On the topic, i was watching the discovery channels "The Human Body: Pushing the Limits" show the other day. You need to check it out if you havent, you can relate a lot of what they do to the pole vault.
Anyway, one section was on how we react in life-death scenarios. It said that people's sense of time slows down, and they take more in all at once. They did a study where they showed people a random number sequence that, under normal circumstances, you could only make out maybe 1 or 2 numbers from 00-99 in the 2 seconds you had to read them. Then they had a giant electronic sequence board to look at again while participants jumped off a 40m platform onto a giant cushion mat. The amount of numbers went a lot higher, i cant remember the exact number. They said that our visual cortex processes about 20-30 fps and that under highly stressful situations, it can double. So that our memories of what happened can seem like they took twice as long as well.
Maybe theres a little bit of that going on with these elite athletes. The only problem is, this should apply to all levels of pole vaulters, not just elite jumpers. Maybe beginners go through a stage of not being able to process as much, and the opposite might happen. maybe they process less than 30fps, creating an "it happened all a once, i dont remember" feeling. In any case, i thought it was pretty interesting and reminded me of what you had said in Forney, Tim.
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Tim McMichael wrote:
This is a true story: Back when giving pushes seemed like a good idea, I had one of my athletes give me a tap on my biggest pole gripping 16'. I did not know that he had never done this before, and he pushed me straight sideways as hard as he could. I ended up headed over the right hand standard which was set at 17'. I had time to figure out where I was going to land and to understand that I was basically screwed and to come up with a plan to make things a little better. I let go of the pole and grabbed the top of the standard, and pulled as hard as I could. The fastener gave way, and I collapsed the standard down to its shortest height and let it topple over to the ground. I ended up standing beside the pit. All of that seemed to take a very long time to happen, but in reality from takeoff to landing only about four seconds went by. Scientist don't really know why this happens, but it does, and some athletes can turn it on and off at will.![]()
It's late, and I am rambling. The moral to this if nothing else makes sense is: don't give taps.
I am literally laughing out loud in my living room right now after reading that story.
I completely understand what you are saying, Tim. Indeed even in my best vaults time seem to move slower than a normal 4-5 seconds.
I suppose it's not as much that the mind cannot slow things down, but that most minds tend to accumulate a ''clutter'' status after you try to jam too much in there. I find that if I think of more than three things (one during the run, one approaching takeoff and one more during the vault), I will most certainly forget one or two of them and end up on the pit wondering what happened and why I just wasted what ended up being as good as a 40m pole run. Am I just not good enough with my mind? Perhaps this is the case and the elites can in fact focus on 5 or 6 technical aspects during one vault. I'm eager to hear what you think!


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jcoover wrote:Tim McMichael wrote:
This is a true story: Back when giving pushes seemed like a good idea, I had one of my athletes give me a tap on my biggest pole gripping 16'. I did not know that he had never done this before, and he pushed me straight sideways as hard as he could. I ended up headed over the right hand standard which was set at 17'. I had time to figure out where I was going to land and to understand that I was basically screwed and to come up with a plan to make things a little better. I let go of the pole and grabbed the top of the standard, and pulled as hard as I could. The fastener gave way, and I collapsed the standard down to its shortest height and let it topple over to the ground. I ended up standing beside the pit. All of that seemed to take a very long time to happen, but in reality from takeoff to landing only about four seconds went by. Scientist don't really know why this happens, but it does, and some athletes can turn it on and off at will.![]()
It's late, and I am rambling. The moral to this if nothing else makes sense is: don't give taps.
I am literally laughing out loud in my living room right now after reading that story.
I completely understand what you are saying, Tim. Indeed even in my best vaults time seem to move slower than a normal 4-5 seconds.
I suppose it's not as much that the mind cannot slow things down, but that most minds tend to accumulate a ''clutter'' status after you try to jam too much in there. I find that if I think of more than three things (one during the run, one approaching takeoff and one more during the vault), I will most certainly forget one or two of them and end up on the pit wondering what happened and why I just wasted what ended up being as good as a 40m pole run. Am I just not good enough with my mind? Perhaps this is the case and the elites can in fact focus on 5 or 6 technical aspects during one vault. I'm eager to hear what you think!![]()
I have to think about this one for a while, and I may add to this (or correct some of it) later.
A good rule of thumb is that you should not try to focus on more than two parts of your jump at one time, and they must be immediately contiguous to one another. You cannot focus on one thing at the back of the run and another at the top of the jump, but you can focus on the height of your top arm and your knee drive, because the two are directly connected. Eventually, what happens is that an awareness of the entire jump develops, and everything from the first step to landing in the pit becomes one thought, but this can only happen if all the steps are directly connected. If there is an inconsistency between the way you run and the way you plant, you will never be able to connect the dots. In my opinion, a vaulter has attained mastery when all of the pieces of the jump fit together, and they are aware of the vault as one continuous motion. When they are taking their first steps down the runway, they have an intense awareness of how those steps will lead to the clearance of the bar and everything in between. On perfect jumps it feels like you are on rails and the end of the jump is an inevitable product of the first step of the approach.
jcoover wrote:vault3rb0y wrote:n a practice a 9' vaulter probably wont hear "you need to hit the free take off hard and swing immediately after drive phase is exhausted and swing 2 cm farther back then last time, staying connected with the pole to clear this next bar"
I would hope not! Not even the elite's can process that much information in one vault! Nobody's minds move in slo-mo, 3po!
In fact, conscious thought moves in slow-mo as compared to what is needed when vaulting. This is exactly why we train the body to react subconsciously. Through carefully planned drills performed at a pace where the mind is able to cope, do we teach the movement patterns to our mind and body. Some are able to learn by few repetitions, while others might need hundreds, if not thousands, in order to perform these tasks without conscious interference.
The Adelaide approach is exactly that. The vault broken down into repeatable phases (drills), that can be taught individually, and still in the end, become a connected chain of movements. As the vaulter progresses (become proficient in the first stages of the vault), will the drills focus on events happening later in the vault. No point in focusing on inversion and turn, if the vaulter isn't able to take of consistently. However, the early phases are still trained accordingly to their importance, regardless of skill.
The hard task of coaching is not to overload the mind of the athlete, and still forward some kind of message that will cause the athlete to improve his next jump.
I'm pretty sure we agree

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