PoleVaultPower.com

We all know to dorsiflex the driving foot and plantarflex the trailing foot at takeoff, but what about the extension and fly-away?

I see a lot of vaulters point their toes as they extend off the pole, but my tendency during pulley drills (when wanting to stay close to the pole) is to dorsiflex. Any practical experience or research out there that shows one is better than the other?

Dorsi flexing your ankles will keep your hips from dropping prematurely.

To get your hips onto the runway sides of the pole you need to keep your quads very tight and flexed to keep them from falling away from the pole.

In my opinion it would be very difficult to keep tension on your quads and not have your feet dorsiflexed. I feel that if you get your shins onto the pole if your Tibialis Anterior is not flexed the pole would push your shins down forcing you to tuck. I think it would be difficult to (while the pole vault it happening) to concentrate and fire the flexors of the quadriceps and the planter flections caused by a flexed Gastrocnemius muscle.

I would think that one would need to have flexed quadriceps and a flexed Tibialis Anterior to get "fully straight legs"

With a Bubka type vault and no tuck this is what I would think needs to happen, however I am very interested in what other people would think.

I think the majority of changes made in the vault are made through mental ques. Thinking of "flex your quads and shins" is pretty hard to think while you are vaulting! Now thinking "pull your toes toward you" is a mental que for both those actions, but you only have to think of one. Bubka didn't think of most of the things he was doing. You get it in practice through simple drills, and when it comes time to jump he has said "i just jump and swing and BOOM, im there!"

I agree... i feel that this discussion is to be between those on the ground... Contemplating those impossible questions. Meanwhile i have had other coaches "point your toes at take off" and "pull now hold get ready to push then...."

But in training one would need to think about those things, until they are "learned", when it stops being a cognitive function of the motor cortex and is becomes being learned function, much as any new skill is.