Fast Isn’t Enough: Rethinking Pole Vault
What three studies reveal about the gap between running quickly and clearing the bar.
Few coaching principles are as widely held in the pole vault as the belief that a faster approach produces a higher vault. The principle is sound, and the evidence supports it. Yet three studies, considered together, indicate that approach velocity explains considerably less about competitive success than is commonly assumed. The evidence begins with velocity, becomes more complex in the final two steps of the run-up, and ultimately points toward a variable that receives comparatively little coaching attention: the pole itself.
Quantifying the value of approach velocity
The case for speed is well established, and it can be expressed as a figure.
Linthorne and Weetman [1] studied a single experienced male pole vaulter across seventeen jumps, recorded in the sagittal plane. By systematically varying the run-up from two steps to sixteen, the investigators generated approach velocities ranging from 4.5 to 8.5 metres per second, a deliberately wide spread intended to expose the underlying relationship between speed and height. The relationship proved linear. Peak height increased at a rate of approximately 0.54 metres for every 1 m/s increase in approach velocity.
That figure is the headline result. The more instructive finding, however, lies in its composition. At the athlete's competition approach velocity of 8.4 m/s, only around one third of the additional height was attributable to a higher grip on the pole. The remaining two thirds arose from push height, the distance the vaulter travels above the grip.
The implication warrants emphasis. The majority of the benefit conferred by a faster approach is not realised on the runway, nor at the plant, but on the pole, during the inversion and push. A faster approach creates the conditions for a higher vault. It does not produce one.
The study also identified a constraint relevant to any athlete pursuing speed without qualification. As approach velocity increased, so did the energy lost at take-off. The athlete recorded a net energy gain on every vault, but the magnitude of that gain diminished slightly at higher speeds. Additional velocity, in other words, carries a cost, and the athlete requires sufficient strength and technical proficiency to absorb it before the extra speed yields a return.
Identical velocity, divergent outcome
If the first study establishes the value of speed, the second complicates its interpretation considerably.
Theodorou and colleagues [2] recorded twelve elite vaulters, seven men and five women, during an indoor international competition, using a panning camera operating at 300 frames per second. The final steps of each approach were analysed for step length, step frequency, average velocity, and inter-limb asymmetry.
The strength of the design lay in its control. Rather than comparing accomplished vaulters with less accomplished ones, the investigators compared each athlete's successful and failed attempts at the same bar height. All variables were held constant except the outcome.
The results were counterintuitive. Neither step length nor step velocity differed significantly between successful and failed attempts. What did differ was step frequency on the pole-carrying leg, which was significantly higher on the failures.
The athletes, in short, were not slower on their unsuccessful attempts. They were travelling at equivalent velocity. What had changed was the manner in which that velocity was produced. The ordinarily stable relationship between step length and step frequency was disrupted in the closing phase of the approach, a disturbance the authors characterise as a perturbation in the interaction of the two variables.
There is a mechanical explanation for the vulnerability of the pole-carrying side. As the vaulter lowers the pole in the final metres, gravitational torque increases, displacing the centre of gravity of the vaulter-and-pole system ahead of the ground support. This reduces the time available for the swing leg to recover into a normal sprinting position and accelerate the foot posteriorly before ground contact. The unilateral carriage of the pole additionally restricts arm swing, which affects leg coordination and hip rotation. Elite vaulters largely accommodate these constraints, exchanging a degree of step length for step frequency without compromising velocity. The accommodation, however, has limits.
When it fails, the consequences are significant. The authors propose that a disrupted step pattern may compromise the positional requirements at take-off, increase the variability of take-off foot placement, or interfere with the vertical impulse required to transfer energy into the pole. Their conclusion is unambiguous: high velocity in the final phase of the approach is essential, but it is not the sole determinant of a successful attempt.
The practical implication is considerable. Where an athlete is running well yet failing to clear heights, the remedy may not be additional speed or greater aggression. It may instead be a more controlled pole drop that preserves the integrity of the final two steps.
The neglected variable
Both preceding studies treat the pole as a fixed quantity. Warburton's doctoral research at the University of Western Australia [3] does not.
Working with eight elite male and female vaulters, Warburton developed a custom instrumented plant box fitted with a three-dimensional load cell to measure forces at the base of the pole, together with a purpose-built system to characterise how poles bend, store and return energy. The findings challenge several established assumptions.
Poles behave differently according to how they are loaded. Testing demonstrated that more energy was both stored and lost under slow dynamic bending than under quasi-static bending. A standard flex rating conveys useful information, but it does not describe how a given pole will behave under the conditions of an actual vault.
The athlete presents comparable complexity. Warburton found that the method used to estimate body segment inertial parameters significantly affected the resulting energy calculations, and concluded that subject-specific measurement is preferable for elite athletes, whose physical characteristics diverge meaningfully from population norms. Among the performance variables examined, total vaulter energy at maximum pole bend emerged as a factor affecting performance. That moment, when the pole is fully loaded and about to return its stored energy, is consequential.
A caveat accompanies these findings. Pole ground reaction force proved a valuable analytical and feedback tool, yet force data alone could not reliably distinguish successful vaults from unsuccessful ones. Several variables anticipated to correlate with peak height did not do so. A further theme recurs throughout the thesis and merits the attention of any coach sceptical of group averages: aggregating athletes obscured meaningful individual findings. For applied purposes, Warburton concluded, individual analysis is the more informative approach.
A single system viewed from three perspectives
Reduced to their essentials, the three studies describe the same phenomenon from different vantage points. The pole vault is a problem of energy transfer. Kinetic energy generated during the approach is converted into elastic potential energy stored in the bending pole, and subsequently returned as gravitational potential energy that elevates the athlete over the bar. The principle is straightforward; the execution is not.
Linthorne and Weetman demonstrate that velocity supplies the system, and quantify the extent of its contribution. Theodorou and colleagues [3] demonstrate that rhythm preserves the system, and that velocity delivered in a disrupted pattern cannot be fully utilised. Warburton [2] demonstrates that the pole and the athlete constitute a single system, and that the instruments selected to measure either will determine what can be known about both [3].
Application to Coaching Practice
Several practical conclusions follow:
Approach velocity should be developed, as it establishes the ceiling for the event and its relationship to performance is both real and quantifiable.
The final two steps warrant protection. The pole drop should be treated as a discrete technical skill rather than a preliminary to the plant, since a controlled drop preserves the step pattern on which take-off position depends.
The phase above the grip deserves proportionate training time. Two thirds of the benefit of a faster approach is realised there, in push height and inversion.
Finally, coaching should be individualised. Pole selection is a performance variable rather than an administrative one, and the athlete in question is not the average of a research sample.
Speed establishes what is possible. Consistency, sequencing and individual specificity determine what is achieved.
References
Linthorne NP, Weetman AHG. Effects of run-up velocity on performance, kinematics, and energy exchanges in the pole vault. J Sports Sci Med. 2012;11(2):245-54.
Theodorou AS, Panoutsakopoulos V, Exell TA, Cassirame J, Sanchez H, Kotzamanidou MC. Success to clear the bar in elite pole vaulters is affected by step frequency perturbation. J Hum Kinet. 2023;87:41-9.
Warburton TK. Energy and pole ground reaction force contributions to pole vault performance [PhD thesis]. Perth: University of Western Australia; 2015.