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The other day I saw the son of a famous pole vaulter do what I can only describe as the Huffman roll in a meet. His dad was not impressed. It got me wondering if any other vaulters besides Scott Huffman, have had any sucess with this unusual technique?

well how high did he go? cuz it could have been an accident or joke.

pvdad81 wrote:The other day I saw the son of a famous pole vaulter do what I can only describe as the Huffman roll in a meet. His dad was not impressed. It got me wondering if any other vaulters besides Scott Huffman, have had any sucess with this unusual technique?

Ray Scotten sometimes did something similar.

VaultPurple wrote:well how high did he go? cuz it could have been an accident or joke.

No, it wasn't a joke. He's just learning how to pole vault and is doing whatever he can to get over the bar. I was just wondering if Huffman jumped 19'+ like this, why aren't more vaulters imitating his technique?

From what I've heard, he did not intend to do that technique. There were many jumps where he didn't "roll". I think I saw an interview where he said on some jumps it just happens.

I spoke with Scott in December and in his own interpertation is... In para phrase: It was more of an adjustment on top, for body control, to get in a position to clear the bar... And it was unintentional... He also said it only seemed to happen at higher bars? He is an amazing athlete to be able to make those adjustments over a bar...

I heard once that it was a reaction to feeling like he was going to blow through the pole, so he lowers his leg to take the pressure off the pole which releases the energy in the pole whenever he does so. This releases him off the pole before he blows through and gives him a shot to clear it, but obviously limits how much energy he can put into each pole.

Im not sure if this is true, but it seems like it would work!

When I was in college, there was a brief time where I was doing huffman rolls. I wasn't successful when I did them though. I used to do them to try and save bad jumps. They weren't planned, but when I felt like I couldn't get my shoulders back to get vertical, I would reach my righ leg at the bar. For some reason, I could always force myself vertical with my right leg, but not both legs at the same time.

Went 15' 3" with it and set my pb, only cause I wasn't able to fully swing anymore from messing up my back landing on the ground on a shallow vault my first year in college, so the only way to keep any momentum going was to do the roll. It also meaant I couldn't get on any bigger poles cause of the stress put on my back in the reverse c and swing. It worked good for what I needed to do tho, still would have prefered vaulting normal.