Ed wrote:
>
> OK, having been largely away from vault coaching for five years and
> having never coached women vaulters, I am always surprised when I hear
> how short the poles are that these women are holding. It's not that
> theoretically a 13' pole is wrong for clearing 13' - technically that
> makes sense. But I can rarely remember ever seeing a high school boy
> with a PR in the 12'6 to 14' range vaulting on anything less than 14'
> foot pole and usually it's more like 14'6 or 15'.
Ed, as you know I am coaching H.S. vaulters right now. I have one going 14-6, two more at 13, and two more at 12. All holding on 14 foot poles and the big guy on a 14-7. One other just got on a 14-6 long pole yesterday. I have been working with them all season to work on the "flyaway stage," something they never did before. And we have worked very hard on the inversion. Their idea before I got there was just get on the biggest pole they could and go for heights everyday. That seems to be the idea that most of the H.S. coaches have around here. That is not my idea though. I want my guys clearing 13 on 12-6 pole and I make them do it. They hate it but I make them do it anyways.
Now, the reason I have them do this is because the first vaulters I ever talked to about vaulting were the women. In 98 I met Stacy for the first time at Milrose. That was before she was the super star she is now of course. I had no idea who she was and when she said she was a vaulter I began asking her questions about vaulting. Stacy, as many of you know, is just a great person and was more then happy to talk about vaulting. I had just started coaching vault that year at U.W. Eau Claire, so was trying to learn what ever I could. I began to watch the vaulting more closely trying to learn what ever I could. I figured since I was coaching 14 foot college men and 8 foot college women I would learn more by watching the women.
Last year while watching the women's Olympic Trials I commented to a fellow next to me that I thought the women seemed to have better inversion and rise then the men. This fellow, whose name I can't recall, was the coach of someone out there. He agreed and said it had been commented among vault coaches that this was indeed was the case. I decided to put my mind to the case as to why this might be.
Here is what I came up with. It may be that women have a lower center of gravity and many of the female vaulters are pretty short compared to the men. I think that the lower center allows the women to have a smoother break to inversion. The women certainly get closer to the pole then the men. I think it is the reverse of why most women don't walk up a ladder carrying a load the way men can. I think the second part is that the women are not as fast on the same size pole as a man so they have to have perfect take off position. Stacy said the one of the critical elements to her learning to vault was making sure that her trail leg - or the "keel leg" as I call it - was really extended so that her coach could read the letters on the bottom of her shoe. The slowest vaulter I have, is the one who jumps the highest. He also has a low center of gravity. His take off position is dead on and he has really taken to the idea of riding the pole up and allowing himself to become almost completely inverted before turning. Now the fastest kid I have practically kills himself (I mean that literally he makes my stomach turn so bad I go through a bottle of pink stuff each meet). He just rushes all the movement because he his so fast into the box. Back to Stacy now. I talked to her this year again at Milrose. I asked her thoughts on the question of the better inversion and rise that the women get. She agreed that she felt the lower center of gravity was a plus for her. She also thought that the men (elite men) relied to much on speed and big poles and sacrificed technique.
In any case, I'm not an expert in the event by any means so I might be way off base and if anyone has any other ideas let me know. Especially if anyone as an idea of how I might be able to get one of my guys to stop sitting over the bar. He has perfect inversion on rock backs and straight pole drills but once he bends the pole he locks that bottom elbow out and then never unlocks it. He is often doing a straight knee drive over the bar!. I have him doing drills where all he is doing is driving that bottom elbow and kicking too - which seems to be helping but he is getting frustrated and those drills are making him tired. Any ideas are welcome.
Happy Easter All.
Michael Rohl
(walker in exile coaching vaulters:)
