Rowing/Throwing?

[vaultman18]

Yet using the word 'hang' possibly encourages whoever you might be coaching to slip into a passive phase mindset.

Hanging from the top hand is inevitable it is simply what you do after take-off. This the same for a high bar. rings or rope. Pushing is passive, hanging allows you to swing.
Lets compromise and say don't bend the top arm it will neither push nor pull.

[powerplant42]

Agreed. I just don't like to say 'hang' because a lot of people take that to mean pull, you know what I'm saying? But straight is good.

[spike gibeault]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tuz-hVnGfk&feature=related

go to 2:30 exactly

[Tim McMichael]

I might make this the subject of a new thread at some point, but I will try to deal with it briefly here. The eternal debate between those who say we should pull and those who say we should row and those who say it is dangerous to try to do either one reveals a huge blank spot in our understanding of the vault. How can it be that so many elite vaulters and coaches could disagree so much on such a basic issue?

Here is what I think is going on. The major muscle used to pull on the pole is not the biceps. Anyone who tries to do a chin up on a moving pole is in big trouble, which is why many coaches teach that any pulling on the pole is dangerous, and given that this is their concept of "pulling," they are right to do so. However, if anyone tries to do a Bubka on a high bar without a pulling motion, they will find that it is impossible. The arms have to be involved in the process or the best an athlete can do is hinge at the waist and get their ankles instead of their hips to the bar.

I believe that the major muscle involved in getting the right motion started is the anterior serratus, which holds the scapula to the thoracic wall. This muscle can only do one thing and that is to rotate the shoulder both forwards and down. If you stand with your ams extended up over your head and push your shoulders up towards your ears as far as you can and then pull them down as far as you can in a sort of reverse shrug, you will see that the shoulders have to move both down and forwards. An athlete with a proper concept of the swing can focus on a forward, rowing motion and the shoulders must also pull down. Another athlete can focus on a downward, pulling motion and the shoulders must also row forwards. Each is describing the same movement, although in entirely different terms. The athlete's concept does not matter so much, as long as the anterior serratus fires at the right time and in such a way as to help add speed and power to the swing. I, personally, believe that the focus should be on more of a pulling motion, but I don't have time to go into that now.

I realize that this may not be exactly what is going on, and my detailed knowledge of anatomy is basic at best, but I think I am on the right track here. Anyone with a better understanding of these structures and how they move through a range of motion want to chime in?

[altius]

Good to see you back and in full flow Tim! However the issue is the same as in the post on counting - skilled behaviour is NON conscious behaviour - and never more so than in a dynamic activity like the whip swing into inversion in the pole vault -where hundredths of a second becomes a large unit of time and where the movement must be one continuous flow.

So what a biomechanist and a pole vault tragic might LIKE to know has little to do with what a vaulter NEEDS to to know. If we dont recognise this we may well get in the way of their development. The fact is that the brain/body nexus has evolved over millions of years to allow rapid skilled movement WITHOUT conscious thought - for this conveyed an evolutionary advantage - I say this with all due respect to the creationists out there.

This means that - whatever we know about how and why it all happens - and I am not convinced that even coaches need to know very much - we will be far more effective as coaches if we make sure that athletes have a clear picture of the total task- ie to whip into a vertical position above the pole as fast as they can - as soon as they can - after take off.

The athlete can often solve this problem for themselves intuitively -especially if they are given many opportunities to get close to that feeling by whip swinging on a high bar -an activity that can and should be introduced with as little information as possible. This is why I take a minimalist position re the movement into inversion and present the task as one where - in the early stages of learning -the athlete simply thinks of it as a dynamic whip swing on a moving high bar - this gets close enough to the exercise on a high bar to transfer and is close enough to what actually happens on the pole for even young athletes to make the transfer - so this movement is purely intuitive when performed well- information will get in the way.

