Bubka and Warmerdam Over the Bar

[Tim McMichael]

This may be a rehash of an old topic, but I have been watching a lot of Bubka lately, and I can't help but notice that he was all over the place in his bar clearance. I also noticed that Warmerdam was the same. Someone found a compilation of his jumps on youtube a few years ago, and he rarely cleared the bar the same way twice. Any thoughts?

I just found this one. It's flat out awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOWAamINDXY

[vault3rb0y]

I don't have a ton of analysis to add, except that I feel with stiff poling, there may be less consequence of energy loss with unnecessary motion near the top of the vault. Any flexible vault will punish you with energy leakage if you are not tight and relatively motionless in your lower body, but with no energy loaded into a stiff pole, I think that you might have been able to get away with a lot more.

I feel like a possibly over-simplified explanation for bubkas lack of consistent bar clearance is due to a continuous chain model downfall. That is, he is on such big poles that any gaps (or passive-phases as it's been coined) in his active energy addition to the pole means that the pole is starting to work ahead of him before he is ready for it to do so. I believe that because reducing your passive phases to near non-existence is such a difficult thing to do, that getting on poles that would practically force this to happen means that any gaps would be exemplified on the top of the pole. He is simply not in the perfect position before recoil to fully line up with the pole? Or, is the pole really SO stiff that even once in a decent position, it's power is so strong that he cannot fully control his body's trajectory while he moves upward? This Begs the question, how come guys like you and dial could jump on poles 50 Ibs over your weight and stay connected, yet bubka could not?

[VaultPurple]

Do you really think he cared what he looked like over a bar? I mean he was so explosive coming off the top of the pole that he rarely even needed to know where the bar was because he cleared it by so much. I also think the fact that he was so explosive it was more like he was just slinging himself off the top of the pole instead of riding the pole like mist vaulters do.

[KYLE ELLIS]

I feel like there are several reasons why Bubka sometimes flailed over the bar.
1- Like Jason said (contionous chain). Not having any passive phases in your vault allows you no time to re-set yourself if you got off balance at all before the extension phase. The reason Dial could do this is because when he tucked his knees into his chest, he could use that slight passive phase to re-balance himself if needed.
2- I really believe that most of the vaults you see Bubka come off the pole weird is when he was blowing through. If you can sense the pole is going to rotate too fast you can release early so that you body still travels up infront of the bar.

Everything probably happened at warp speed in Bubka's vault due to how fast he was going at takeoff and because of the timing of his active phases soon after takeoff. Thats why I think he would still smoke some of those bars because he was still catching a lot of return from the work he put in before.

[AVC Coach]

Seems like to me that Warmerdam was just looking for a safe spot to land in the sand or sawdust. Bubka had so much energy on the top that the slightest deviation in trajectory or body alignment would give him various looks over a bar.

[dj]

hey

i think clearance was the most important factor and of course where to land...

we also need to remember that the steel vaulters were jumping 15-6 with 13 foot grips!!!

todays 15-6 fiberglass vaulters are gripping, on average, 14-4... this might gives us a "hint" about the event not not being a "catapult event, so bigger is usually never "better", and it's actually still a "swing" event.

good night

dj

[Tim McMichael]

hey

i think clearance was the most important factor and of course where to land...

we also need to remember that the steel vaulters were jumping 15-6 with 13 foot grips!!!

todays 15-6 fiberglass vaulters are gripping, on average, 14-4... this might gives us a "hint" about the event not not being a "catapult event, so bigger is usually never "better", and it's actually still a "swing" event.

good night

dj

Yes. Yes. Yes. When I watch Bubka I get the impression that his swing is so powerful that the second half of the jump is less important. His COG is going to get 20' or better in the air, he doesn't have to be pretty over the bar. I do think that to clear 20'8" he would have to be more precise.

