Female Vaulters

[VaultPurple]

I am yet to see why at the professional level, female pole vaulting takes so long to progress with.

What I mean by this is, you have a girl jump 15' and she is one of the top pole vaulters in the world. What do you think is hindering the heights of female vaulters vs. male vaulters. I know the female world record will never be higher than the mens, but should it be so far off.

In my opinion people do not spend enough time training speed for female vaulters compared to men. If you look at male pole vaulters 17-19 feet, some of those guys may not even be able to break 11 in the 100. Ive seen guys run mid to upper 11s and jump 17 feet. And Ive seen at the same time girls run sub 11 on the professional level, and multiple girls running sub 12 on the high school level.

And since it is argued on here all the time that pole vaulters do not need to be body builders, the muscle ability and strength should not be much of a difference.

In my opinion professional women will start going over 17' when coaches start recruiting sprinters and training them to vault.

I mean there is the whole thing about convincing them to vault and wanting to do it.




Also, does anyone know the stats for other events on the top women vaulters? Like 60 or 100 time. People always talk about Bubka being a low 10s guy. What about Yellana or Jenn?

[kcvault]

Personally I run an 11.6 100m and have jumped 17-8. I have seen several female pole vaulters who are alot faster then me. Which leads me to belive that other then speed how high someone vaults is also is determined by facters such as how high is there verticle leap, how is there weight distributed throughout there body, How strong they are and how much energy they can put into the pole during the take off phase other then the enegy they put in by running fast. Isinbayeva is much faster then me with far better technique so why am I able to jump higher. There is clearly several more variables between men and women then how fast they are.

[Andy_C]

One of the biggest issues is power to weight ratio. Guys don't have to worry about it as much but women who want to make the elite level will have to concern themselves about their weight. The gals will put on more body weight as fat than guys will.

Also, the basic structure of the female body is a lot different from guys - of particular concern for pole vault are the hips and legs. What you end up with is that women typically do not have the upper body strength like guys have but at the same time their lower bodies become relatively heavier as a girl grows and becomes more "womanly". This will make the swing suffer and as a result you get very few women capable of covering the pole well enough to exploit the recoil like a guy would. One of the reasons why you don't frequently get girls with a massive push is because the swing isn't as effective. A lot of girls tend to open out flat over the bar because of this.

Then there's the hormones issue... aggressiveness on the track... ect.

Keep in mind that it's not how fast you can run... it's how well you can run with a pole. Speed doesn't matter if you don't have the technique make use of it. The way I think of it; speed, strength and coordination makes things possible but technique makes things happen. Additionally, I notice that there's a certain type of mentality that successful pole vaulters have. All things considered, just because you're fast doesn't mean you can pole vault.

I would imagine that these 11 or 12 second girls would be more involved with sprints or even long jump before the end up in the pole vault. If there are a lot of females doing 11-12 seconds in the 100 doing pole vault then there should be a lot more 4.50m+ women! Otherwise, that would suggest that there are HUGE problems technique wise.

I hope I really don't sound like a chauvinist and I'm trying to be as objective as possible. There are always get women with incredible abilities jumping tremendous heights. Being a guy, I'm probably not the best source of knowledge on the subject matter and somebody else from the actual gender could key in some other important things here!

[PVJunkie]

Looking at the #'s in the events where the only variable is male vs female and figuring what % of the mens WR have the Women achieved (assuming we would all agree that those events are "mature"). Then applying that to the vault:

100 - Men 9.58/Women 10.49 = .9132
200 - Men 19.19/Women 21.34 = .8993
400 - Men 43.18/Women 47.60 = .9071
LJ - Men 8.95/Women 7.52 = .8402
TJ - Men 18.29/Women 15.50 = .8475
HJ - Men 2.45/Women 2.09 = .8531

PV - Men 6.14/Women 5.06 = .8241

The average of just the three field events is .8469 so when the womens WR is 5.20 you could say they have "caught up" (5.20 is 84.69% of 6.14). If you take the 3 sprint events into account the average of all 6 is .8768 and they would be caught up when the womens WR is 5.38.

Food for thought. Feel free to add more events to this is you want.

Is something holding them back? Or are the demands of the event that much greater than other events that the "peak" is near. The LJ, TJ and HJ are all mature events but they still lag significantly behind the sprint events.

[KYLE ELLIS]

Looking at the #'s in the events where the only variable is male vs female and figuring what % of the mens WR have the Women achieved (assuming we would all agree that those events are "mature"). Then applying that to the vault:

100 - Men 9.58/Women 10.49 = .9132
200 - Men 19.19/Women 21.34 = .8993
400 - Men 43.18/Women 47.60 = .9071
LJ - Men 8.95/Women 7.52 = .8402
TJ - Men 18.29/Women 15.50 = .8475
HJ - Men 2.45/Women 2.09 = .8531

PV - Men 6.14/Women 5.06 = .8241

The average of just the three field events is .8469 so when the womens WR is 5.20 you could say they have "caught up" (5.20 is 84.69% of 6.14). If you take the 3 sprint events into account the average of all 6 is .8768 and they would be caught up when the womens WR is 5.38.

