Consumption and Costs in the Pole Vault

Consumption in the Pole Vault

As many who have played sports before know, they can be an expensive investment. My first blog talked about the motivations and emotions that are involved in pole vaulting. My second blog analyzed how habits can come into play. This blog will discuss the consumption of goods and services involved in learning to pole vault compared to continuing to pole vault at the college level.

Initially learning to pole vault can be super expensive. Especially for the high school itself, there is a lot of equipment necessary to be able to vault at all, which results in a lot of costs, “negative results of consumption experiences” (Babin, 2016, pp. 5). The first thing of course, is the pits. 5 giant mats, with a large cover mat, a box cover, and standard covers. Just this combination of mats necessary to meet regulations can cost somewhere between $15,000-30,000. You also need standards and a runway of course.

The next expense for high schools is supplying poles for the various kids who choose to try pole vaulting. There are also safety regulations on poles, a vaulter has to be jumping on a pole with a weight rating that is above their weight so that they don’t break it. There are a very wide variety of brands, weights, lengths, flex points, etc, physical characteristics, “tangible elements or the parts of a message that can be sensed”, that differentiate each pole from another (Babin, 2016, 71). This is where many high schools fall short as they don’t provide the right poles. Why is it so difficult for high schools to supply the right poles?

As each vaulter improves, they keep needing bigger and bigger poles. It is also common for serious vaulters to vault on multiple poles at one competition. For example, in college now I travel with 9-10 poles for every meet. Each pole costs $400-1,000. You also need a bag to travel your poles in so that they don’t get scratched. If a pole gets compromised it is more likely to break. A pole bag costs $200-500. These are all costs typically covered by the school.

This is a catalog with the specs of all the different poles that this one brand offers.

My high school did not have a pole vault coach, so my family invested a lot of money in finding coaching. This was intentional learning, “the process by which consumers set out to specifically learn information devoted to a certain subject” (Babin, 2016, pp 64). This learning also had particular costs. Some Sundays we drove 4+ hours in order to practice for 2. We paid for college track camps, club fees, anything to try to get enough coaching to learn the sport. My family also bought several used poles from one of the coaches that I worked with because my school only supplied me with one in the range that I needed. I think if I recall correctly we spent $500 for two used poles. We made day trips to Indiana for a couple hours of practice. Nike is the only company that makes pole vault specific spikes and they run at about $120.

High school athletic departments also have to pay to enter their track team into meets during the season. The only season high school teams take part in is the outdoor spring season. There is also a high school indoor season which I participated in my Junior and Senior year. These meets had entry fees ranging from $10-20 as well as travel costs to and from the meets and sometimes hotels. There are also a lot of summer pole vault competitions and I participated in all of them.

As any other sport kids participate in, there are a lot of costs associated with all the equipment, coaching, clubs, etc that are necessary to learn, improve and eventually be the best. All of these investments that my parents made were worth it because they allowed me to continue vaulting at the B1G Ten level.

Even as an athlete without any scholarship money, consumption behavior in the pole vault is pretty different in college because the team budget is so much larger. We have a coach, we are supplied with excessive amounts of workout clothes and we don’t have to buy our own running shoes or spikes. Athletes get free breakfast every school day, free dinners occasionally and snacks at the track every day. We essentially have free health care with the ability to see athletic trainers and team doctors and even specialists whenever we need to. Not to mention tutors, other academic services, flights, hotels, per diem, and the list goes on. Although I don’t pay for really anything out of pocket to continue vaulting, I definitely consume more goods and services to vault at this level.

