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Watching the women's event today, and just wondered how on earth you learn to do it? There must be a minimum length pole for beginners to get the action right?
Someone on here must have had a go.
are you a pole vaulter?
no i’m a german but how did you know that my name was walter?
My eldest did pole vaulting for a bit. The coach was a mate of a mate & the only venue was an 80 mile round trip away. I guess if you find somewhere that's got the equipment they will also know about coaching. It is hilariously difficult and after the few attempts I had strained every muscle in my upper body as I'm a bit of a lummox. Give it a go, it's a hoot.
We did it at school. Petrifying, especially for a gravity prone chubber. I recall the pole being rigid aluminium and the teacher basically propelling us over the bar with a shove.
I can't recall if it was part of AA training at school, we did just about everything else eg shot-put, javelin etc...
I did it at school (a bog-standard state comprehensive in North Yorkshire). The poles were much shorter and nowhere near as flexible, but it taught us the fundamentals.
I was still shit at it mind you, although (despite being a real short-arse) I was very good at the triple-jump and represented my house.
In my day the poles at school were solid wood about 6 feet long and the pad was about 2" thick.
Still, the PE teacher Mr Brown held the M70 world record for a few years, so at least he knew what he was doing.
Also did it at school - but not for long.
Wooden pole and sand pit.
Thanks but...no.
Last school I was at I coached sprinting but we had a pole vaulting coach. Went from pretty short unbendable poles (probably an artefact of their shortness) to ones a few metres long. It started with run up and placement of pole, levering onto mat without bar then a bar.
Not a sport we did at school, but thanks for the answers.
Suspect there's a treasure trove of YouTube/You've Been Framed vids
I've often wondered who makes the poles - my money would be on someone like Head, sort of company that makes everything.
Have a go, what could go wrong!
https://www.athleticsdirect.co.uk/product-category/pole-vault-equipment/pole-vault-poles/
the bit I don't get - presumably your speed and weight to the plant creates the bend in the pole that then straightens and hoys you over the bar. So a smaller, slower athlete (like a lady) would use a lighter pole with more bend as there's less to compress and retrun.
But what about length. 4.90 or so would have won gold in the women's this morning, and you can get a pole that's up to 5.1m in length, surely the longer the pole the higher you can jump? As long as you push it away from the bar....
I suppose there's a finite amount of energy that you can put into the bar and still reach the apex, which naturally limits the length.
Back of the envelope maffs suggests that the overriding factor would be the speed you reach in the run-up.
I'd love to try it. Never had the opportunity at school.
I used to try as a kid in the garden with various length sticks, etc. That's how I started. It was also around that same time I called it a day on my pole vaulting career.
When I was at school, every time I caught a glimpse of Miss Carter’s cleavage I nearly pole vaulted out the window. It was the 80s and comments like this were acceptable then.
Lol @ csb and RB 🤣
Pole vault – how do you even start?
Very fast run up?
I satarted at school... Gym teacher took 3 of us that were deep into gymnastics got an old reel to reel video recoder and taught us the very basics.
Started with aluminium poles made our own box and had to land feet first in a sandpit.
We progressed they baught 2 fibre glass poles and we got to use the schools new crashmat outside.
Ended up comming second in regional championships behind my best mate (he went on to polevault for the Army).
I am 60 so this was back in the dark ages.
Didn't some comedy pair do basic training for it on telly recently. Wasn't something I'd normally watch so can't recall who... Romesh and Rob Beckett maybe, or no! I think it was Bradley Walsh and son! How could you have missed it??! 😆
We had a pole vault pit at school (local comp, early '80s). I think I only ever saw it used once - Rigid wooden pole about 8' long, landing onto sand.
It was the 80s and comments like this were acceptable then.
If it was still the 80's, I'd be tempted to point out that it's not only how fast you go and how much force you use, but also the technique and angle with which you insert the end of your pole into the box.
From wikipedia:
The covering in the box ensures the pole will slide to the back of the box without catching on anything
which is helpful of course, but doesn't mean you can just jab it in there and hope for the best. A broken pole and it could easily end in tears.
I was gonna give it a go pre Covid, but since then it's all been a bit up in the air...
I was in an athletics club in the late 70s (as a youth) and we put up teams in some Southern league.
Problems was we are a tiny village so each of us had to tackle all sorts of events as well as those we were half-good at.
I got given the pole vault one meet so my technique was to run down the runway, chuck the pole to one side and dive over the bar, low height but got us valuable points.
I assumed you were invited to take part if you were either very good or very bad at punting. Not sure which.
Don’t start with your mums telescopic washing line prop and use the washing line as a bar.
Don’t ask me how I know.
I’d also not recommend using towel rails drilled into ceramic tiles for gymnastic apparatus.
Why though? why use a pole to jump over things? very skilled I'm sure but what purpose does using a pole to jump over things have?
It's based on people from the low countries jumping canals and dykes to avoid long walks to use bridges
But what about length. 4.90 or so would have won gold in the women’s this morning, and you can get a pole that’s up to 5.1m in length, surely the longer the pole the higher you can jump?
I guess the longer the pole, the more kinetic energy / velocity / mass you need to actually get it up and over. If you can't go past its centre of gravity with sufficient momentum to carry you over the bar then you, eh, won't.
That's a lot of sciency words there that sound like I know what I'm talking about. I don't, I'm winging it. (-:
I can't be the only one thinking a bridge would be a much more sensible option, what sort of message does this send to younger generations when we give medals to people who got highly skilled at avoiding building bridges? I just don't get this athletics thing, why don't they learn something useful?
Getting through to a power company in record time, someone doing that in less than 2 hours would be a real achievement for manknind, I'd even cheer them on, but jumping over a pole..with a pole! it's 2021 for gods sake no one jumps over things.
How do you start? From the ground up, obvs.
it’s 2021 for gods sake no one jumps over things.
Other than conclusions.
Other than conclusions
New Olympic event for the 21st century 'the conclusion jump'..now we're talking.