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I have a girl whose is stick vaulting on an 11FT 120 pole and she is on the back of it. She wieghs 105. She was on a 110 pole but was over bending and not penetrating enough. Today we worked a lot on her take off angle and she jumped on both poles, niether of them bent and she landed at the back on the coaches box

I want to transfer her grip to a 12 105 pole we have and see how well she moves up. We also have a 12 110 and 120 as well if she blows through the 105.

Is this the correct action to take?

She blows through the 11FT poles with a weak drive knee as well. But her pole speed and runway speed are great!

If she is holding at the top of the 11' pole and landing really deep and not really bending it, then it's time for a longer pole. An 11'6 pole would be better, but she should be fine to move up to the 12 footer, it doesn't really matter if she's not bending. Just start out with the same ~11' grip and gradually work it up as dictated by the depth of her landing.

dheldr01 wrote: I have a girl whose is stick vaulting on an 11FT 120 pole and she is on the back of it. ... She was on a 110 pole but was over bending and not penetrating enough. ... Today we worked a lot on her take off angle and she jumped on both poles, neither of them bent and she landed at the back on the coaches box

Where was she gripping the 11 foot poles?

If she was overbending and not penetrating on the 110 11-0, then her grip was too high. So I'm confused as to why she didn't bend it today. I would not have guessed that merely improving her takeoff angle would eliminate all bend.

So ignoring your first comment ... that she was overbending the 110 11 footer ... let's just look at the fact that today she landed at the back of the PLZ without bending either pole. This is a clear indication that her grip is too low for her takeoff speed/jumping ability. So raise her grip til she lands in the middle of the PLZ.

dheldr01 wrote: I want to transfer her grip to a 12 105 pole we have and see how well she moves up. We also have a 12 110 and 120 as well if she blows through the 105.

Is this the correct action to take?

The 12 105 is the correct "next pole" in the progression ... but until she's capping the 11-0 120 pole, there's no reason to increase the stiffness of the pole. If she's capping it, then move her up. If should not make any difference to her vault, since you say with her improved takeoff today, she's not bending it anyway.

dheldr01 wrote: She blows through the 11FT poles with a weak drive knee as well. But her pole speed and runway speed are great!

It's not really called "blowing thru" a pole if it's not bending. So raise her grip til it starts bending.

Here's the poles you mentioned:

The pole progression is correct, according to Jan's chart.

Something's amiss here ... maybe I misunderstood something you said. But I'm just going by what I read. What am I missing?

Kirk

I'm sorry that post was confusing...

Today we worked on take off angle and the free take off

When she first started over bending the 110lb 11ft pole (2 weeks ago) and wasn't penetrating into the pit I put her on a stiffer pole with a lower handgrip. At the time she was over bending she was choling down on the 110 pole.eventually by working on her take off drive, swing, and shooting her hips through the top of her pole she moved back up to the top of the 11ft 120 pole and bent it less and less. Today was the first day she stopped bending it at all and still made it deep into the pit with a nice head wind.
So the process of the 11 foot poles was not a miracle practice but a couple weeks of hard work.

Right now she is landing deep into the mats on the top of an 11 foot pole that is not bending.

She is consistently jumping 10ft at practice. I do not get the luxury of coaching her at meets.

Thanks for your input. I will try to be more detailed in my next post