PoleVaultPower.com

So lately I have been able to consistently bend the pole. It's only the beginning of my second year vaulting, so I'm pretty excited about that.

But unfortunately, it seems that even though I can now clear higher heights much more easily than I could last year, I still am not able to get my hips up when I go to attempt a high bar. I am quite able to get my legs up and into my face, but then I kind of 'sit' over the bar. My dad has pointed out that I have a tendency to look at the bar when I go over it, which may account for my not swinging all the way through to my fullest, but even when I do try to swing to my fullest I still fail miserably in the hip department. I have the height to clear the heights that I'm missing, I've just failed at getting my hips along on the ride with the rest of my body...

So I was wondering: are there any good drills out there that I can do at home inside to work on getting my hips up that would be very much appreciated. I know that there are rope and ring drills that I can do to help improve myself, but those are expensive, and quite frankly I don't have that much money or room.

so for any drills, please and thank you in advance!

get a rope hang it from a tree, reach up with your top hand grab as high as you can and then follow your regular grip like you are holding onto a pole and then just see how far upside down you can go, and keep practicing until you can go all the way upside down (i dont know if it will help you but it helped me)

txpolevaulter_k25 wrote:get a rope hang it from a tree, reach up with your top hand grab as high as you can and then follow your regular grip like you are holding onto a pole and then just see how far upside down you can go, and keep practicing until you can go all the way upside down (i dont know if it will help you but it helped me)

make sure you don't hang the rope above any roots or rocks in case you fall (soft grass or preferably some sort of pad). But yeah, that drill would probably help

another good drill would be to do some pop-up drills holding low. Swing your legs PAST the pole with your hips bent, and get your feet past vertical and behind your head, and land on your back with your legs and feet up perpendicular to the pit. This will help you get completly inverted. To get your hips up, do more pop up drills where you do the same "rock back" as explaned above, but after you get your feet back, extend your legs and hips upward so that you are straight as a pencil with your feet at the top of the pole, and land on your back with your legs, feet, and body parallel with the pole.

let us know how it goes

thanks much for these drills. I've tried them a few times in practice as a main part of our warm up before we work on our full vault, but I was wondering if there were drills that i could work on at

home

to improve upon these too. cause, unfortunately, i dont have a vault pit in my back yard, and though it may seem like it at times, i dont live on the track. is this a core strength issue? are there certain workouts i can do to target these muscles?

You can try to imagine a higher bar while your vaulting and pretend like you're kicking it off. You could also try closing your eyes, which has helped me.