GRV: Lavillenie - From Stall Swing to World Record

[KirkB]

If you have links or names of some tuck vaulters you're thinking of, I'll check them out.

Okert Britts and Jeff Hartwig.

And along with their tuck, they're bending the pole long before takeoff. Quite different than RL.

Kirk

[Decamouse]

"Here F(tens) is the force on the pole, and one can see its greatest at the perpendicular to the ground and grows smaller as the swing progresses" - true statement if the brick wall (top hand grip location on the pole) is fixed (which it is not - since it moves upward and toward the pit - with both the x and y change rates varying to almost all y (vertical) at end of vault

The other part is the rotating COM does exert a force based on the speed it rotates and if that changes so does the F(tens) -- also the distance of the COM is from the brick wall (pt A) changes -- if we call the shoulder rotation point B and COM the COM - A-B distance remains fairly constant - B-COM distance does change and changes more in RL than SB - so yes gravity is always present - does the takeoff - swing - and how the vaulter varies the B-COM distance matter - yes and some of that is based on the skill level and physical abilities - now which variance will work best for a given vaulter -

The point is to clear the highest set bar - that also mean doing all these things as close to your optimum and being on the correct pole, with correct standard placement when the bar is set at the WR height - big clearance at the height below does not count for the record (might actual give you what the optimum potential and hence point towards technique)

One thing is constant - gravity (ok we can get real anal - it does vary the further you get away from the mass that is responsible for the gravitational field)

While "gravity vector" is a way to look at certain parts of the vault -- all of this matter not if it can not be related to the vaulter in the coach vaulter interaction and based on their physical skills sets and capability - vault high - different perspective are good

[willrieffer]

"Here F(tens) is the force on the pole, and one can see its greatest at the perpendicular to the ground and grows smaller as the swing progresses" - true statement if the brick wall (top hand grip location on the pole) is fixed (which it is not - since it moves upward and toward the pit - with both the x and y change rates varying to almost all y (vertical) at end of vault

The other part is the rotating COM does exert a force based on the speed it rotates and if that changes so does the F(tens) -- also the distance of the COM is from the brick wall (pt A) changes -- if we call the shoulder rotation point B and COM the COM - A-B distance remains fairly constant - B-COM distance does change and changes more in RL than SB - so yes gravity is always present - does the takeoff - swing - and how the vaulter varies the B-COM distance matter - yes and some of that is based on the skill level and physical abilities - now which variance will work best for a given vaulter -

The point is to clear the highest set bar - that also mean doing all these things as close to your optimum and being on the correct pole, with correct standard placement when the bar is set at the WR height - big clearance at the height below does not count for the record (might actual give you what the optimum potential and hence point towards technique)

One thing is constant - gravity (ok we can get real anal - it does vary the further you get away from the mass that is responsible for the gravitational field)

While "gravity vector" is a way to look at certain parts of the vault -- all of this matter not if it can not be related to the vaulter in the coach vaulter interaction and based on their physical skills sets and capability - vault high - different perspective are good

One thing that I've always said is that this sort of analysis gets very very complicated very fast. It's the nature of this system, of vaulter and flexible pole. Still, the relationship to gravity and the swing angle are relative and changing and I contend a very important consideration. The whole of the event is set against gravity and so one idea seemingly has been not to think about it very much. The other tack which I take is to think about it front and center.

But this view I take also harkens back to the PB and the idea not to have the hips thrown forward. It is an explanation of things and explains why that was such a good idea and a paradigm shift and revolution when it occurred. I contend it was the most important and least understood idea of the model. And that Lavillenie is the proof of what taking this idea to its logical extreme can accomplish.

It also helps explain why vaults fail.

Examples

1) Taking off under and leaning back - The vaulter enters in "swing progressed" so from the start they are losing compressive value from the pole because of the CoM relation to gravity. The chord shortens less and slower and so the pole rotates less. Vault suffers or fails
2) Raising the trail leg - Raises the CoM and shortens the lever causing the vaulter to rotate forward faster again causing swing progression and a loss of force on the pole compression moment. Same result.
3) Vaulter throws hips forward and/or tilts head back - Again, throws the CoM forward in time into swing progression again with loss of compression. Same result. I have a vaulter with an excellent plant. You freeze his plant and he looks fabulous. But at the moment of plant he has intention to thrown the hips forward and head back while also raising the trail leg. So he shoots forward in swing angle. And you can just watch the pole not respond. I say this from watching him be better and worse at all of these things.

These are common problems that every decent coach knows are problems. I haven't done anything to "identify" them as new or revolutionary problems. What I have done added a new* physics explanation as a component of the reason why. Then I've taken it to its logical end with the appearance of Lavillenie. This is how he vaults. He works to maximize his relation to gravity in relation to the pole. Is he conscious of this? Is his coach? Heck if I know! It could very well be that it came intuitively and/or through trial and error. Such are things with this event.

Will

*I say this only in so much as it seems completely foreign to the readers of this site

[willrieffer]

If you have links or names of some tuck vaulters you're thinking of, I'll check them out.

