invert to early

[Renek]

I have a problem with one of my vaulters. He starts to pull and invert before the unbending of the pole. Likewise the pole has to work twice as hard to get the vaulter into the pit and getting into the pit does not always happen. He gets good pole bend and can get fully inverted but just does it to quick. What kind of drills are available or what can he do to help himself?

Thanks for any information

[USMC Vaulter]

Hey, I noticed you posted this exact same thing in the HighSchool section. Becca usually prefers if you keep a single topic to just one board. Just a little heads up on how things are usually done on the site.

Welcome to polevaultpower!

[lonestar]

I have a problem with one of my vaulters. He starts to pull and invert before the unbending of the pole. Likewise the pole has to work twice as hard to get the vaulter into the pit and getting into the pit does not always happen. He gets good pole bend and can get fully inverted but just does it to quick. What kind of drills are available or what can he do to help himself?

Thanks for any information

No such thing as inverting too early. Driving is something to do in your car, not on a pole. The only energy you can create to "load" the pole is on the runway - once you leave the ground, all you can do is minimize energy loss by keeping your trail leg locked and swinging as fast as you can to beat the pole to vertical. If the pole unbends before you're inverted, you're not catching it, it's dumping you and you're flagging out. The instant the pole hits the box and the chest moves into the pocket your trail leg should be whipping down and forward to get you around your hands and on top of the bend before you miss it.

The penetration problem could be from a number of different things:

a) Slowing down on the run
b) Being under
c) Bad posture at takeoff - leaning back or squatting
d) Not jumping off the ground actively
e) Blocking in front with the bottom arm instead of punching overhead
f) Too high of a grip
g) Too big of a pole

Also, pulling shouldn't happen yet for this vaulter from the sounds of it. Until the vaulter is completely inverted with his right hand on his right hip, the top arm should be completely straight. A slight pull may help during the turn and release, but there are maybe 5% of vaulters that can effectively use it to help them, and everyone else would just time it wrong and end up killing pole speed and flagging out.

[USMC Vaulter]

Sometimes when people think they're 'inverting too early' - they are actually just collapsing their arm(s) to early and not allowing themselves a long powerful trail leg/swing (could be the result of a plant that is not tall and powerful). Also what happens when you dont keep your body away from the pole and go quickly too your back as opposed to a swing that leads to the correct rockback position. If you do any of these things your penitration will suffer and you will not be set up for the rest of the vault so the chances of success at a high height is slim to none.

I know that these are what my younger brother (Highvaultage) was talking about in the other post (those were problems he had to overcome) - he just got the terminology wrong.

[mcminkz05]

He could be pulling with his bottom arm to get inverted.. that would explain the quick inversion and lack of penetration.

[izzystikchik]

I once saw a girl down at Illinois Top Times, who was an 11'6''er on average, but she no heighted this meet for some odd reason, she had a nice run and didn't see any hesitation, but she kept falling right on top of the 10 foot bar, and even on the front bun for her last two!!! Her pole was bending very nicely but she seemed to be really rushing it, i know she has a gymnastic backround so that would explain her great ability of getting inverted, but she got inverted way to early that everything in her vault was to early not allowing her to wait for the pole to get vertical....that was my personal speculation of it

[altius]

I agree with most of what Lonestar - clearly a very experienced coach - says in response to the stated problem. However I must challenge the notion that you cannot put energy into the pole after you leave the ground. The fact that a vaulter CAN do so is the key to the effectiveness of the Petrov/Bubka model.

I suggest that readers who have an interest in this topic take a look at the article "Bubka - Unique, a one off? Or did he represent a generic technical model for the pole vault".

It is posted on

frombeginnertobubka.com

[izzystikchik]

I agree with most of what Lonestar - clearly a very experienced coach - says in response to the stated problem. However I must challenge the notion that you cannot put energy into the pole after you leave the ground. The fact that a vaulter CAN do so is the key to the effectiveness of the Petrov/Bubka model.

I suggest that readers who have an interest in this topic take a look at the article "Bubka - Unique, a one off? Or did he represent a generic technical model for the pole vault".

It is posted on

frombeginnertobubka.com

Is this a website? Cause i can't find it

[lonestar]

I agree with most of what Lonestar - clearly a very experienced coach - says in response to the stated problem. However I must challenge the notion that you cannot put energy into the pole after you leave the ground. The fact that a vaulter CAN do so is the key to the effectiveness of the Petrov/Bubka model.

I suggest that readers who have an interest in this topic take a look at the article "Bubka - Unique, a one off? Or did he represent a generic technical model for the pole vault".

It is posted on

frombeginnertobubka.com

I misspoke myself on my previous post. What I should have said is that no more horizontal energy can be created once you leave the ground, however, vertical energy can be created via the pendulum action of a locked trail leg swinging fast to the top. Tuck and shoot vaulters miss this additional energy. It's like hitting a baseball choking up the grip halfway on the bat versus holding on the end - which ball will go farther? The one hit with the batter holding on the end because much more force is generated. Usually the first time I get a vaulter to swing a locked trail leg fast through the box, they blow through immediately. A good comparison would be Maksim Tarasov with a narrow handspread, effective free takeoff, and locked trail leg versus Jeff Hartwig with a wide grip, drive the bottom, tuck and shoot. Both 6.0m+ jumpers and great guys, but Tarasov was much more efficient and clean. Jeff stalls out on top of lots of bars and has to Volz because of a lack of pole speed due to his technique.

Many seem to think that "driving" puts energy into the pole, when in fact it just allows for energy loss and loss of position. People also think that "driving" or "staying down" helps with penetration, when in fact it decreases penetration because the inertia isn't being transferred into swing momentum and everything sort of stalls.

[altius]

Is that location South Park??? Yep, beginnertobubka.com or .net is a website just building up. You probably cant get it because it is coming from a long way away! Keep on trying and give us feedback when you do find it because we are trying to build a site which provides answers to many of the questions which appear on Polevaultpower. It will also post many of the articles referenced in "Beginner to Bubka - an Australian approach to developing pole vaulters" -when we can make time to do it.

Eventually if we have enough space we would like to put up videos of the atlhetes shown only in stills and line drawings in the book to further confirm that it is possible for ordinary young athletes to master elements of the Petrov/Bubka technical model. However we are technologically challenged down under and this may take time. In the meantime 'Trrust me.

[altius]

Sorry Lonestar . i think you are muddying the waters even further. How can it be possible to put 'vertical energy' into the pole and not 'horizontal energy'? The whipping swing of the take off leg after it leaves the ground puts energy into the pole just like children use their legs to get their swing moving . That energy helps shorten the chord of the pole so that it rolls forward quicker - once the athlete has moved to the chord of the pole, the energy of the whipping swing is redirected into the pelvis to help the athlete roll back to cover the pole and so set up the third stage energy injection.

I also think you have to be careful with the term 'locked leg'. It may convey the wrong vision of how the whipping swing of the trail leg is initiated and executed. If the leg is locked straight immediately after take off it will lead to a long ponderous swing, not a whip. This will prevent the fast inversion needed to cover the pole before it begins to recoil.

Excellent discussion which may go back and forth and which i hope others will join so we can clarify our thoughts on important elments of technique. Sorry about all the smilies -I thought the system wasnt working!

[Bubba PV]

I was told there was a discussion about Bubka's use of his left hand throughout the jump. Can anybody get me there. Sorry, I'm new here. Bubba