powerplant42 wrote:... BAR HEIGHT during a competition ... once everyone else is out ...
Those aren't good reasons to move up a pole.
As the newly married lady
said, when you're blowing thru your regular pole with standards all the way back (or almost all the way back), you can safely move up.
Personally, I liked the confidence that I had in clearing bars with the standards all the way back. Whenever I moved up a pole, I knew that if I continued my same technique, the worst that could happen is that I'd land on the bar but still make the pit. With this confidence, I had no hesitation in my jump/swing/inversion to "go for it". I knew I'd land safely. That's a very powerful, comfortable feeling to have when you're standing at the end of the runway, preparing to jump for the first time on a stiffer pole.
To say this in the negative, you don't want to introduce self-doubt on this critical jump. It will prove to be psychologically self-defeating. Stay positive, stay safe. I'm referring to my 1971-72 technique here, so by then I had learnt my lessons about stalling out. Once I got in this groove of landing well into the pit, I could focus 100% of my attention on technique improvement. It's something that I should have learnt or realized years earlier.
The trick is to not change your technique at all - other than not blowing thru. Just shoot more up.
If you find that you're doing something different (other than running faster or jumping harder) for the stiffer pole to work, then you're on the wrong track.
Forget about the competition or the height of the bar. If you're blowing thru, you're ready to move up. Not before.
The reason this makes sense is that you simply want the new pole to let you continue your best technique, except get a little more vertical and a little less horizontal out of it.
Besides running faster or jumping harder, a very common reason to move up a pole is when you have a good tailwind. That of course lets you run faster.
The reverse is also true. If you moved up due to a tailwind, be sure to move back to a softer pole when the tailwind is gone. Likewise if you're slower or not jumping off the ground as hard (for whatever reason).
But other than due to tailwinds, you'll find that once you move up a pole (and stay healthy), you won't often need to move back down. Once you get on the stiffer pole, it's fairly easy to continue to stay on it. It will soon become your "soft" pole.
Kirk
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