I hope agapit will buy into this because a few weeks ago when we in France he told me that on one occasion he quizzed Bubka about this issue. As Roman tells it the great man said "I hit the take off -and then BAM - I am coming off the top of the pole'! This certainly ties in with what I learned from my first meeting with Petrov in 1986 where every time I asked about the 'rock back' and how to facilitate it, he essentially ignored my question and returned to detailing the mechanics of the take off; his view was that you get that right and all else follows.

So while in BTB2 I have introduced the notion of the vault comprising four stages of energy input (in order to help coaches better understand the apparently complex movement pattern that is pole vaulting) it is in fact a continuous chain of energy input - executed without conscious thought. Hence my minimalist approach to helping young athletes master it. That I was reasonably successful is confirmed by the images in both the book and dvd.

[Tim McMichael]

Good to see you back and in full flow Tim! However the issue is the same as in the post on counting - skilled behaviour is NON conscious behaviour - and never more so than in a dynamic activity like the whip swing into inversion in the pole vault -where hundredths of a second becomes a large unit of time and where the movement must be one continuous flow.

So what a biomechanist and a pole vault tragic might LIKE to know has little to do with what a vaulter NEEDS to to know. If we dont recognise this we may well get in the way of their development. The fact is that the brain/body nexus has evolved over millions of years to allow rapid skilled movement WITHOUT conscious thought - for this conveyed an evolutionary advantage - I say this with all due respect to the creationists out there.


This means that - whatever we know about how and why it all happens - and I am not convinced that even coaches need to know very much - we will be far more effective as coaches if we make sure that athletes have a clear picture of the total task- ie to whip into a vertical position above the pole as fast as they can - as soon as they can - after take off.

The athlete can often solve this problem for themselves intuitively -especially if they are given many opportunities to get close to that feeling by whip swinging on a high bar -an activity that can and should be introduced with as little information as possible. This is why I take a minimalist position re the movement into inversion and present the task as one where - in the early stages of learning -the athlete simply thinks of it as a dynamic whip swing on a moving high bar - this gets close enough to the exercise on a high bar to transfer and is close enough to what actually happens on the pole for even young athletes to make the transfer - so this movement is purely intuitive when performed well- information will get in the way.

I hope agapit will buy into this because a few weeks ago when we in France he told me that on one occasion he quizzed Bubka about this issue. As Roman tells it the great man said "I hit the take off -and then BAM - I am coming off the top of the pole'! This certainly ties in with what I learned from my first meeting with Petrov in 1986 where every time I asked about the 'rock back' and how to facilitate it, he essentially ignored my question and returned to detailing the mechanics of the take off; his view was that you get that right and all else follows.

So while in BTB2 I have introduced the notion of the vault comprising four stages of energy input (in order to help coaches better understand the apparently complex movement pattern that is pole vaulting) it is in fact a continuous chain of energy input - executed without conscious thought. Hence my minimalist approach to helping young athletes master it. That I was reasonably successful is confirmed by the images in both the book and dvd.

Part of the problem here is that we live in a culture that defines useful knowledge in terms of science. Ideas that can be talked about in clinical terms carry more weight. On the other hand, if an idea is not presented as having a detailed scientific basis, it is generally not considered worth much. As you well know, teaching the vault is as much an act of persuasion as it is an act of teaching. There is so much misinformation floating around out there that it is almost impossible to find a student who has not been affected by its influence. This is why I try to give both objective analysis (anterior serratus) and subjective instruction (reverse shrug) in what I present to large groups. I have to write to the audience that is in front of me.

The other problem is with the general attitude of students toward authority. I find I have to convince new students that I know what I am talking about before they will begin to listen. In Japan, for instance, an archery master can say, “Let the arrow fall from the bow as snow slips from a branch in the woods at night.â€

[gyver]

Anyone who reads, believes in and understands the concepts (simple concepts, I believe) that Tim and Altius have spoken about here will be well on their way to success in the pole vault, for their words are true.

[golfdane]

Thought often gets in the way when trying to execute fast.

Thought is necessary to train the movement slowly, but most often get in the way when things speed up. A way too ruin the competition for an athlete, is too overload him with technical detail on what he/she should correct.

Great stuff Tim and Alan!!

