Help! - cant get straight trail leg and bottom hand collapse

[pattythepolevaulter]

I have been having trouble getting my trail leg straight and also collapsing my bottom hand. I dont know how to get both of these things to work at the same time because when I focus on one thing the other thing doesnt work. So i have never gotten a full swing. Thank you for any advise.

[pattythepolevaulter]

So I have mostly gotten this figured out. My trail leg is finally whipping. And once I swing up I am collapsing my bottom hand. But watching the pros vault their bottom arms are locked out when they plant. how can I learn to do this?

[dlevear]

Have a look at this video:
http://youtu.be/_-UwBaf8f98

He doesn't lock his left arm out, and in fact you don't want to lock it. You want your hands to come above your head while driving your chest forward. If your left arm bends in the process, fine. What you don't want is your left hand coming right into your forehead or lower. If that happens, the problem may be that you don't have your hands up at takeoff as a result of a late or poorly timed pole drop. For more information, there are lots of older posts on this forum about the bottom arm that you can read.