Active / Passive Phases

Time periods in which the vaulter increases the level of energy in the vaulter-pole system are active phases. Periods in which the vaulter does not increase that level are passive phases.

The test is whether energy enters the system, and that is the only test. A passive phase can be strenuous and can look athletic; effort is not the measure. Redistributing energy already created in the run up is not input, so a phase that only moves existing energy around is passive however hard it is to perform.

Lost time in a vault is the sum of its passive phases.

Common passive phases are chest penetration, pushing the pole with the bottom arm, and waiting for the pole to recoil. None of these increases the energy in the system.

A vaulter should not train to use passive phases, but to eliminate them. Some can be substituted directly by active phases; others are reduced by increasing input during the active phases around them. In a real performance they cannot be removed entirely, but they can be minimized, and they should never be taught as though they belonged.

What it displaces. The conventional phase breakdown, which divides the vault by what the body is doing and where it is, rather than by whether the athlete is adding energy. Under that breakdown a passive phase and an active one are simply consecutive stages, with no reason to prefer one over the other.

The terms were introduced by Roman Botcharnikov in The Continuous Chain Model in the Pole Vault, Track Coach No. 135, Spring 1996, pp. 4301–4304.