INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Coaching the Pole Vault and congratulations for taking the next step in your education journey to better yourself as a Coaching professional. You now have lifetime access to this curriculum, the contents of which represent the product of decades of coaching experience. Below are a few important details before you get started …
FOREWORD
With a rich history and significant evolution over the past century, the Pole Vault has a colorful past. Add to this the many schools of thought that have shaped the technical evolution of the event, and coaches are faced with a confusing array of opinions, methods and style from which to sift through when striving to learn about the vault. This is where this course aims to help: Our aim is not to disseminate opinion and conjecture, but to provide a balanced, experience–based and evidence–supported overview of the event. This view will be founded on biomechanical truths, as well as lessons learned from over 40 years coaching of a number of world-class vaulters, interaction with coaches from around the globe, and observation of trends – both past and present.
From this grounding, we will provide you with explanations for the reasons behind technique nuances, and separate ‘style’ from non-negotiable technical truths. Coaching Pole Vault effectively isn’t borne from imitation of the latest and greatest, it comes from a deep understanding of cause and effect, and the application of biomechanical principles. It is our hope that on completion you will have gained this understanding, and be confident with the application of concepts learned within your own environment.
– Dan Pfaff
Editor’s Note: For the purposes of this course, we will discuss the vault from the perspective of a right handed vaulter who’s ‘top hand’ is the right, and ‘bottom hand’ the left. If you coach left handed vaulters, you will simply need to reverse this when coaching or considering a given concept or description.