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when ever i start my swing it seems that i can't get completely upside down. any tips? heres a vid of me doing ten' 6" and im still not completely upside down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhAqQ-GCYpU

thousands of drills and short run vaulting will help.

Run better, plant better, take off better. That's the only way to jump above your grip.

For future reference, film yourself from the side.

yea step one is to do tons of rockback drills, but do them well. you can check out bubba's PV website which has pics of rockbacks being performed correctly.

http://www.bubbapv.com/Pages/drill.htm

that's how its done. get that down and you will surely begin to swing better and get better inversion

I have the same problem as TylerPorter too, except, I can get fully inverted on a pop-up, but when it comes to a full approach, I can't do it for anything. The bend in the pole has a huge effect on me, so that's why I think I can't do it on a full approach. I also need to break the elbow on my bottom arm, since I am blocking out. But, any suggestions about getting inverted on a full approach anyone???

If you are blocking your left arm out, then you definetely need to fix that so you can get inverted. A guy on my team does the same thing. He can swing on a stiff pole, but he blocks his arm out and can't do anything from a long run. Working on your takeoff without a blocked arm would definetely be something that you should consider working on for your swing.

I would say that you need to do some swings on rings or a high bar and get the feeling of swinging to being where your hips are above your head and your shoulders dropped back.
You currently rotate around your hip axis and you need to change it to your shoulders that you rotate around.
It's really just a matter of doing a lot of swinging drills, gymnastics really helps, to get the feeling. You have a nice trail leg swing, which is good.

merry christmas..

if the run.. plant... and swing are proformed correctly... WITH the right grip and pole.......... the swing should be automatic...

blocking, pulling, breaking at the hips and not rotating around the shoulders and hands stop the swing............. and keep the vault from being one continous action....

RUN.... PLANT.... SWING

; )

dj

can you invert on smaller poles from a short approach? i know i can. you can work on your inversion on small, soft poles from a very short approach (3-4 lefts) with a low grip. once your comfortable and got it down, raise your grip, continue until it's comfortable. if need be go down a grip or down a pole. do this every practice, start low and work your way up. i do this every vault practice to a certain extent and sometimes that's all i do.

in my formative years i always had a great run, take-off and plant but flagged out all the time.

not that anyone remembers but i embarked on a journey to fix my inversion (basically changing the old technique pounding into my head for years and implementing the framework in BTB) over a year ago. i read BTB numerous times and have worked on the whip as described in it. if anything BTB gives a mental framework to strive towards.

now there is a small percentage of people who gain nothing from this incremental approach (the smokinvaulters out there) and can pop 18+ from a long run w/o trying. but that is definitely the exception.

just be patient, I know it's difficult, i still struggle myself with wanting too much too soon. [/b]

I can personally vouch for OUvaulterUSAF's improvement. I watched him vault when he was at OU. From the pictures he has posted, he has gotten much better.

[quote="OUvaulterUSAF"]can you invert on smaller poles from a short approach?

I am only able to get completely inverted on pop-ups, which for me is a 3 or 4 step. The only reason I am able to get inverted is because on a pop-up, my bottom arm totally caves in. Whereas on a full approach, I totally press out my bottom arm, causing me to block out, and not be able to get inverted. The one thing I know I need to do is, as the pole is unbending, just let the bottom arm come in, but I haven't been able to do that yet. Any advice as to how I can get that timing down, and finally tuck in that bottom arm??

OUvaulterUSAF tag states...........

I've found I have one perfect jump per meet...too bad it's during warm-ups.

there are a couple of things that make this a true statement for many vaulters...... and ties in with the invert as well as all phases of a good vault.

1. during warm-up a vaulter generally focuses on a decent run with a high aggressive plant .. and then they just "let the rest of the vault happen" knowing that they will finish the vaults in the meet...

2. a good warm-up jump feels so easy the vaulter usualy feels they need a bigger pole and/or they need to "stay with the vault longer" to really get "all" of it...

heres the "rub"

the focus: "a decent run with a high aggressive plant .. " is where a good vault should begin on all vaults, warm-up or competition if those 2 are not "correct' or very close to "on"... it is very difficult to MAKE a good vault with a bad run and bad plant.

"feeling" easy is what a good vault should feel like...

what happened? you relaxed and swung naturally and "fast" and popped over a warm-up bar by 2 feet!!! ..............then you try to really vault..., plant.. delay, invert, delay and look to "get all of it" and "fall" over the bar by 2 inches.

point 2

it is also very common for most of us to "move up a pole" and try and create a better vault when compitition starts..

the best advice i can give anyone.... is to stay on a pole that you think is one below what you should be on and............. 1. get the feet down 2. explode the plant.. 3. swing as fast as you can.. (swinging behind the pole..)

the swing should be as fast as a pop up and the vaulter should try to "wrap" and turn around the pole...

i think bubba has the drills.... the 360 drill is sweet..

good luck

dj