If you’re asking this question, it’s likely your first or second year vaulting and you see your competition during meets running from a bunch of different lengths of runs. In fact, you’ll see several vaulters go from two or three different lengths of runs. During my junior and senior year of high school, I would run from a 3, 5, and 7 step run during my warmups and my competition run was from 7 steps.
2 Steps is 1 Step in Pole Vault
More often than not, you’ll hear people talking about their steps just like I did above. “Go warm up from 3 steps.” At first, that sounds ridiculous, 3 steps! Well, it’s actually 6 steps. In pole vault, and many other jumps events, the vaulter only counts their takeoff foot as a step. So, in a 3 step vault, your takeoff foot will hit the ground 3 times, including the takeoff step itself. Below is a video of Sergey Bubka performing a 3 step pop up in warm-ups. It may also be common to hear the run referred to as a number of lefts or rights. If a vaulter is running 3 lefts then you know they’re a right handed vaulter because their takeoff step is their left foot. If a vaulter is running 3 rights then you know they’re a left handed vaulter because their takeoff step is their right foot.
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 Steps?
How many steps should you run? Well, it depends how fast you are and how much speed you need to move the pole to vertical and yourself safely into the pit. Unless you’re a college or elite vaulter, there’s really no reason to worry about running 9 and 10 steps. It takes a tremendous amount of practice to be able to consistenly run 9 and 10 steps and takeoff at the same point every time.
The first week pole vaulting is often remembering which foot to takeoff of, to get your hands up on time, and focusing on pushing the pole over into the mat instead of pulling it towards your body. These drills can be performed from 1, 2, or 3 steps. The purpose of moving back in steps is to increase your speed. There’s no reason to increase your speed in the vault until you’ve learned a fundamental level of control with your current speed.
Competition Run Length?
If you’re just starting out, work with your coach on getting back to 5 steps for some of your first meets. At this high school level, this is an extremely common run length for males jumping approximately 7’-12’ and females jumping 6’-9’. Five steps is a great length of run to be able to control your run, learn how to be consistent, and develop enough speed for a young vaulter to learn how to flex and bend the pole.
Can you control your run?
Running form with a pole is one of the most important pieces in developing yourself as a pole vaulter. It’s the difference between a run through and an attempt. Speed down the runway is the difference between great and elite. I won’t dive into running mechanics in this post because that’s a whole series of posts itself. However, you should be taking off from a consistent spot. For me, if I was holding about 14’6” I knew I should be taking off around 12’-12’3”. If I’m taking off at 11’ one jump, 12” the next, and 13” the next, I have a very inconsistent run and moving my step back would only make it worse.
Personally, my competition run was at 5 steps for the entirety of my freshman year. It wasn’t until the middle of my sophomore year that I moved back to 6 steps and I dealt with severe run through issues in the outdoor season of my sophomore year. For my junior and senior year of high school my competition run was 7 steps and a couple meets my senior year I tried 8 steps.
My personal bests with different run lengths:
Freshman year from 5 steps: 11’8”
Sophomore year from 6 steps: 13’8’
Junior year from 7 steps: 15’6”
Senior year from 7 steps: 16’
Senior year from 8 steps: 15’3” ( I think…I only did 8 steps a few meets that had really nice weather)
Can you build more speed with another step?
The only reason to move back a step is if you need more speed in your vault. More speed means bigger poles and bigger grips launching you to higher heights. Most high school vaulters will find that they’re speed and control maxes out between 6 and 8 steps. There’s a couple ways to tell if you could benefit from another step. First is based on feel. Do you think you could get faster from running another step? For most people this answer will be yes back to 6 lefts. Once you get to 6 lefts though, some people will see greater benefit by focusing on control because they don’t really pick up speed after 6 steps. However, the higher top speed a vaulter has, the more steps it takes to reach that top speed. Therefore, moving back even further can be warranted. Without fancy technology, there’s a relatively simple way to determine if your 7 step is faster than you 6:
Grab a pole you would use from that length of run.
Do a pole run from your current length run and video it. Ideally, you can film it in slow motion to capture more frames per second. Ideally, the person filming is standing where they’re looking straight on at your last few steps.
Do a pole run from a run that’s one more step back. (if you’re existing run is 6 steps, then do 7 steps for this step). Film it the same was as step 2.
Compare how long your last two lefts or rights take. Using a tool like Coach’s Eye or something similar, you can add a stopwatch to the video to track the time. To ensure you’re recording the equivalent sections of the run, end the stop watch at the frame where your takeoff foot first touches the ground. Start the stop watch the moment your take off foot leaves the ground on the 3rd to last time it touches the ground.
If the time frame is shorter on the longer run then congrats, you can gain more speed by moving back a step.
Not so fast
Before just launching into your new run in a competition. Spend some time on the track doing pole runs with the new run length and perhaps some practices getting used to vaulting from your new run before trying it a meet. Don’t get discouraged if it takes a few weeks of practice to fully adjust to a longer run.