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Hello, I am a vaulter from South Dakota, I run back my steps but when I got to vault I am always in a foot! I am always at the same spot no matter if I move my mark back a foot or not! Do you have any Idea's on what I should do to get my step on? Also any drills that would help with it! Thanks a lot! Lance

The best possible drill to do are Pole Runs. They work wonders for your steps. Also you may want to start at like 2 or 3 left steps and gradually work your way back and instead of running your steps back each time, try to get a measurement that you can use consistantly. You can always adjust a bit at the time you start vaulting.

sdvaulter06 wrote:Hello, I am a vaulter from South Dakota, I run back my steps but when I got to vault I am always in a foot! I am always at the same spot no matter if I move my mark back a foot or not! Do you have any Idea's on what I should do to get my step on? Also any drills that would help with it! Thanks a lot! Lance

If you always move your step back and it is still the same distance in, it probably means that you are over striding or feeling for the back of the box. Make sure you are lifting your knees and stepping down on your last few steps so that this shouldn't happen. The less reaching you do with your last step, the less under you should be. Hope this helps.

RidinHigh wrote: Also you may want to start at like 2 or 3 left steps and gradually work your way back and instead of running your steps back each time,

I would do that at each meet. Some thing I learned to do was to memorize your distance from the box for each step. also, I learned to use this thing called a magic #. your magic # is how far you move back each time you move back two steps. My magic number is 9'. so each time I moved back say from 4 steps to 6 steps, I'd move 9'. IF you have any questions about that, just post your Question.

Wow, you're just like how i was, i had that same exact problem really bad last year, and i do tend to be a tad under now and then but not like i was back then. It started when i moved onto a bigger pole, but it took a lot of time, patience and focus to fix it.

I kept jumping and jumping till the point of emotional frustration that my coach took me off the runway entirely for a whole week to isolate the problem. And during that week, it was me & my pole, him and a sliding box. We started back in the basics, i was mad because i was one of the older vaulters anyway but i trusted him and did what he said. We gradually worked up to 7 lefts and he marked every single one of my lefts with chalk on the ground, i learned to run with a rhythem, my steps became more spaced out in the begining of the run and closer together towards the take off, it was basically troubleshooting my consistancy, but i came back to the runway a week later, started out small again, and worked back to big and now i'm peachy keen, for now... Just really think about having the same run its all down to consistancy...

I will go ahead and explain the majic #. The majic is found by the length of 2 of your strides at full spead on the runway. Ex: Say I am at full speed at around 5 lefts (10 steps) then my majic # would be the distance from the toe of my 5th left to the the toe of my 6th left step. My majic # is 13' so that means at 2 steps I am at a 13' run, 2 lefts 26', 3 lefts 39', and so on and so on. Hope that cleared that up. Sorry if i just confused anyone. Any questions just post them.

Does anyone know when useing the magic number system, how to find you one step. I start a one step from 14, and then i move back 12 from each after that. Ive got some new vaulters on my team that are alot shorter then me and I forgot how to do it. When I went to Jan's camp he had some about this on paper, does anyone have this or remeber what it says.

Wasn't it, if i remember correctly jan said, You should know where your step is based on your height times 2 every time you move back a left,

So i'm 5 1/2 feet tall (5'6''), every time i move a left back I move back 11feet, (HERE'S THE MATH: 5.5(my height)times2) so my 3 lefts is at 33-ish and when i move back i move to 4 lefts i add 11feet to 33 and i get 45 feet, it works really, it does for me