Vault/swing critique

[charlie]

Rope drills with ankle weights!!
Stand with your drive knee parallel. invert (do not tuck) and pull your HIPS to your top hand!!! Your immediate results will come from focusing on the hips rather than any thing else! You do every thing else pretty well! I also like the firmer ground level press!!! Your headed in the right direction!!!

[KirkB]

... you just need to coast - same as Bubka...

I'm going to retract what I said, and say it differently. I didn't really mean "coast" - which is passive (doing nothing).

What I meant is that by the time Bubka's swing has passed the chord, and the upswing has started, he has all the momentum he needs to clear the bar. This momentum was generated by his powerful run, takeoff, and downswing. And then just a bit more on the upswing.

So where you think you need to *keep* swinging, Bubka is already vigorously *extending* his body - shooting straight up. To break this down in his vid (the one you posted), at 0:13 he's almost fully stretched; at 0:14 he's fully stretched and he does his downswing; at 0:15 he's passed the chord and starts his upswing; at 0:16 he's finished his swing and he tucks his trail leg in a bit; at 0:17 his hands are at his knees (as he's extending); and at 0:18 he's fully extended.

Trey is right in saying to "keep the muscles continuously working". There is no exact instant in time when the swing ends and the extension begins. It's just a short period of time, and throughout that time, you need to keep the muscles working (no coasting! no passive inaction!). In Bubka's vid, that's in the time between 0:16 and 0:18.

To relate this back to your vid again, you don't have a full stretch and you don't have a vigourous downswing, so your timing is way off. By the time the pole begins to unbend, you're not ready for it (you're not inverted enough). Thus, you flag out. Again, this must be fixed in the stretch and the downswing - it's too late to fix it in the upswing. Yes, you can row a bit to get inverted more, but it's better to get inverted by what you do with your legs - not your arms (just like Bubka).

Kirk