The Next Level in Pole Vaulting

The Next Level in Pole Vaulting: A Mechanical Model Based Exploration

Reijne, M.M.

Bergsma, O.K. (mentor)
Schwab, A.L. (mentor)

Aerospace Engineering

Structures and Materials

2016-05-27

Looking ahead to the Summer Olympics of 2020 in Tokyo, the Dutch decathletes want to improve their pole vaulting performance by 15 [cm] to increase their chances of winning an Olympic medal. As the current strategies to improve pole vaulting performance have reached their limit, the coach of the Dutch decathletes and NOC*NSF contacted the TU Delft Sports Engineering Institute to explore, identify and asses new strategies. For this purpose a mechanical model is developed that describes the complete motion of the pole vault. The pole vault motion is modelled as the two dimensional motion of a massless pole and a two segment athlete. The mechanical model includes active control of the motion coordination of the athlete and the forces and moments the athlete applies to the top end of the pole. The mechanical model can determine the motion of the athlete, deformation of the pole, the trajectory of the centre of mass, the forces acting on the athlete-pole system and the energy transformations during a vault. Two new strategies have been identified and assessed using this mechanical model. The first strategy is to reduce the impact energy loss by adding a spring to the bottom end of the pole. The second strategy is to not only optimize the pole length and stiffness but the complete pole vault motion including the motion coordination of the athlete. The results show that it is feasible to implement both strategies before the Summer Olympics of 2020 and that they can improve pole vaulting performance. Especially the optimization of the complete pole vault motion has the potential to improve pole vaulting performance by 15 [cm].

pole vaulting
dynamics
elite performance
mechanical model
motion optimization
spring

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:1bd480fc-4368-424f-adef-9d617a70e46f

2018-05-27

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2016 Reijne, M.M.