[dj]

hye

i have posted "numbers' on here from the TAC scientific services program (peter mcginnis) that show that swing speed was the reason for height above grip... many times he did "exit" (upper hand release) the pole a little early... but had to if he was penetrating real fast or he would hit the bar going up...

most of the time he would go to a much to big of a pole... change the run (ie.. hit out at the mid) and not move the pole to vertical...

on many of the "blow" through jumps he would only bend 27% or so... what he needed to do was grip higher on the same pole.. and everything would line up better, producing higher, more controled and actually easier vaults...

just my observations...

food for thought... if the run starts with the first step... and the accuracy/consistancy has to be reasonably precise based on speed... we are doing the vaulters a disservice if we don't montior and keep them as fast and accurate as possible.. the ONLY way i have found that to happen is by checking a SIX step "MID"...

what would it hurt??? if we as coaches are trying to help the athlete be as good as they can be!!

dj

[altius]

"how come guys like you and dial could jump on poles 50 Ibs over your weight and stay connected, yet bubka could not?"

I suggest that anyone interested in this issue should take a look at Bubka's WR 6.15 jump in Donetsk - I would be happy to see a critique of any aspect of his technique in this jump, especially the bar clearance, but even more especially the question of whether he 'stayed connected'!

With regard to the general question of how 'tidy' either he or Warmerdam were over the bar, I would simply restate the position I have expressed earlier on pvp - that while it may be possible for the athlete to cognitively control everything before they leave the ground, after they leave the ground everything they do is intuitive as the brain/body tries to cope with the infinite number of variables that are interacting after take off. My belief is that every jump is a happening, a one off, as each phase interacts with the next so even a tiny alteration in the take off position for example can cause a chain reaction throughout the vault. So although some may see the in the air phase as being a gymnastic phase, the reality is that the complex interaction of the athlete with the pole as they create and use force throughout the vault means that it is still more athletic than gymnastic. As a result we will always see much more variation from one vault to the next compared to one gymnastic movement to the next. However that said and as gymnastic coaches may well point out, even if it is much more difficult for the lay person to see the differences from one attempt to the next in gymnastics, expert coaches and especially the judges can.

[Tim McMichael]

"how come guys like you and dial could jump on poles 50 Ibs over your weight and stay connected, yet bubka could not?"

Bubka's poles were much bigger than mine or Joe's. There is more difference between a 10.0 and a 9.8 flex than there is between a 16.0 and a 15.5. As the poles get bigger and longer, smaller variations in flex become much more significant.

[rainbowgirl28]

Bubka's poles were much bigger than mine or Joe's. There is more difference between a 10.0 and a 9.8 flex than there is between a 16.0 and a 15.5. As the poles get bigger and longer, smaller variations in flex become much more significant.

This. Flex numbers don't work the same at all ends of the spectrum.

[Tim McMichael]

Bubka's poles were much bigger than mine or Joe's. There is more difference between a 10.0 and a 9.8 flex than there is between a 16.0 and a 15.5. As the poles get bigger and longer, smaller variations in flex become much more significant.

This. Flex numbers don't work the same at all ends of the spectrum.

I should not try to write a post five minutes before I have to be in lecture. What I meant to illustrate by the flex numbers is the vast difference between the poles Joe and I used and the ones Bubka used. Explaining it in terms of flex numbers is really hard, and I would only trust someone involved in actual pole design to be exact in something like that. But as a rough estimate, Joe's biggest pole was about five sizes bigger than mine. Joe outweighed me by ten pounds and out-jumped me by a foot. Because of the differences in the way poles are flexed when they are truly gigantic, Bubka's biggest pole was at least sixteen sizes bigger than Joe's, yet Bubka only outweighed Joe by about 25 pounds. The sheer size of Bubka's poles was the most shocking thing about him when he first came out. It was truly astonishing. If I took Joe's biggest pole and bent it in the box, I would dream that someday I might actually use a pole that size. If I took Earl Bell's biggest pole and bent it in the box, I would understand how a giant like him might need a pole that big. If I took Bubka's biggest pole and bent it in the box, I would hurt my shoulder trying.