MOTOR SKILL ACQUISITION

The vault can be reduced to a series of predictable movements. Unlike something like basketball or fencing, where there is a lot of room for improvising. Pole vaulting is like a dance, in that it is rehearsed. Good pole vault coaches, as well as vaulters, can describe the particular positions a vaulter needs to be in throughout the vault in order to achieve success.

That being said the question a beginner or even an experienced vaulter must ask is "what are the positions I need to hit, and how do I go about learning how to do this?"

What enables a vaulter to hit the right positions is simply having the necessary motor skills to do so. Some motor skill are strictly dependent upon the nervous system, while others involve a necessary amount of strength to execute.

The following section will describe particular phases of the vault along with their corresponding motor skills, and how to obtain them.