Okert Britts and Jeff Hartwig.

And along with their tuck, they're bending the pole long before takeoff. Quite different than RL.

Kirk

Britts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MeM_kyiMjw

I was not familiar with Britts. But heck, you look at this and tell me that it's not reminiscent of RL in a lot of ways. Left lock. Quasi double. Tuck.

And then you have the pole bend take off under but with posture. I'd talk about that, but folks lose their minds on that! LOL!

Hartwig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zxpfZY4Fqo

I knew Jeff. Good speed but not great. That's a pretty good tuck. I've seen worse/later ones. You can see he moves a lot of his mass under the top hand really well for a bigger guy.

Will

[grandevaulter]

It creates a complex curve for the CoM to follow and analyze and to do this discretely, at each step in time, which is what calculus does, makes it that much harder. You guys, most of you, have no idea how hard this is. I keep trying to show it and make it as simple as possible just to sort of get started. And yet its met with open ignorance by some and ignorant resistance by others...

What was that you are trying to map ? Should be a snap for a scientist.

RL quickly balls up under

Brilliant!!

Examples[/quote]
....
[quote="willrieffer"]It also helps explain why vaults fail.3) Vaulter throws hips forward and/or tilts head back - Again, throws the CoM forward in time into swing progression again with loss of compression. Same result. I have a vaulter with an excellent plant. You freeze his plant and he looks fabulous. But at the moment of plant he has intention to thrown the hips forward and head back while also raising the trail leg. So he shoots forward in swing angle. And you can just watch the pole not respond. I say this from watching him be better and worse at all of these things.

Check the hips and thrown head on this 19' 3" vaulter. Failed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMXdz5kJk34 I promise not attach the PB model to this.

[willrieffer]

It creates a complex curve for the CoM to follow and analyze and to do this discretely, at each step in time, which is what calculus does, makes it that much harder. You guys, most of you, have no idea how hard this is. I keep trying to show it and make it as simple as possible just to sort of get started. And yet its met with open ignorance by some and ignorant resistance by others...

What was that you are trying to map ? Should be a snap for a scientist.

RL quickly balls up under

Brilliant!!

Examples

....

It also helps explain why vaults fail.3) Vaulter throws hips forward and/or tilts head back - Again, throws the CoM forward in time into swing progression again with loss of compression. Same result. I have a vaulter with an excellent plant. You freeze his plant and he looks fabulous. But at the moment of plant he has intention to thrown the hips forward and head back while also raising the trail leg. So he shoots forward in swing angle. And you can just watch the pole not respond. I say this from watching him be better and worse at all of these things.

Check the hips and thrown head on this 19' 3" vaulter. Failed? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMXdz5kJk34 I promise not attach the PB model to this.

What I gave are simplified examples. While Kendrick does throw the head back he also does something that most people wouldn't which is tilts his hips forward and arches his spine* while....dropping the front leg. And what do all of these things do? Move the CoM down and back, slowing the swing. Brilliant! You picked out one thing with your eye, his head tilts back, and it does, but where his hips aren't thrown forward, and try to make a full case of it being dictatorial about where the CoM will be located. It doesn't work that way. Most coaches will understand what I am talking about, and without an axe to grind like you have will understand what I am talking about. Which is someone like Kendrick could be capable of throwing the head back without rotating the shoulder and throwing the hips forward. Most won't, especially beginners. So its here we can go to the Petrov point that I do agree with, "watch the hips", they can't be thrown forward, and with Kendricks they aren't. This is what anyone can see...

Look, on the other page, I just showed how you don't know science. http://www.polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=47880&p=212787#p212787 So again here with

What was that you are trying to map ? Should be a snap for a scientist.

It shows you don't know what you are talking about and are out of your element. This stuff is hard. Very hard. It's not easy. And that you think its easy shows just how out of your element you are...

Will

* Lavillenie does this as well. Its his secret to success...

[PVDaddy]

Two drastically different techniques for covering the pole. Bubka swings his take off leg all the way to the top of the pole. His legs continue to climb skyward and here too he must battle the forces of gravity in his swing. Lavillenie is not even trying to get his feet to the top of the pole. His legs do not continue to climb skyward. He is only concerned with Balling up. In fact in the process of balling up, his feet actually move down some (look at the grid). But here too he is taking every advantage even in the balled position to keep his legs and COG under the top hand. Of equal importance, From the very beginning he has made every effort to increase and not inhibit the natural rotation the pole wants to take. From that balled up position, as his COG passes by the pole, the forces of physics takes over and the rotational speed of the pole greatly increases, bringing the top hand to his feet. Its not so much that the rotation of the pole adds significant energy to his swing (although I still contend that its much easier and much safer to invert on a rotating pole) but, that Lavelline takes full advantage of that rotation in positioning himself to cover the pole. Pehaps A better, easier and possibly even safer way to cover the pole. Another paradigm shift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrQWsMa ... e=youtu.be

