Athletics of To-Day 1929

Athletics of To-day and the full arm extension shown in Fig. 25 is strongly recom– mended, if the athlete has patience to practise it long enough to build up a perfectly balanced swing to follow. Placement of the take-off foot in relation to arm extension and hand-hold is all a question of triangulation. An imaginary plumb-line dropped from the hands at full arm extension to the ground gives a right-angle triangle, enclosed by the pole, ground, and an imaginary plumb-line. Any take-off spot which brings the jumping foot to a point on the slideway side of the imaginary perpendicular is wrong, because the pole will beat the body swing as both rise toward the bar; also, with the foot placed down ahead of the hand-hold it is impossible to get the spring from the toes. G. P. Faust, the Oxford and ambridge record holder, and a host of other first-rate vaulters, say that the arms should be fully extended upwards and the take-off foot be placed directly under the hands for the spring. According to the mechanics of pole vaulting they are right, since their take-off causes the feet to follow the arc of a circle which has the ground for a tangent. Another school contends that the take-off spot should be a foot or so back (away from the slide– way) from the imaginary plumb-line dropped from the hand– hold. Their opponents argue that this take-off must be wrong, since it tends to drive the edge of the swing-circle into the ground. The answer to this is that a slight crouch converts the arc; and, in any case, the tt hang" gained by a back-of-the-plumb– line take-off position compensates fully for any los of traction. During the early stages of the swing the body hangs loose from the hand-grip, but the pow rful upwards swing must be aided by a strong bending of the hips and a slight bending of the knees. One so often sees the novice quit the pole before it reach s the p rpendicular. This mean that his push-up mer ly pushes the pole down and away, and h has no v rtical support to push up from. The real cause of thi trouble is that the vaulter himself has lacked 1 g swing and so ha fail d to h lp the pole to rise through the full range of its arc. Th n again when the vaulter crashes down on to the bar, instead of