PoleVaultPower.com

I coahc this girl who is a sophomore and she has cleared 9'6" this year she cleared 10'0" as a freshman. She is very fast and has no problem bending the pole. she gets her feet up very well but when she goes to pull through her feet go toward the bar and she hits it. she has enough height to clear 11' or 11"6" at least. any drill I can do to help her stay in the rockback longer or keep her feet up through her pull.

we are going back to the pool today I am sure that will help.

When does she break her bottom arm in? I've had a few of my kids with the same problem. Can't rotate if the bottom arm never comes in....

I am trying to figure out how to get some of her video on here for people to look at. I have had several coaches tell me at meets that she has potetial to go much higher

maybe lower the grip, 1 hand (3/4 inches) and swing faster..

if she has plenty of pole speed with the current grip..swing faster getting the hips to the top hand ...fast..

dj

ps.. stiff pole "pop" up drill... with a half turn at the top

moehill wrote:I am trying to figure out how to get some of her video on here for people to look at.

What is the situation with the video you have? Is it digital? Is it on your computer now? Do you have a place on the web where you can load it? How big is the file? Answering some of these questions will give us a chance to offer help.

pop ups, lots of them. just have her work on that one thing over and over again....that always works for me.

indestructo wrote:When does she break her bottom arm in? I've had a few of my kids with the same problem. Can't rotate if the bottom arm never comes in....

this could be the prob. ive seen this alot. the one thing that i can think of is just do millions of 3 step staight pole vaults swinging up and getting inverted. concentrate on getting her body cmpletely in line with the pole. i know this helped me alot. also jumpingg at bungees that are way over her hand grip could help. this would force her to stay back longer and move up instead of out.

If the bottom arm is not what is causing the problem you might want to try to get her to reach her heels (heels to the sky) over the top of the pole. This will help her get inverted.
Now for holding it. In my experience you never want to be doing nothing in a vault, so holding it is not exactly what I would do. Have her work on aggressively pulling herself up the pole.

A good drill for this my coach uses is to have a highbar (or rig something up to simulate one, like an old thermaflex pole or something), have the vaulter get a vault grip on it, swing up and pull her hips over the bar she is gripping. That is what she needs to do on the pole.

Thanks for all your help, we are continuing to work on these things.

I have lowered her grip by one hand, that has helped some,

I noticed yesterday at workout that her head is up and so when her hips start to rise her legs go out. this is very frustrating for both of us because she has all the tools she is fast she is strong and when we do pop ups from a short run she can get totally inverted and turn and everything but when we go to a full vault we start to get sloppy again she should be vaulting 11'0 or 11'6 maybe more right now and she has only cleared 9'6 this year.

Try working her back to a longer run. Start with the short approach. When she is doing everything correctly, move her back another step. This will give here a little more speed so she can move her gip up a little. Keep doing this over several weeks until you work back to the long run. If you are oing from a shrot run dircectly to a long run it may be too dificult to transfer what she has learned from the short run.

VaultBrad wrote:

indestructo wrote:When does she break her bottom arm in? I've had a few of my kids with the same problem. Can't rotate if the bottom arm never comes in....

this could be the prob. ive seen this alot. the one thing that i can think of is just do millions of 3 step staight pole vaults swinging up and getting inverted. concentrate on getting her body cmpletely in line with the pole. i know this helped me alot. also jumpingg at bungees that are way over her hand grip could help. this would force her to stay back longer and move up instead of out.

...yeah very very helpful indeed, i have the same problem that this girl is having kinda right now, and as of recent staying a 3-4 lefts has helped me learn to depend solely on form rather than just speed...and definately having a bungee above hand grip is a smart idea too

Without seeing her jump it is very difficult to be specific but from what you have described she is either looking at the bar all the way - or she is throwing her head back - both will cause the hips and legs to drop out towards the bar. As she swings to cover the pole get her to drive the shoulders towards the pad and try to drive hips vertically.

This is still black magic coaching - without knowing what has happened in run/take off and whip this advice is only papering over the cracks. But you did ask for it!