Works Cited

Babin, B., & Harris, E. (2016). In CB 7 (7th ed., pp. 5,64,71). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Footlocker. (2017). Nike ZOOM PVII – Mens http://www.footlocker.com/product/model:89734/sku:17404100/nike-zoom-pv-ii-mens/white/black/?cm=&SID=5403&inceptor=1&cm_mmc=SEM-_-Non-Branded-_-_cat%3Afootlocker.com-_-Google&gclid=CLG6ibH059ICFZW1wAod4-4G9A

UCS Spirit. (2014, October 31) UCS Track and Field Catalog 2015 (pp. 4-25). https://issuu.com/ucsspirit/docs/ucs_track_and_field_catalog_2015

The run through monster: how fear creates a habit

My previous blog outlined some of the motivations and emotions involved in pole vaulting. This blog will address how an interruption in the habit loop of pole vaulting can cause a mental block, sometimes called a "run through monster", defined as "the run through: an abrupt cessation of motion during the take-off phase, resulting in the inability of a vaulter to finish the jump"(Technique Magazine, 2017, pp. 9).

A mental block is a phenomenon where a pole vaulter loses the physical ability to jump entirely. Often times the vaulter will run through over and over and over again at practice and in meets. This can last for a week, a month, or in extreme cases years, potentially ending a vaulter's career if the run through becomes a habit written over the original habit of actual vaulting.
This video is an example of a run through:

https://youtu.be/w21w4xrRCX4

As a result of training for years, most aspects of the pole vault have become habit. The "cue", standing on the runway with a pole ready to go, the "routine", running a certain number of strides followed by the plant, take-off, swing and turn and the "reward" - clearing a bar and the "craving" is elicited by the adrenaline rush and satisfaction of clearing a new height. The cue is a trigger that tells the brain which pattern to use, the routine is the automatic process, the reward tells the brain whether the process is worth repeating and the craving is a powerful sense of anticipation that powers the whole loop (Duhigg, 2012, pp.13,25).

(Duhigg, 2012, pp.13)

A mental block can occur when an event interrupts the normal loop, for instance getting rejected by the pole and landing back on the runway, a pole breaking, or an injury. If this event creates a new cue, often anxiety or fear while standing on the runway, it can change the routine and stop the vaulter from being able to complete the jump.
A track magazine called Technique wrote an article on mental blocks in the pole vault
"If an accident or pole break occurs, it is likely that athletes will tend to suppress these traumatic experiences. Oftentimes, they ignore them as if they've never happened. However, these experiences can lead to an unconscious conditioning process that will result in fear and anxiety" (Technique Magazine, 2017, pp. 12).

I have personally been struggling with a mental block and one of the most difficult parts of overcoming it is figuring out what the specific cue is that has interrupted the normal vault habit loop, and finding a way to cue the correct habit loop without triggering the cue of the mental block.
One tactic that my coach and I have developed is breaking the routine into smaller parts, the approach, the jump etc, and cuing each individually to try to awaken the old habits that I have been training for years.
I have identified the root of the interruption; I tore my ACL at the end of last season and since returning to vaulting have experienced painful popping in my knee while doing my approach. However, I have not identified a specific cue change that makes me run through. Running through has not become a habit for me, and most practices and meets I have been able to vault normally. But occasionally the habit loop for running through takes over. I have also found that high-stress scenarios can return me to the habit loop of running through, for example at a meet when I get to a bar that I have not yet cleared this season, or if I move up to a new pole. I have yet to figure out the exact cue that makes me run through, and I am still not sure how I can override that cue, or ignore it and simultaneously cue my normal vault routine.

From what I have seen in the pole vault community, mental blocks can go one of two ways. Running through can become a stronger habit than actually vaulting. For example my roommate fought a mental block for all 4 years of her college career and hardly ever finished a vault. The other way it can go is the vaulter finds a way to cue their normal vault and the mental block goes away. Understanding these two habit loops can help to train to overcome the bad ones, and cue the good ones. Habits are important in almost any sport because actions need to be made quickly, without time for decision making. So we practice repeatedly to form habits that we can rely on in high stress situations like championships. Coming into college, I had many habits in my vaulting technique that were bad, and I have learned how difficult it is to change these habits and how easily bad habits can resurface.

Works Cited

Duhigg, Charles. (2012, Feb 12) "The Power of Habit" (pp.13,25) New York City, NY: Random House Publishing.

Technique Magazine. (2017, Feb) "Over it: Variables that affect take off" in Technique Magazine (Vol 10 Number 3 pp. 9-12) New Orleans, LA: USTFCCCA