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Had a buddy email me, he's getting a new box at his high school finally and he asked me if they should go with steel or aluminum. I have steel at my place and both boxes are in decent shape still, but was wondering if anyone on here had more experience with this.

It is for an outdoor box

That's dirt, a lot of dirt. There other box on the opposite end of the runway is good, but I don't want to play the luck game and hope it's not a headwind. They do have a fieldhouse with a box inside, but there's a curtain that hangs directly over the pit (about 16') and my kid is going to hit it. M...

My friend called me up yesterday after he had a track meet at a local high school. He sent me this picture of the school's pole vault box and said it was quite "janky". We have our conference meet at this school in 3 weeks. The screws that are jutting out, I'm worried about it damaging the...

2 things: 1: You need to work on a higher knee drive down the runway. Pull the ground underneath you (think like an ostrich), don't push off with feet. 2: A better knee drive will allow you to take off strong. I can see the pole lifting you off the ground instead of you jumping UP and driving off th...

If you improve your take-off and plant, you'll have enough speed and power through the rest of the swing in order for your shoulders to drop back naturally. You can see it in your drive knee/thigh right away, it drops down instead of leading. Staying tall on the plant with a better take-off will imp...

Thank you for the replies DJ and Kirk, definitely giving me a better idea on how to train some of my guys so they'll be more consistent. I'm sure I'll have plenty of more questions to after I break down more video. Vaulter made 13'6 Tuesday night gripping 13'8 on a 14' 165. His run is better, but th...

Kirk -I've read your responses on here to other threads and value your insight. He's a 14' vaulter. Yesterday at practice (Temp in the mid 50s), we hit full run slide boxes before we vaulted. I marked 45' and watched. He started out hitting 43'-43'6, with his take off a toe under 10'. I showed him w...

https://youtu.be/m20jKHs2MI8 Video from yesterday's meet. Temperature dropped to about 38 degrees, with the wind it felt like 30, so we stopped right after he made 12'. He's on a 14' 160. He's 5'10, 142 lbs. Running from 7 lefts, starting at 91'. Take off should be just inside 11', he takes off a t...

Vaulter is capped on a 14' 165, so hes gripping at about 13'8. On 7 lefts, his mark is about 91', give or take a foot for conditions. I've been studying DJs midmark chart and he should be at 45' correct? I kept track of where he was at and last night at our meet and he was at 42'6-43' every single t...

Any video?

Shooting out/flat up top is usually caused by a poor take-off, losing energy on the swing and causing you to connect low on the pole, leading to what I call a "saggy butt". If your hips are sagging down, the only direction you can go is out and not up.

I heard a story once about Petrov and a group of elite vaulters who had come to train with him. He took them to the track and had them do simple running drills with a pole to the point where they started to complain, either about the difficulty, the relevance, or the monotony... maybe all three. He...

Thank you both very much! Good to know we're seeing the same problems and appreciate the different schools of thought on this.