trail leg

[robillard]

ok i tend to bend my trail leg wen i jump. i still manage to get completely inverted but it takes a lot more strength to get there and i lose a lot of power any suggestions on how to fix this.

[newPVer]

I also have this same problem but it is getting better. try swinging from a high bar, with the correct form(trial leg back and strait, drive knee up and toe flexed), and swing back and forth. Just try to get the muscle memory to have your trail leg strait.

also do a search, there will be a lot of posts on this.
newPVer

[Barto]

Your leg is bent because you are not finishing your takeoff. Practice jumping off the ground i.e. long jumping. Swinging on a high bar is a very good proprioceptive exercise, but it probably won't help this specific problem.

[blakedow]

A good cue that I use is to try and kick the box or the front of the pit when you swing...

[master]

I think if you point your toe along with tightening all the muscles in the leg as a continuation of the take off, this will inhibit bending the leg at the knee. This can be practiced while jumping (staying down and behind the pole) into a sandpit or regular pit if one is available. This is what is meant by "finishing the takeoff" as Barto noted.

- master

[theczar]

I think if you point your toe along with tightening all the muscles in the leg as a continuation of the take off, this will inhibit bending the leg at the knee. This can be practiced while jumping (staying down and behind the pole) into a sandpit or regular pit if one is available. This is what is meant by "finishing the takeoff" as Barto noted.

that's what I did and it worked great for me

[sooch90]

First try and keep a straight trail leg when you do a pop-up. If you can do that, then just think about stretching out the trail leg when you jump, like think about reaching back with your trail leg's toes.

[robillard]

i do the sand drill a lot and i normaly jump perfectly in the drill, coach even used me as an example during his camp. i have no problem takeing off and keeping straight at that point. its wen i bring my leg back to get to the inverted C position that it bends a lot. wen i swing it i straightens out more but its still bent and i lose a lot of power from it.

[altius]

We must be watching different videos! I see a low pole carry with hands too far back, falling into the take off on at least one vault, head focussed horizontally, little separation between front knee/thigh and trail leg - any separation there almost immediately lost with the right leg contributing nothing to add momentum or prestretch BUT I see a take off leg TOO straight not flexed too much!!

If the 'take off is finished' - (nice phrase that, wonder where it came from) the heel should kick up naturally to create a small flexion at the knee. This sets up the kicking action of the lower leg - which is picked up by the upper leg to create a whip - right just like kicking a soccer ball - which in turn helps the body swing around the hands. This whip -do not think swing - of the leg is a vital component of good vaulting.

You do not wait with the foot back after take off -nor do you try to drive the foot back -you take off properly -the foot positions itself correctly -the leg flexes at the knee and you IMMEDIATELY KICK/WHIP - no waiting for anything.

IT can BEST be developed on a high bar or rope/rings before being transferred to the pole. Your problem is pretty entreched to you will need a lot of work on the high bar to change the movement pattern. Try the 'good way/bad way method as you do this.

Stop thinking reverse C position - this is one of the great myths of Amurican vaulting. If you do the right thing at and immediately after take off you will naturally move in to that sort of position . BUT you never think of getting into it - that is focussing on the wrong thing.

[baggettpv]

I agree. rethink what we are thinking, many of the words have been lost in the interpretation. Listen to Alan, he at least speaks english, mostly

Rick Baggett
WSTC LLC

[Barto]

If the 'take off is finished' - (nice phrase that, wonder where it came from)

I think it was first applied to me by Tom Tellez around 1983.

[altius]

Thankjs Barto - I picked it up somewhere along the line but never knew its provenance - not surprised if it was Tom Tellez - a great coach.

However things like that can be strange. When I was at Western I found myself coaching the whole team for a while -including the sprinters. Coming from England I had never worked wth even a half decent sprinter so i started training them like triple jumpers in the September of that year - then I met the great Sam Bell at Indiana and asked him for some ideas - he gave me a whole series of running drills, which are now in common use.

I asked him where he got them from and he said from Bud Winter - an all time great sprints coach. Amazingly in 84 I was invited to lunch with the president of Busch- the beer folk - and Bud in a fancy hotel in San Jose ! After chatting for a while I asked him how he had developed the drills - he laughed and said he had borrowed them from a German who he met at the end of the war!

The story doesnt end there. I went back to england on holiday in 1970 and spent time with my old friend Tom McNab, at that time a national coach working with some good female sprinters - he took up the drills and used them - but the killer is that when he was made technical adviser for the film "Chariots of fire" he used the drills to help the actor (who played the part of Harold Abrahams who won the 100m in Paris) at least look like a sprinter and there is a specific scene in the film where the professional coach Sam Mussabini is seen with Abrahams doing a high knees drill. It is often forgotten how ideas travel a long way before they arrive in our consciousness.