double leg swing vs. regular one leg swing

[trayoates]

im soon going to be a junior in high school, my PR is 13'5", i weigh around 155-160, and im 6' tall. i was just wondering which has more promise, a double leg swing like the guy from france that i cant spell his name, or just the generic leg swing like bubka did. im not a very flexible person, and it seems like every time i try to work on my right knee or my left swing leg i can only do one or the other. so ive been using a double leg swing with a little drive in the beginning of the plant, but it falls as soon as i start swinging. so my question is if anyone thinks i should go back to basics and totally start over to correct my swing, or keep on doing what im doing and using a steven hooker technique thing

[VaultPurple]

That French guy (Renaud Lavilleni) does not really have a double leg swing, his knee just kind of drops when he jumps but he gets it back up before he swings and inverts.

http://www.youtube.com/user/renaudlavil ... 0g_R-dSvNs

There are some videos of him.

But the single leg swing is arguably better because it raises your bodies center of mass and you are only required to swing one leg instead of two which speeds up your swing. There have been some ''True" double leg swingers out there but none that absolutely do not lift the right knee any that have jumped in the 19's. You will notice double leg swingers really have to have a take off step that is perfect or out and they have a slower swing that takes longer to invert.

Best recommendation, find a high bar and practice swinging with your knee up. It takes time but if you practice it over and over it will improve over time.

[dj]

good morning,

i have found since Earl Bell dropped/pumped the knee in 1974 that is is a "natural" move that goes with physics... and not something to put in or out..

run correct.. plant correct ("On" and very high with an impluse) and swing FAST to vertical and off the pole..

the rest takes care of itself...

dj

[VaultPurple]

I have a question regarding this for other coaches out there. Let's just say you were going to coach a double leg swing. Like the full kind Colwick uses.

With a one leg swing in a petrov vault, a right handed vaulter must jump off their left leg.

Now lets say you teach the double leg swing.. Does it matter what leg they jump off of? What would it hurt for a right handed vaulter to jump off the right foot and then swing up with both legs?

[kcvault]

Now lets say you teach the double leg swing.. Does it matter what leg they jump off of? What would it hurt for a right handed vaulter to jump off the right foot and then swing up with both legs?

Energy can not be created or destroyed only transferred from one form to another. The question is how do you want to transfer that energy. By driving the knee the vaulter is able to take the horizontal energy from the run and transfer it to the drive knee allowing the vaulter to jump off the ground and allowing the pole to rise making the vault seem much more effortless. However by dropping the lead knee the vaulter is able to generate a greater amount of force in there swing and there hips stay low for longer allowing the pole to role over easier (I imagine this takes a considerable amount of strength to get inverted.) The question is is the vaulters decreased ability to jump off the ground worth the greater force generation of the swing. I like how how Hooker does his double leg swing by driving the knee and then dropping it to swing but this still causes a hesitation when dropping the knee, Colwick seems to fall into his take off so the pole sink's before it rises. I personally think a drive knee with a single leg swing is best because to me the take off is the most important part of the vault but if a vaulter is a double leg swinger that is still able to jump up at take off I don't believe any attempt should be made to change there vault.

--Kasey

[VaultPurple]

Now lets say you teach the double leg swing.. Does it matter what leg they jump off of? What would it hurt for a right handed vaulter to jump off the right foot and then swing up with both legs?

Energy can not be created or destroyed only transferred from one form to another. The question is how do you want to transfer that energy. By driving the knee the vaulter is able to take the horizontal energy from the run and transfer it to the drive knee allowing the vaulter to jump off the ground and allowing the pole to rise making the vault seem much more effortless. However by dropping the lead knee the vaulter is able to generate a greater amount of force in there swing and there hips stay low for longer allowing the pole to role over easier (I imagine this takes a considerable amount of strength to get inverted.) The question is is the vaulters decreased ability to jump off the ground worth the greater force generation of the swing. I like how how Hooker does his double leg swing by driving the knee and then dropping it to swing but this still causes a hesitation when dropping the knee, Colwick seems to fall into his take off so the pole sink's before it rises. I personally think a drive knee with a single leg swing is best because to me the take off is the most important part of the vault but if a vaulter is a double leg swinger that is still able to jump up at take off I don't believe any attempt should be made to change there vault.

--Kasey

i was not debating weather one was better than the other. I personally like single leg better. But if you were going to do double leg, and fully commit to that technique, would jumping off the right foot hurt the vault if you are right handed?

[kcvault]

Sorry should have read closer. I think I am going to try this from three lefts and see what the difference is.

[VaultPurple]

Sorry should have read closer. I think I am going to try this from three lefts and see what the difference is.

Good idea. The reason I am really asking is because I was asked to coach a girl for her first meet which is Saturday, so she gets two practices after never having vaulted before in her life. She runs sub 13 in the 100 and was a competitive gymnast.

She caught on fast to how to carry the pole and was able to run rather well and comfortably with it for her first time, and could even plant it quite smoothly. The only problem is, she is right handed but naturally jumps off of her right leg. With her speed I am sure she could just run through it and with a little jump would eventually be fine taking off the left foot but right now she still wants to jump a little early and take off that right foot, and when she does go off the left she is really flat and barely can jump.

Since she has the strong gymnastics back ground and appears to be very strong, I was thinking about having her jump off the right leg and just swing both legs like she would on the high bar for gymnastics. She only has to clear a bar this weekend to move on to the next meet since there are not that many athletes in her age group. Then she would have like a month to really learn.

I have always thought the jump was one of most important parts of the vault so I figured if there was an athlete that naturally jumped off the wrong leg I would try and teach them to vault left handed so they would still have a good jump. But I figured right handed with the double leg swing would be easier right away.

[dj]

Hey

Kc.. I think your first post was very "inline" with what is taking place….

As far as right handed/right foot takeoff… I don't think you can get the same "reach"… right to right that you can get from left to right. And there is an issue of "impulse –follow- through" .. but not impulse… Colwick gets an impulse..

Bruce Jenner jumped ?16 feet in the old days on a green Catapole/then white George Moore Pacer.. right handed and right foot takeoff…….

I personally think the knee drop like Toby had, a women I coached and Hooker, is in part the pole design.. as is the "sink' in Colwick's pole.. Bubka had a 'sink" at max bend and the back flat position on a symmetrically bending pole.

What I do think will happen is you might be successful right now but will run into a "physics" problem and will "flatten" out jumping wise and PR below your physical ability.

Maybe to late to change back…

My 2 cents

dj