeh, it looks like fun. But IMHO, it's not a serious training tool, unless your ankles are shot and you can't wait ... you just HAVE to get back on the pole!

If you do this excercise repeatedly, I fear that you will eventually imprint an incorrect swinging action into your head (and body), and your REAL pole vaulting will suffer as a consequence.

Instead of the inventor of the device or the demonstrator doing this, I wonder if they ever considered doing hip-circles-to-handstands on the highbar? Or the "Whip Drill"? If you REALLY want to simulate REAL pole vaulting, those two are the bread-and-butter drills!

I wonder what the advantage of this drill is over the 2 highbar drills?

BTW, I loved doing POOL VAULTING too, but I was never under the misconception that I needed to extend my body in a REAL vault just like I did in the pool. And I didn't do it that often, since it required me to hold my breath under water.

Just my 2 cents.

Kirk

There's already a thread on this.

PP, if there's already a thread started about this device, it would be helpful if you could provide the link. I searched for various combinations of "Cata", "Vault", "sport" and "tec", and I came up dry.


At first glance, one might think that this device truly simulates an actual vault. On their website, SportTec make this claim ...

THE CATA-VAULT IS THE ULTIMATE POLE VAULT TRAINING SYSTEM!!
... By propelling the athlete at their normal runway speed the Cata-Vault is an exact simulation of an actual Vault.

Just by observing the vid and still pics, I can see that these claims are just marketing hyperbole.

In the pic above, the vaulter APPEARS to have a really nice SPLIT position, then swings to a parital invert (but flagging out), clearing the bar.

However, if you look closer, you will see that:

1. The vaulter is NOT being propelled "at his normal runway speed". At the start of the drill, he's simply standing on an elevated platform, without any means of bending the pole in the way you would by your "normal runway speed". Being PULLED by the device does NOT simulate the momentum you get from your run and takeoff!

2. The vaulter is way too high above his takeoff point. You will NEVER be in this body posture on a real vault, that high up in the air!

3. For the entire duration of the drill, the pole is PULLING the vaulter up and over the bar - not much different than you would use your fiberglass rod to cast your line in fly fishing! This is the opposite of what happens in a real vault. In a real vault, the first phase after the vaulter leaves the ground, the vaulter is TRANSFERRING ENERGY INTO THE POLE (thru mostly the top hand). In the SECOND phase of the vault (roughly after the vaulter passes the chord and has already begun inverting), the pole transfers this energy back, "pulling" the vaulter up - STRAIGHT UP. There's a world of difference between these two!

4. I'm not quite sure how the device simulates the transition of the twisting motion of the pole from a FORWARDS bend (towards the pit) to a SIDEWAYS bend (towards one of the standards). The details aren't shown or explained, so I don't know how the vaulter would get "around" the pole if it doesn't twist to the side like a real pole. It seems to me that if the device is PULLING the vaulter, a direct FORWARDS bend will persist.

Since the inventor's premise (presumably) is that the potential energy stored in the battery of the device represents the potential energy stored in the pole during a vault, this drill should ONLY simulate the 2nd phase of the vault (the swing/extension phase after the vaulter passes the chord).

To accomplish this, the device would have to somehow allow the vaulter get into this position on the pole, ALONG WITH HAVING THE MOMENTUM THAT HE HAS TO GET TO THAT POSITION. Unless those 2 prerequisites are solved, this device is far from "an exact simulation of an actual Vault". IMHO, it's futile to think that this can be achieved.

In my previous post, I had suggested that it's an innovative device that I would try, just for the fun of it. However, in reading their online literature more carefully, they're not marketing this as something you'd just play around with on a Sunday afternoon, just for fun. They're marketing it as "THE ULTIMATE PV TRAINING SYSTEM". That's very misleading - to the point of false adverstising!

PV training is all about putting your time and energy into the drills that give you the most bang for the buck. This isn't one of them. In fact, if MONEY is an additional factor, then I doubt that this device makes it into any HS or college program.

