Mechanical performance determinants in women’s vs men’s pole-vault

J Cassirame,H Sanchez,S Homo,J Frère

doi:10.1080/10255842.2017.1382849

Abstract

Since its first world record in 1992 and its official introduction in 1999 at the 7th IAAF World Championships, the women’s pole vault event has been little studied. First data showed that, similar...

Highlights

Since its first world record in 1992 and its official introduction in 1999 at the 7th IAAF World Championships, the women’s pole vault event has been little studied
It has been shown that performance in women’s pole vault was mainly explained by the energy of the athlete at the take-off and by the energy gain due to the work done by the athlete during the pole support phase (Grabner 2004; Schade et al 2004)
A higher angular momentum during the pole support phase has been found for women in comparison with men (Schade et al 2004), the specificity of the women’s pole vault biomechanics with regard to the men remains an open question and is it not reasonable to consider that women’s performance are built to men (Frère et al 2010)

Summary

Introduction

Since its first world record in 1992 and its official introduction in 1999 at the 7th IAAF World Championships, the women’s pole vault event has been little studied. A higher angular momentum during the pole support phase has been found for women in comparison with men (Schade et al 2004), the specificity of the women’s pole vault biomechanics with regard to the men remains an open question and is it not reasonable to consider that women’s performance are built to men (Frère et al 2010). This is all the more the case as the performance level in the women’s pole vault is still increasing. The aim of this study was to determine for both women and men the relative influence of several take-off and pole support mechanical variables on the pole vault performance

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Conclusion