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Yesterday, during practice, my 2 pv coaches came to a dissagreement (like always) about when to "throw" your head back/look down the pole when and during the inversion-"turn and pull" phase...

Coach #1 says- right before the pulling of the top hand and before the turn, roll your head straigt back so that you can see down the runway, which in turn will make the rest of your body flat with the pole because keeping your chin on your chest will make your body bent and not in strait alinment with the pole...

Coach #2 says- Well, you need to look at your top hand so you chin should be on your chest, it keeps your body close and on top of the bend throwing your head back is a bad habit. You shouldn't necessarily look down until you begun the turn and pull, which isn't a rolling back of the head but turning towards the pole and then looking down..

Ahh!! They contradict one another, this is what i have to deal with and have delt with since the begining of my pole vaulting career as an underclass man in highschool ...but i have my own opinions too, i'm leaning towards coach #2 because at camp i would throw my head back as a habit and that caused my feet to drop and made me have the worlds crapiest falling turn, but now i can't get flat with the pole at all sometimes so Coach#1 is trying to over compensate for it...what do you guys think?

oh i forgot to add that in most of the camps they made me bite my shirt to keep my head from being thrown back..

Throwing the head back can be incredibly dangerous - it often causes vaulters to lose perspective of where they are in relation to the pit and the bar. Also, it is generally used to force something that should happen completely independent of what your head is doing. Most if not ALL elite vaulters keep their eyes upward and towards the bar for as long as possible.

Check out this video of Bubka jumping 6.11m
http://www.stabhoch.com/movies/19920713_Bubka_611.mov

You can see that he waits until the last moment possible before he takes his eyes off the bar and even then, he never throws his head back. In more clear videos you can actually see that his eyes stay on the bar for as long as possible (until the final 1/4 turn and fly away)

So I'd say coach #2 is the one who knows what he's talking about.

Biting your shirt? LOL sounds like an interesting idea!

throwing your headback is dumb, i dont know why anyone would do that or try to teach it! the bar is not behind you. and i dont know if trying to watch your top hand is a good idea either.

This idea may provide some insight. When you watch videos of your favorite vaulter (the one you wish you could jump like), look at their head relative to their torso. I think you will find most tend to keep their head in a position that is close to where their head would be when they are just standing normally.

If you stand straight and tall up against a wall, you will find the back of your head is a few inches away from the wall even when your back is solidly against the wall. That is the position I think your head should be in relative to your chest/back. As you swing up, that means you are "looking" at an everchanging scene.

In the Bubka video, it appears to me that he holds this position of his head relative to his torso very well. His eyes end up facing different directions as his torso goes through his swing and rockback and initiates his turn. So I contend he doesn't "look" at the crossbar and then put his head back but rather he keeps his head in an upright position (relative to his torso).

You might also note that he has very little back curvature because he is striving to rotate about his shoulders and keep his shoulders back as in a military stance.

hmm wat if ur heihgt isnt soo high and u have a constant problem with staring at the bar, i think indoors i tried staring at the ceiling, it felt so weird and liek i didn tkno wat i was doing, im not sure how my form was either.

KYLE ELLIS wrote:throwing your headback is dumb, i dont know why anyone would do that or try to teach it! the bar is not behind you. and i dont know if trying to watch your top hand is a good idea either.

Good call
Usually when i throw my head back thats a signal for a bad jump

master wrote:In the Bubka video, it appears to me that he holds this position of his head relative to his torso very well. His eyes end up facing different directions as his torso goes through his swing and rockback and initiates his turn. So I contend he doesn't "look" at the crossbar and then put his head back but rather he keeps his head in an upright position (relative to his torso).

You might also note that he has very little back curvature because he is striving to rotate about his shoulders and keep his shoulders back as in a military stance.

I agree with everything master said. Definitely check out videos of other elite vaulters and compaire with those as well.
Also a quick clarification on what I meant about Bubka 'looking' at the bar - he's doing it with his eyes NOT his head. Check out the picture on the front cover of the book 'Beginner to Bubka' - his head is a 'natural postion relative to his body' like master said - but you can clearly see that his eyes are looking upward and toward the bar so that he can keep his bearing and know exactly where he is in relation to the bar.
Hope all the posts help.

Thanks as always guys i sorta get it now.

Where to look:

At takeoff, or right after takeoff, look at your bottom (left) hand and drive up through it. When you swing, look for your top hand, and then look for your feet above your top hand. When you see your feet, watch them and put them over the bar. Then watch the bar and stay out of it's way.

This sounds very simple, but even elite vaulters concentrate on doing some version of this. It doesn't matter if you are a 7 foot vaulter or a 19+ foot vaulter, your visual ques always matter.

Watch video of almost all elite vaulters, and you will see that it looks like they are doing exactly this.

hey, thanks, that is pretty simple, but thats how the vault is isn't it? Once we complicate things it just makes everything else complicated instead of the "just do it" mentality....