To be fair, the vid suggests that it's a useful "rehab" training device. I will at least concede that if you're unable to run down the runway, this could at least keep you active - but not any better than swinging on rings or highbar ... or POOL VAULTING ... in terms of actual vault simulation!

Kirk

KirkB wrote:To be fair, the vid suggests that it's a useful "rehab" training device. I will at least concede that if you're unable to run down the runway, this could at least keep you active - but not any better than swinging on rings or highbar ... or POOL VAULTING ... in terms of actual vault simulation!

Kirk

I've seen it in action. I think it would be most useful as a rehab tool for more advanced athletes who are already fairly strong and skilled in the vault. It doesn't seem to be that useful for beginning athletes because it's not easy to time up with. I think it's better than swinging on rings/highbar/pool vaulting in terms of actual vault simulation, but only if you have mastered those skills and know how to vault.

When I was in high school, we had volleyball net poles with bases made of truck tires filled with concrete. If you tipped one over, you could hold the top of the pole (about 8 feet), leap upward, and the base would fall flat, pulling the pole vertical. The video seemed similar to the volleyball net pole stunt we used to do.

Rhino wrote: ... stunt ...

STUNT, you say ...

For all my complaints about this device not being very helpful for training serious vaulters for serious vaulting, I'm thinkiing that there might be a "stunt" aspect of this that there might be a market for somewhere! Not quite sure where, but perhaps as a "demo event" at a beach vault?

Or ...

How about as the half-time show at a basketball game? The usual problem with those kinds of shows is the setup and teardown time, especially for the heavy, bulky pit (not to mention the issue of the box and runway). This might (MIGHT!) be an alternative that fits ...

1. Wheel the device to near center court (off center to avoid the JumboTron).
2. Set up 2 standards and a bungee. The standards don't have to be regulation - they can be very light telescopic ones designed specifically for this.
3. Have guy wires already installed from the rafters.
4. Have the athletes already strapped into harnesses ... the type that trampolinists use to safely learn their triples and quads.
5. Set the bar to a "WR" height. Say 6.40.
6. Hook up the first athlete, and let'er rip!

I think a traveling team of 3 woulld work well for this. Two athletes, plus a coach/announcer. The coach/announcer would be even more important to the spectacle than the athletes, as it's all about hype and showmanship.

The athletes could be ex-vaulters or ex-gymnasts. Since gymnasts have inferior running skills to vaulters, this particular "stunt" might level the playing field quite a bit! It would not surprise me if the gymnasts can surpass the vaulters here! For example (given the physics of using this device), a gymnast with Jason Colwick's double-leg whip technique would probably go higher on this device than a single-leg swing technique.

Keep in mind that this stunt SHOULD NOT be something that a serious pole vaulter should do to finance his career. Rather, it might be something that he might consider doing AFTER his vaulting career is over.

The announcer could really get the crowd into the action, by cheering for their favorite athlete, and by raising the bar higher and higher. You might even have the team mascot (often a gymnast or acrobatic cheerleader type) get into the game!

... or for suspense, set up the bungee but don't tell the crowd right away that the athletes will be wearing wires. So it looks like they're going to vault over the bungee and land on the bare floor! Then, have one of them swing down from the rafters on his guy wire, and report in for his first "catapult". I'm suggesting this "grand entrance" after having seen the mascot from the Vancouver Ravens (a former pro lacrosse team) swing down this way! He was a riot, and all he did was make his grand entrance that way! But then ... to vaulter over 21 FEET ... WITHOUT A PIT ... wouldn't that be something!!!???

Oh ... one more thing ... the guy wires (hooked to pulley and a couple spotters pulling him up) could be used to assist the vaulter to jump even higher! (yeh, that would be cheating, but this would just be a "demonstration sport"!

OK, call me crazy! If I was young again, I'd sign up for this job in a hearbeat!

Kirk