howtopolevault.com

[CoachEric]

The odd thing is that this is all written in hyperbolic sales copy, and I can't even tell what they're selling.

[KirkB]

Who is Mark Miller and who is the Pismo Beach Athletic Club?

They are pole vault experts.

Your tongue must have been in your cheek when you wrote this.

Not one mention of PV on their website.

Kirk

[AZDave]

The critics here may be right. However, I think it's a bad trait to have a closed mind. Many developments and breakthroughs in all areas of human endeavour have come from non mainstream sources. Again, you guys may be right, but I'll withhold final judgement until I learn more.

[PVDaddy]

I will say this much about it. I learned one, but, very important concept about pole bend,movement and rotation that I did not before thoroughly understand. For me, this made the whole journey more than worthwhile! Thank-You Becca for showing us this!

[altius]

If you like I can probably put up the article "The pre jump take off" I wrote in 1989 and which was published in "Modern athlete and coach" -that MAY have been the start of this notion of air strike. Have no idea but it may help clear a few things up - but probably not given the direction things to take on PVP now.

Funny that - Jenny and I stayed in Pismo Beach overnight last July - never knew that there was a group of vault experts based there. !!!

[Tim McMichael]

They are thinking only in terms of vertical, not horizontal. If a vaulter takes off outside far enough to be two feet off the ground at pole strike, they will have a lot more ground to cover to make the pit and they will be decelerating as the pole begins to load. This is why no world class vaulters of any era have done this. In order for the plant to be as tall as possible while maintaining maximum horizontal velocity and minimum distance to the the pit, the takeoff foot must be directly under or a very little outside of the top hand. As it always has been and as it always will be.

This is a perfect example of someone with a little science and a lot of enthusiasm taking one idea and running wild with it. A good test of something like this is to take it to it's logical conclusion. If two feet off the ground at takeoff is so beneficial, why not three? For that matter, why not four? There are more than a few world class athletes with 48" vertical leaps running around. All the math the air strike folks use to prove their method would still apply. Of course, the answer is that to jump that high off the ground an athlete's horizontal speed would have to be next to zero when the pole hit the back of the box and they would have to take off several feet further back.

All these kinds of claims have the same tenor. It doesn't matter if someone is selling you a new vacuum cleaner or a new religion. There are wild promises: "50 decathletes worldwide can break the current pole vault world record using the Air Strike System! You CAN Consistently Vault 20' or Higher!" There is an illegitimate appeal to authority: Pythagoras, Warmerdam, Alan Launder. This is followed by the promise of something behind the curtain: "Click here for Las Vegas Pole Vault UFC information." Everything about this tells me to be wary.

I am uncomfortable taking sincere and well intentioned people to task like this, but these kinds of claims have a seductive charm. I want to vault 20 feet too. Wouldn't it be nice if someone had a totally new idea that made this possible, and how can you argue with Pythagoras? Where's my credit card?

The only good thing I can say about any of this is that they do seem to have an accurate assessment of the problem; their critique of bad pole vaulting has some value. Their solution, however, has all the earmarks of a really bad idea, worse in its own way than any of the "primitive" theories they rail against. Old, outdated, and dangerous ideas about how to pole vault abound and do definite harm, but far worse is a good idea divorced from every other consideration and then pushed to absurd extremes. It's worse because it is more convincing. If I could talk to them, I would say that I agree with everything they say.....along with other things. And it is those other things that make their theory absurd, and potentially dangerous. A situation of sad irony if there ever were one.

[altius]

"As it always has been and as it always will be." Did you mean -"Always SHOULD be" - Tim?

[Tim McMichael]

"As it always has been and as it always will be." Did you mean -"Always SHOULD be" - Tim?

I was thinking more about the theory than the application of it, but yes. When there are people out there arguing for a takeoff two or more feet outside then "should" is definitely the more accurate term.

[Tim McMichael]

Watching the videos, which appear to be from '90 or so then there's a gap to 2014. Did this guy just get out of prison?

Watch this one for the text at 1:40 to have your mind blown.

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

I don't want to beat this dead horse much more, but I had to comment on this video. I wanted to give the air strike folks the benefit of a doubt at least in regard to their motives, but this video gives me serious pause. Why this video? What else could they have shown if their theory really worked and they could prove it? The truly remarkable thing about this clip is not what it shows, but what it doesn't show, and this is a conscious choice. Those parts of the vault were deliberately edited out. When I ask myself why, the only answers I can come up with do not look good.

[canag]

Now this car salesman just becomes improper...
https://youtu.be/saE2yLjWH8s
I sincerely hope he does not actually have credential to coach kids.

[KirkB]

More hyperbole but sadly lacking in ANY substance.

I wonder why David Butler never responded to him ... NOT!

Kirk

[PV-ATL]

How to PV...?

That video of his son "wiping out" in his jump has an obvious flaw: HE IS HOLDING TOO HIGH!!

Poles in the PV are levers. You can hold as high as you like, but that is not the key. It helps, but... look at the video. Too high of a grip.

99% of all injuries in the PV are from holding too high. The other 1% is from tripping over the curb in the parking lot on the way to practice/meets. With the emphasis on bending the pole, this is what we will be dealing with, until coaches get the education they need to be safe. The information is out there!

Bending poles are NOT the be-all/end-all. 15-0 is considered a pretty good HS PV height and can get a bit of college interest. I say "so what"! This height was cleared in HS for the first time in 1956 with a STEEL pole, landing in sawdust. There was NO bend in the pole at that time! He was quite healthy in his landing, by the way!

I bring this up to my jumpers all the time. Bending the pole is just shortening a lever. The length of the lever does not change in the end of the vault.

So, as Alan Launder wrote: "It is not bending the pole, but moving it!" Bingo! This guy can talk "Air Strike" all day. He can say how much safer it is, how 40 decathletes can break the WR, etc. What I say is a bit simpler and pretty safe, also:

"I don't care if the pole bends, or how much it bends. What I care about is how high you jump and if you are safe when you land".

Cheers,

PV-ATL