[willrieffer]

Two drastically different techniques for covering the pole. Bubka swings his take off leg all the way to the top of the pole. His legs continue to climb skyward and here too he must battle the forces of gravity in his swing. Lavillenie is not even trying to get his feet to the top of the pole. His legs do not continue to climb skyward. He is only concerned with Balling up. In fact in the process of balling up, his feet actually move down some (look at the grid). But here too he is taking every advantage even in the balled position to keep his legs and COG under the top hand. Of equal importance, From the very beginning he has made every effort to increase and not inhibit the natural rotation the pole wants to take. From that balled up position, as his COG passes by the pole, the forces of physics takes over and the rotational speed of the pole greatly increases, bringing the top hand to his feet. Its not so much that the rotation of the pole adds significant energy to his swing (although I still contend that its much easier and much safer to invert on a rotating pole) but, that Lavelline takes full advantage of that rotation in positioning himself to cover the pole. Pehaps A better, easier and possibly even safer way to cover the pole. Another paradigm shift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrQWsMa ... e=youtu.be

Did you make that? It's very neat. It's not perfect simply because of the nature of the original footage angles and whatnot, but fascinating none the less.

RL gets more bend earlier and thus works with a shorter chord. Interesting too, it seems, seems, like he has more vertical velocity at the end, but again, I'm not sure I can trust the film enough.

Right around what is RL frame 39 I think you get a sense of what I'm talking about. He's pressed back and at less swing angle. He's more under the top hand.

Again, nice work.

Will

[willrieffer]

One thing I haven't mentioned is that GRV is anti rowing. Too much angle at the shoulder progresses the CoM forward. There is a caveat...

When the vaulter starts closing the angle one can easily see that it rotates the torso forward, once again, into swing progression. What can be accomplished with shoulder action is that the CoM can be moved back without influencing the torso angle. This is to bring the whole system of the vaulter "back" move the CoM back by moving the hands forward while simultaneously keeping the spine flexed and hips tipped forward. This obviously has a limit at the I. Of course most WC vaulters do this, but we are talking about activity and timing, which is important.

Will

[PVDaddy]

Will, You do understand that what I have been addressing right along is the horizontal counterclockwise rotation of the pole and NOT the poles rotation to the crossbars right?

[willrieffer]

Will, You do understand that what I have been addressing right along is the horizontal counterclockwise rotation of the pole and NOT the poles rotation to the crossbars right?

Okay...

But that still doesn't mean very much to me at this point. I cant say there is nothing there, but my intuitive sense is there's not much to it.

Hmmm. Will have to think about it. The angle of the bend in the horizontal. This would be a secondary consideration to me, not elemental. One thing is is that its going to get bounded some by the box shape. The pole wants to stick in the corner.

In some sense the pole is resisting forward momentum. This is one of the reasons it bends. IF in this rotation you change the horizontal velocity of the CoM then you're trading compressive force for distance, so there is a trade off. At transition maybe. Like I say, this all gets very very complicated very quickly.

As a though experiment, if the vaulter just came down on the pole from above and bent it as a spring, the angle wouldn't matter. It could be anywhere in the 360 degrees. But they aren't. Hmmm...

Most right handed vaulters when they fail into a kick back will get kicked back right. I only have to guess this might come from the relation to the bend angle. Yet they also might all tend to take off right. They tend to "drift" right for clearance. But again, if there is any angular displacement of the CoM to the right of the pole tip at take off you'll get right drift as opposed to the angle you are talking about providing a directional resistance force. Yeah. I dunno. LOL!

Will

[KirkB]

Will, You do understand that what I have been addressing right along is the horizontal counterclockwise rotation of the pole and NOT the poles rotation to the crossbars right?

Okay...

But that still doesn't mean very much to me at this point. I can't say there is nothing there, but my intuitive sense is there's not much to it.

"... horizontal counterclockwise rotation of the pole ..." is NOT the proper use of the word "rotate" in a PV context!

PVDaddy continues to insist on promoting his irrelevant, unfounded theories to anyone that will listen. [sigh]

Earlier posts from PVDaddy talk about:

I believe it is possible this counter side swing achieves better counter thrust bend to the pole at the top of his swing as well?

If you search PVP for "counter side swing achieves better counter thrust bend", you will find no less that THREE quotes from him, in 3 separate threads. He has been debunked on these theories by myself and others several times, but he persists. [sigh]

And then there's this, from the Petrov Model vs. Lavillenie Model thread (http://www.polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=46831&start):

... the wise vaulter steers their swing path to the right and up or toward the top hand. This is necessary in order to create a perpendicular swing.

Oh my!

Also this stroke of genius:

So rather than bringing his feet to his top hand, he simply allows the very fast rotating pole to bring his top hand to his feet!

I guess I've been studying the wrong Physics text books!

Please, vaulters and coaches, PLEASE don't try this at home!

Lavillenie is NOT steering to the side, and neither should you! [sigh] Anyone that does will steer themselves right off the side of the pit!

Kirk