USA Pole Vault Education Initiative

As I See It
By Mark Hannay

NCAA Division II Indoor National Championship: Boston MA, 3/9/2007

Katelin Rains: Sophomore, Minnesota State University

2007 Indoor National Champion, Indoor & Outdoor Highest Vault Ever

First 14’0” (4.27m) by a Division II in NCAA history

Most experts would agree, record vaulting performances aren’t always indicators of technically efficient pole vaulting. Katelin Rains’ 14’0” National Division II All Time Best vault and barrier smashing effort was superb and a very lofty height at any level of competition. However, her performance had the potential of being in the neighborhood of 13% more efficient and could have resulted in a vault in excess of 16’1”. Without question, this young sophomore athlete has potential that may place fear in the hearts of many elite level vaulters in the not too distant future.

Tools (14’0” Record Vault):

Katelin: 5’6¼” 131 lbs.

Pole: UCS/Spirit 14’1.5” 150 lbs., UCS/Spirit 430/68

Top Hand Grip Height: Approximately 13’5”

Grip Width: Approximately 21”

Approach Velocity (from 49’ to 17’ before pole contact with back of box): 7.45meters/sec

Approach Velocity (Last 5’ before pole contact with the back of the box): 7.40meters/sec

Actual Takeoff Point: 11’1”

Optimal Takeoff Point: 11’7”

Standard Placement: 75cm

3^rd To Last Stride (Length): 6’11½ “

Penultimate Stride (Length): 7’6½ “

Takeoff Stride (Length): 5’10½”

Pole Plant Angle (at contact with back of box): 29.8°

Body Angle (at point of support over takeoff foot): 80.9° or a 9.1° backward lean

Takeoff Angle: Approximately 12.4°

Approximate % efficiency: 87%

Approximate inefficiency, due to takeoff point & technique problems: 13%

Projected maximum vault height at 100% efficiency at 7.40 meters/sec: 16’1”

Pole Grip & Carry: Katlin’s vertical angle of carry and pole drop timing is excellent (Fig. 1-4). However, the grip width is approximately 21” which is wider than needs to be and seems to force her to carry the pole lower than necessary placing her top hand well behind her torso during the early approach (See photo below). Furthermore, in many cases the wide grip may reduce some of the energy of bottom end conversion as the pole hits the back of the box (Fig. 5, 8, 9).

Later in the vault, the wide grip may cause some issues in the planting phase, may slightly hinder the timing of the inversion, and slightly effect the eventual inverted position, alignment with the pole’s thrust line, and her longitudinal axis of rotation onto a “belly to the bar” position during bar clearance (fig. 18-20). However, Katlin’s bottom arm and wide grip seemingly does not cause much of an energy loss as is generally the case with a wide grip.

Approach: Katlin’s approach run is clearly one of her strong points with a mid-run velocity of 7.45 meters/second and minimal slowing of .05 meters/second during the plant. Her body posture is nicely erect with excellent knee lift, high heel recovery, and a relaxed pole carry during the early and mid approach (fig. 1-4).

Final Approach and Plant: Her Third to last stride is 7” shorter than her penultimate stride indicating an excellent pre-takeoff sequence of stride length action. The shortening of the takeoff stride is 20” less than the penultimate stride indicating a textbook example a “long-short” technique. However, if the shorting of her takeoff stride was slightly more aggressive, Katlin’s takeoff foot would have been closer to being under her torso placing her on the second phase of her takeoff foot earlier in the takeoff. That would significantly reduce her backward lean of 9.1° making the takeoff stride and body angle more of an accelerating rather than the slight decelerating step that she experienced (Fig. 6-10).

