THE STRUCTURE OF THE KINEMATIC CHAINS IN THE POLE VAULT EVENT

Abstract

The pole vault jump is a mobile support event. Because of the support, the athlete can influence in the first part the event the trajectory of general mass center and, as a consequence, this can’t be a parabola anymore. The whole system pole – athlete can be compared to a pendulum that oscillates around the support point on the ground. In the first part of the flight the jumper doesn’t hang in a passive way by the pole, but executes active movements that determine the change of his position through the pole from the hang position in standing on the hands.

As a very complex event, the pole vault requires multiple kinematic chains whose components (muscles, bony levers, and joints) involve all the human body segments. On the structure of the jump phases there are indentified the muscular groups, joints and bony levers that cause the motive action in all the motive structure’s moments.