Golfer's often speak of "being in the zone". A "place" where actions no longer are forced upon you by conscious thought. Where all unnecessary input is shut out, and nothing get's in the way of proper execution. The execution you have spent hours of honing on the driving range, where there isn't any pressure to fly the lake, stay in bounds, avoid heavy rough or avoid the bogie when your opponent just made par.

In pole vault, these skills are aquired by trying to perfect all the tiny details in specifically designed drills. Where the body and mind aquires the movement pattern and feel, and learns how to fire the synapses in the correct order for each phase of the vault.
Like chimneys, should the vault be built from the bottom. It all starts with the run-up. Not much sense in trying to perfect inversion when your run-up stinks.

[decanuck]

I believe that the major muscle involved in getting the right motion started is the anterior serratus, which holds the scapula to the thoracic wall. This muscle can only do one thing and that is to rotate the shoulder both forwards and down.

For those who haven't a clue what muscle Tim's talking about, here are some cross-sectional images of the serratus anterior:
http://www.exrx.net/Muscles/SerratusAnterior.html

While it may not be beneficial for athletes to learn the complex muscle contractions behind the movement patterns they're learning, as Alan suggests, I think they may be useful for a coach to know so that strength and conditioning exercises specific to these muscles can be included in an athlete's training program. To that end, here are some ways to work the muscle Tim mentioned:
http://www.exrx.net/Lists/ExList/ChestWt.html#anchor682036

So while consciously thinking about contracting this muscle may be a barrier to an effective vault, if it does indeed play a critical role, strengthening it can only improve the movement patterns that are better learned by replicating simple movements. I think...

I don't know about doing that incline shoulder raise all season though. Maybe just in base training. Bench press and pullovers would be a more dynamic/explosive alternative for the competition season.

Thoughts?

[vault3rb0y]

Gyver is either agapit or a cross breed of him.

The biblical reference did not go unnoticed .


Anyway, a little question about rowing, pushing.

Having begun my high school physics class this semester (i truly, truly am sorry for all of you ) i cant help but put this is simple physics terms. Obviously you apply a pushing counter force to the pole after take off, because the pole in the back of the box is applying a force towards the back of the runway, and if you didn't apply the counter force it would just slip back out of your hands. Now if your hands are above your head at the plant, and you only apply as much force as necessary to counteract the box pressure, your hands will stay directly over your head. So since you are already applying forward pressure to the pole, can that not be the forward instantaneous "rowing" that initiates the swing? And in a correct inverted C, i believe your hands do come a pit behind your head, and when you swing forward they simply come back to being centered over your head. If thats all the "rowing" you are talking about to be necessary to initiate the swing, it doesnt even seem worth talking about.
It seems to me that rowing should be defined as your hands coming past the centerline with your body over your head, and out of proper allignment, and should be defined as a bad thing. Keeping your hands over your head and just applying a counterforce should be called good technique.

[altius]

3po states "i cant help but put this is simple physics terms. Obviously you apply a pushing counter force to the pole after take off, because the pole in the back of the box is applying a force towards the back of the runway, and if you didn't apply the counter force it would just slip back out of your hands. Now if your hands are above your head at the plant, and you only apply as much force as necessary to counteract the box pressure, your hands will stay directly over your head. So since you are already applying forward pressure to the pole, can that not be the forward instantaneous "rowing" that initiates the swing? And in a correct inverted C, i believe your hands do come a pit behind your head, and when you swing forward they simply come back to being centered over your head. If thats all the "rowing" you are talking about to be necessary to initiate the swing, it doesnt even seem worth talking about.
It seems to me that rowing should be defined as your hands coming past the centerline with your body over your head, and out of proper allignment, and should be defined as a bad thing. Keeping your hands over your head and just applying a counterforce should be called good technique."

Now we have that all clear I think we can move on to the next simple element of the vault - whatever that may be. However I do wonder if some folk bother to read the posts which precede theirs.

[vault3rb0y]

I read your post, altius, but stated it differently in the way that I understand it, so that other high schoolers might understand it like i did.