Takeoff Point: As indicated, Katlin’s takeoff point was approximately 11’1” which was inside of her optimal takeoff point by 6”. The inside takeoff point may have been due to several factors; First, her approach and stride lengths were slightly longer than her first few vaults. This is a common and completely understandable problem that results from the adrenalin rush she must have been riding due to her three records and a national championship of the previous ten minutes and a 14’ barrier vault attempt looming. The 14’0” vault when compared to her earlier vaults is quite fast, with velocities ranging from 7.2 to 7.45 meters/second during her two attempts and on the successful third vault. It is quite obvious that she was pumped up and simply overrunning her normal checkmarks. Secondly, her planting action does partially contribute to a slight reaching action of her takeoff leg. The final position of her plant is ideal. Her top hand is just forward of the midline of body and above her forehead. The problem with the slight reaching of the takeoff foot/leg is due to the point where her plant of the pole began, well behind and below her hip (Fig. 5-7). The pathway of the pole and the inertia of the pole are from behind her body (Fig. 7-9) causes an action reaction of her upper body (moving backward away from the plant) while the lower body and takeoff step/foot/leg (moving forward (action/reaction)) resulting in a slight reaching action. If Katlin’s planting action would have been in a more vertical path from her hip to the actual final position, the more vertical pathway of her arms, the pole, and the pole ’s inertia, her takeoff step/foot/leg’s reaction would be significantly redirected underneath her body resulting in an accelerating takeoff stride and posture. Furthermore, her takeoff angle would have increased and would have resulted at more of an ideal takeoff angle approaching what is considered the ideal of approximately 18°.

In Katlin’s 14’ record vault, she compounded the problems caused by a wide grip with the inside of her optimum takeoff point (Fig. 9-10). An inside takeoff with a wide grip often forces a blocking action of the bottom arm reducing shoulder penetration and forward velocity (Fig. 7-10). However, she flexed her bottom arm sufficiently to compensate for the wide grip and inside takeoff which allowed her top arm to load the energy into the pole in a relatively normal manner (Fig. 10-12). The slight collapsing of her bottom arm due to the wide grip and inside takeoff is not desirable, but she overcomes the negative effects of a collapsing wide grip by fully loading the available energy into the pole through the top hand, arm drag, and takeoff leg drag (Fig. 11, 12) resulting is an excellent stretch reflex, an adequate pole bend, and sufficient landing mat penetration.

Follow-through and whip: Katlin’s follow-through and resulting whip to inversion is excellent. Do to a high plant and extended top arm that resulted in a nice pole angle of 29.8°, she is able to store a significant amount of energy in the elastic properties of her torso prior to her lower torso passing the cord of the pole (Fig. 12-15). Her whipping action keeps the pole moving, bent, and supplies her with excellent swing/whip energy assisting in her progression to the inverted position (Fig. 18). Pole rotation velocity is also very good due to an excellent follow-through and whipping action of the takeoff leg. On the negative side of the vault, if her takeoff would not have been slightly inside her energy loading would have been in a more efficient manner and nearer the pole’s sail piece. Also, her lead knee and leg would not have dropped so significantly (Fig. 15). The dropping of the lead knee slightly reduced her reverse “C” position elastic energy (hand drag and takeoff leg elastic stretch) by somewhat releasing the stretch of the top arm, torso, and takeoff leg due to the slight loss of the split leg position and action/reaction of the lead knee vs. the takeoff leg . The dropping the lead knee is common and generally due to an inside takeoff point.

Inversion: Katlin’s inversion action is aggressive and continuous, but incomplete. Her angle of inversion on the record vault is comparable to most of the vaulters at the DII National Meet which were generally between 20° to 35°. The best angle in the field of vaulters was a single vault at 4° and a few vaults at the other extreme of 45°. Most of Katlin’s vault’s fall in the neighborhood of 28° which kept her from fully benefiting from the thrust line of the pole (Fig. 18, 190. Nevertheless, she received a significant amount of lifting energy from her torso’s rotational energy, the pole’s rotational energy, along with the elastic energy thrust through the pole’s thrust line.

Summery: Katlin lost approximately 13%-15% of her vault energy. Most of the deficiencies in her record vault were due to an inside of optimum takeoff point which hindered or lessoned the sequential factors that occur after the takeoff point is reached. However, if all the factors that lessoned the amount of energy returned as lift were at their optimum, she most likely would have had too small of a pole in her hands during the record vault. In other words: Katlin was on the right pole for that particular vault.

Bottom Line: Ladies, look out for Katlin Rains, she is for real. When she cleans up her pole carry/plant, takeoff point, takeoff step technique, closes her grip width slightly, and keeps the pole nearer to her midline during several points of the vault, her plant, whip to inversion, inversion angle, and summation of forces at the top end of the vault will significantly improve. Such tweaking of technique will place her in the 16’1” (490cm) range. Simply put, her errors are minor, she a superb competitor, and is very well coached. It appears that she will be a serious force to contend with for the next two and a half years in DII and beyond. I also look for Katlin to qualify for the US Olympic Trials.

	Click Here to view a Video Demonstration
http://www.pvei.com/video/RV1.wmv