the dark secret(s) every pole vaulter knows...

[EIUvltr]

Pole vaulters love to have their horn tooted. When people say stuff like "You must need massive upper body strength to do that!" we proudly exclaim "Yup!" And when given the opportunity to toot our own horn we jump at the opportunity. We talk about all the fearlessness, kinesthetic awareness, gymnastic ability, upper body strength, heat vision, etc. that we have which allows us to do such amazing superhero-like feats. Yet lurking deep down inside of us, we all know the same dark truth...

If the fastest person on our team put half the effort into pole vaulting as I have, s/he would probably be jumping a foot higher than me.

We all know it, but we don't want to admit it. Some people come up with various weak-hearted excuses as to why this isn't true. But the fact is the fastest sprinter on the team is usually one of the most athletic and adaptable people in the school. And with a lot less work than it took you, they could jump higher than you ever could.

[PV2020]

The funny thing is I still do not think every one or even every athlete knows this. But it is obviously true. This is why so many decathletes can pole vault once a week for a year and be the best jumper on their team. And these are not even the fastest decathletes. The fastest ones usually are able to jump 14' the second they learn to put their hands over their head so their coach stops practicing because they think that is good enough and go back to focusing on the other events.

If there was no such thing as a roster cap in college, the best coaches would get the best vaulters by simply recruiting every 10.8 guy that is not recruited in the 100 and teaching them to pole vault. It still marvels me how many women sprinters run over 10 m/s at the end of their dashes, but we get amazed when a guy can go over 9.5 m/s with a pole in his hand. There are guys running 11.5 m/s without a pole in the world, we should have more guy vaulters over 10.0 with it.

[EIUvltr]

I've been saying the same thing for almost a decade now. Usain Bolt is a better pole vaulter than Bubka. He just doesn't know it.

[rmba]

You are making the mistake of confusing pole vault with a math problem.

Sure you can plug in speed, height, weight and get some great numbers but without technique, they are irrelevant....and no matter how co-ordinated, flexible, strong the former sprinter/aspirant pole vaulter is, they still need hours, and the mindset to put in those hours to jump higher.

Successful pole vaulters can have lots of backgrounds and I am going to use my now 15 year old daughter as just one example of mind set and skill set (this is not to show off though of course I am proud of her!). She was climbing trees from the age of 2, participated in springboard/platform diving (and at age 11 was performing reverse dives from 5m)....she is good at pole vaulting (but there is always some one better!) because she loves what she does and is prepared to spend hours at it under a great coach (in the gymnastic hall, at the gym, jumping in the rain at the track).

...she is pretty quick, too....being a state age 100m medallist and national finalist 2 years ago. She still makes state sprint finals despite not having practised starts for about a year and a half.

There ARE girls faster than her....and some of them are pretty tall, too.....but she is faster (and stronger) than guys in her squad who jump over a meter higher than her.

[EIUvltr]

I'm sorry but I really think you're romanticizing it. Like 2020 said, college coaches are able to get decathletes to jump relatively high heights without much practice at all. I've seen it personally as well as hear of numerous stories people jumping ridiculous heights their first day. I saw Donald Thomas high jump 7'3.5" his first meet ever.

We Americans like to glorify hard work due to the Puritan work ethic of our predecessors. But when it comes down to it, the gifted ones can put in a fraction of the work and jump higher than we ever could. You're also making the mistake of assuming that these fast and strong athletes wouldn't put in any hard work if an opportunity to pole vault was presented to them.

If I coached college I would put serious consideration into recruiting the state qualifying sprinters and long jumpers who didn't get scholarships for their respective events, instead of the slower weaker pole vaulter who placed top 3 just because s/he worked really hard.

[PV2020]

You are making the mistake of confusing pole vault with a math problem.

Sure you can plug in speed, height, weight and get some great numbers but without technique, they are irrelevant....and no matter how co-ordinated, flexible, strong the former sprinter/aspirant pole vaulter is, they still need hours, and the mindset to put in those hours to jump higher.

Successful pole vaulters can have lots of backgrounds and I am going to use my now 15 year old daughter as just one example of mind set and skill set (this is not to show off though of course I am proud of her!). She was climbing trees from the age of 2, participated in springboard/platform diving (and at age 11 was performing reverse dives from 5m)....she is good at pole vaulting (but there is always some one better!) because she loves what she does and is prepared to spend hours at it under a great coach (in the gymnastic hall, at the gym, jumping in the rain at the track).

...she is pretty quick, too....being a state age 100m medallist and national finalist 2 years ago. She still makes state sprint finals despite not having practised starts for about a year and a half.

There ARE girls faster than her....and some of them are pretty tall, too.....but she is faster (and stronger) than guys in her squad who jump over a meter higher than her.

No offence, but I am going to take this as an over exaggeration.

Lets take for example your daughter jumps 3.05 and is faster and stronger than the guys that jump 4.05 on her team. This may be true, but this just means your daughter is way jumping under her potential. I have seen some really un-athletic guys jump 4.05. Like the kind of guy that can not walk in a straight line without tripping over their own feet and could not break 14 in the 100m dash.

But you know what these guys had, they were taller and stronger.

And I still do not believe your daughter is "Stronger" and "Faster". She may be able to do more pull ups or even squat and bench more because she has practiced those. But I would bet those guys that are jumping a meter higher than her are naturally more explosive, have much higher verticals, could power clean a lot more (if taught properly), and probably would beat her in a flying 10m time trial every day. She may just beat them in running workouts because she tries harder.

And your comment also kind of contradicts itself. You state your daughter trains a lot for the vault but has back ground in climbing trees and doing flips. But then you say she is a state finalist in the sprints. That means she is fast. I bet she is faster than all the other girl pole vaulters on her team, and I bet she jumps higher than them too unless they have just been vaulting longer or with a different coach. Showing that speed helps. A college coach with confidence in their coaching ability would recruit your daughter even if she jumped a little lower than another girl if they knew she was faster. One major things coaches do is assume the high school athlete had a bad coach and that they could coach them to being good because they are so athletic.

So when it comes down to it, why spend 4 years fixing a high school coaches mistakes when you can just find an athlete and build them from scratch.

[EIUvltr]

What he said.

But seriously, you can't disagree with me and then say "my daughter is extremely fast AND a good vaulter, except she's nowhere near as good as the terribly unathletic guys on her team." That doesn't make any sense.

I also doubt that she is stronger than maybe a couple guys on the team. The strength difference between men and women is extremely large. Sometimes people forget how large.

Except for aneta... http://youtu.be/FJug16NlqPk

[rmba]

I bet she is faster than all the other girl pole vaulters on her team, and I bet she jumps higher than them too

...she does!

my daughter is extremely fast AND a good vaulter, except she's nowhere near as good as the terribly unathletic guys on her team

the para-phrasing alters my intent.

She consistently does faster 30m/60m sprints than at least one guy who jumps over a metre higher (her PB is 3.56m and his is 4.75m).

I was talking more about core strength....but their squad have some testing that includes holding yourself on parallel bars with legs parallel to the ground and rope climbing without legs and she tests better in these....I don't know about in the gym but can check that too!

I have seen some pretty good decathletes not put in enough time and effort for pole vault and lose enough points to not win or medal.

I DO agree with the general premise that speed and height are good indicators of potential pole vault ability but, where I differ to you is I believe that it takes a lot of work to realise that potential and not everyone who is fast and tall is cut out to do that work.