Safe Standards

By Alan Roark, Vault Coach, Amherst Steele H.S., Amherst, Ohio

At track meets I watch to see where everyone sets their standard when the vault in a meet.  Usually as the bar goes up the standards move up.  When things are getting tougher, they are also adding more risk. I believe that you need room to fly in and swing up to complete a good solid vault.  When my vaulters ask if they can move the bar up, I usually ask if they will fly in more to get to the bar.  Most of the time when the standards are closer than 24” back, the vaulter ends up cheating on their leg swing and they pull their legs in to be able to clear the close bar.  If the bar were farther back they would have enough room to keep their trail leg straighter and create more power and lift in their vault.  Also, it’s a lot safer to vault with the standards back at 24 to 31”.  For both safety and technique reasons, I have our standards at 30” all the time, every day at practice.  Our junior high kids, girls, and boys at Amherst all think it’s NORMAL to have the standards at 30”.  Below is an illustration to show your kids.  Most of them will want the standards at 30” after seeing this example.

It’s tough to relate to where the bar is when it’s up on the standards 10-15’ up, so, lay a cross bar right on the pit and place it 15 1/2” from the back of the box.  They can see right away that it doesn’t leave them much room to mess up.  If they clear the bar, they land at the top of the slope, if they come up short, there isn’t much to land on.  Next, lay the bar across the pit at 31 1/2” and they can see they have much more room to vault and that they will land well into the pit when they go over the bar.

15 1/2’

311/2”