Food for thought. Feel free to add more events to this is you want.

Is something holding them back? Or are the demands of the event that much greater than other events that the "peak" is near. The LJ, TJ and HJ are all mature events but they still lag significantly behind the sprint events.

Thats a pretty good way to look at it. I think it will be close to the jumping events like you indicated. I think it will take a athlete like jenn stuczynski with technical effecieny of Bubka to jump 5.20... But if someone found a Jackie Joyner Kersey and taught her to vault, I could see a woman pushing 5.50... But the thing is if you have an athlete like Jackie how are you going to convince her to do the hardest and scariest event in track and field????

[tsorenson]

An obvious factor that is being overlooked here is height...female vaulters are significantly shorter on the average, thus have a lower initial center-of-mass, and leave the ground with a lower pole-to-ground angle than do men...which also requires a takeoff point farther out for the same grip height. To me, this factor is more relevant than strength/weight ratios, or swing effectiveness. Many female vaulters can execute gymnastic drills for vaulting with equal or greater mastery than most men, and are often just as fast on the runway. The pole/ground angle at takeoff is a very important factor, which I believe is largely behind this discrepancy.
Of course there are exceptions, and I am aware that there have been plenty of excellent vaulters who are not tall, but by and large, elite vaulters (both men and women) are relatively tall.
Tom

[dj]

hye

i think when the women's record was 15'2" i handed steve chappell a piece of paper that said 17-3..

that was what i came up with by comparing the mens 100m and long jump to the PV world record and projected the womens based on the 100m and long jump records at the time.

why don't we take a good side view video of a women 5-8 tall jumping say 16ish and a man 5-8 tall jumping the same height and have dave job (ladyvolspvcoach) overlay them on Dartfish and see what we find.

i personally think the women overall, US and the rest of the world, have the physical ability to jump higher.. and we should have numerous 16 footers and a 17 footer by now..

i think it's in the run.. with the right pole and right grip... and "hammer" everything right down the middle of the pit..

dj

[KYLE ELLIS]

An obvious factor that is being overlooked here is height...female vaulters are significantly shorter on the average, thus have a lower initial center-of-mass, and leave the ground with a lower pole-to-ground angle than do men...which also requires a takeoff point farther out for the same grip height. To me, this factor is more relevant than strength/weight ratios, or swing effectiveness. Many female vaulters can execute gymnastic drills for vaulting with equal or greater mastery than most men, and are often just as fast on the runway. The pole/ground angle at takeoff is a very important factor, which I believe is largely behind this discrepancy.
Of course there are exceptions, and I am aware that there have been plenty of excellent vaulters who are not tall, but by and large, elite vaulters (both men and women) are relatively tall.
Tom

Thats why I used stuczynski and jackie joyner as my examples because they are both relatively tall.

[Erica]

If we are going to compare the world record percentages in track and field events that are somewhat relevant to the pole vault, we should also take into consideration events that include the upper body as well. For example:

Javelin: Men's 800 gram WR 98.48m / Women's 600 gram WR 72.28 = .55
Shot: Men's 16lb.WR 23.12m / Women's 8.8lb.WR 22.63 = .538

100 - Men 9.58/Women 10.49 = .9132
200 - Men 19.19/Women 21.34 = .8993
400 - Men 43.18/Women 47.60 = .9071
LJ - Men 8.95/Women 7.52 = .8402
TJ - Men 18.29/Women 15.50 = .8475
HJ - Men 2.45/Women 2.09 = .8531
PV - Men 6.14/Women 5.06 = .8241

While the pole vault is closer to the sprint/jump events, there is still an element of upper body strength. This just gives a comparison of how women (don't) measure up to men in the throwing events.

[dj]

good stuff..

dj

[PVJunkie]

I started to run those #'s but chose to stay with events that had everything equal.

Its still pretty close in those and they only skewed the percentage a little.

Javelin: Men's 800 gram WR 98.48m / Women's 600 gram WR 72.28 = .734%
Shot: Men's 16lb.WR 23.12m / Women's 8.8lb.WR 22.63 = .979%

An average difference (but radically skewed due to the difference in the implements) of .857 or 5.26 meters. My question to all you math experts....how would you adjust for the longer, 200 gram heavier javelin and 7.2 lbs heavier shot. This would GREATLY lower the percentage. I agree that strength is a factor and Erica is about as strong as your going to find!

[VaultPurple]

An average difference (but radically skewed due to the difference in the implements) of .857 or 5.26 meters. My question to all you math experts....how would you adjust for the longer, 200 gram heavier javelin and 7.2 lbs heavier shot. This would GREATLY lower the percentage. I agree that strength is a factor and Erica is about as strong as your going to find!

I think strength is only a slight factor. You can say that the womans throws are not as good as the mens if they were using that weight. But an average 17' male pole vaulter probably is not as strong as a professional woman's shot putter.

Guy vaulters are not as strong as guy throwers because we do not wan't to be that big, the key is to stay as small as possiable and get as strong as possiable.

Where the way women are made, no matter how much they lift, as long as they stay lean, they are never going to really bulk up and get bigger than your top male vaulter.