Film Review 1- Part 2

Here are some more films from the film session we did on Saturday, Dec. 14th. Make sure ALL of you watch the film at the end and begin to grasp MOVING the POLE instead of hugging the pole.

Noah - Noah is a young athlete of mine - an 8th grader that is putting some good work in and is really getting some good technical pieces put together. Not only do I expect he will he do well this year in his competitions, but he is building a good, solid foundation from which some high marks will follow in the years to come!

1. Noah - you are making a good, smooth connection with the pole. For right now, I am quite happy with the "rhythm" of the vault for the first 2/3 of the vault. I love the long swinging trail leg - see how it doesn't break at all as it swings down. Very good.

2. I would like to see some more "space" at take off. There should be daylight between you and the
  pole at take off - there isn't very much now. We need to get both of your arms extending all the way - you can see that at their highest point, both arms are still quite bent, we need to finish that extension into a position like we did in our hollow walks today.

3. The "peek-a-boo" is seen again! See the last film review - I went into depth about it there... don't look over the bungee... swing over it!

Zandy - I see some things I like, we have made a lot of progress from when you were very scared and timid at the take off last year. Now it is time to start putting some muscle into it! The things I want you to see... and work on... are to help you establish a better connection with the pole. Watch the vault and watch the pole at the moment of take off. Remember that we want to be pushing the pole towards vertical. Watch the pole in your jump and you will see it stop at the moment you are taking off - your body keeps moving, and the pole stops until your body comes "crashing" into the pole. Really, we want the pole to stay away from the body. So I want you to work on two things to help improve that connection:

1. Keep the tip up. The timing of your flip is good, but the tip has dropped too low. We want the tip to be at eye level when we flip - yours is dropping way down to hip level. Keep the tip up.

2. I need you to put some pressure on the pole with your left arm. Time to starts USING it. This will significantly help with the rest of your vault.

Watch this video - it shows swings in slow motion, but I want you to watch the take offs and not the relation the vaulters have to the pole - see how they keep the POLE away from them... the POLE is moving... there is no hugging or crashing into the pole - this is what we need to get you, and a LOT of my vaulters -  to understand and do - move the POLE!

It's TOO COLD - Indoor Training ideas at home.

Down here in Houston, much of the year we are fighting the weather being too hot. This time of year our practices are also at the mercy of the weather - we are constantly dodging the cold or the rain. Saturday was a beautiful and warm day, but it rained all day. Today there is no rain in sight, but it is currently 33 degrees outside with some high humidity making it feel like 25 degrees... that is too cold to pole vault!

One day we will have an indoor facility to train in when it is raining, too cold, or too hot! Unfortunately that day is not today. So for not we are stuck at the mercy of the weather. So vaulters... that just means you get a day off, right?

Well, you could take a day off. But unfortunately the laws of physical and mental training aren't put on pause just because the weather is bad. Being in and staying in good shape requires CONSISTENT training. Two to three weeks is about the very longest a high level athlete in great shape can go before losing significant amounts. That is the athlete who has trained 6 days a week for the past 4 months. Now that does not describe the average high school athlete. The average high school athlete is only training maybe 2-3 days a week, and only most weeks. You will fall behind much quicker. So the moral of the story... DON'T JUST TAKE THE DAY OFF! Get some good work in at home or at the gym. Here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Do your sprint work out on the bike.
A great way to keep you legs in sprinting shape is to get on a spin bike. Just translate that workout onto a bike. For example - instead of a 200 m workout you may do five 35-30 sec. bike sprints at 80% effort with 2 min. rest (light, easier spin) in between. This is a great way to manage injuries as well and still get your legs in shape.

2. Do some circuit work.
Circuits are a great way to still get some good work capacity in  and some general strength trained. Here are two options.

Circuit #1:
Body weight squats x 20
Pushups x 10-15
Toso Rotations x 20
Lunges x 10/leg
Long crunch x 20
Alternating SuperMans x 20

Circuit #2:
Long Crunch x 20
Reverse Crunch x 20
Fire Hydrant Bent Leg Side Lift x 15/leg
Good Mornings x 10
Torso Rotations x 20
Lateral Lunge x 10/leg
Body weight squats x 20

3. Visualize and/or Film Study
Study some film - you can start by learning more about the vault. Look back through the earlier posts and study the vault. Study your own film. Then go and study some great technical vaulters like Sergey Bubka or Maxim Tarasov. Then sit back and close your eyes and visualize yourself vaulting and try to do it perfectly... and clear the bar! You can start by "watching" yourself vaulting then move into visualizing from the vaulter point of view. It takes some practice to be able to do it, and to it at full speed. Training yourself like this can keep you sharp when you can't get on the pit either due to weather, schedule or an injury. I know vaulters who have been out for weeks due to an injury and by doing the right training and visualizing they PRed in their first meet back.

Pole Vault is an individual sport... so it is up to YOU to get better! Put the work in!

Connecting with the Pole - Pushing the Pole to Vertical

A common mistake that can limit your vaulting potential occurs at the moment of takeoff - a split second before to a split second after. It is obvious to most that the plant matters - and so we drill and drill the plant. And it is also obvious to most that the swing matters, so we swing on the rope, on the bar, & on the pole to get it right. But there is a critical element between the two that is often overlooked. You can do the plant motion well, and you can swing well, but if you don't get an active connection with the pole at the moment of take off, you are severely limiting how high you can jump.

At the moment of takeoff, you want your arms to be fully extended and you want to be pushing the pole to vertical. The vaulter needs to push the pole and get the pole moving, then you can swing on it. Instead of focusing on pushing the pole to vertical, many vaulters focus either on 1) bending the pole, 2) swinging, or 3) the timid and scared vaulter hugs the pole at takeoff... thinking the pole will save them.

Here is a great example, if a little exaggerated, of what I mean by pushing the pole to vertical. This is Diachi Sawano warming up at the Reno Pole Vault Summit last January. He is a Japanese vaulter with a PR of 5.83 meters (that's just over 19 feet!).
See how at the moment of take off his hands aren't freezing and waiting for impact? Much the opposite - his hands accelerate and continue push the pole to vertical. And his body is tight - he is pushing that pole all the way from his take off foot extending off the ground.

That's what I mean by Pushing the Pole  or an Active Connection with the pole.

VE Film Review: Practice 12/14/2013 #1

Athletes, here is some film for you! Watch your jump, read my explanation, and watch it over and over. Try to identify the parts that I am pointing out. Then go through and look at some of the other vaulters and look through theirs. This is a marvelous chance for you to learn. Be a student of your event.. study it and learn it. A better understanding will help you jump higher!

Alan:

Alan has made a lot of progress over the last few months - he used to have a very awkward connection with the pole - he had stiff shoulders and the pole didn't move very well. He has learned to relax his shoulders and has created a much better connection with the pole...  This film is from last Saturday, and today we worked on these things and had another breakthrough day... so stay tuned to see today's film as well!

Here are the specific things I want Alan to work on.
1. Need to finish extending the arms at take off. The right arm stops before getting extended.. this limits his pole movement, his ability to go elastic, and the strength of his swing.
2. Need a higher grip. Alan is steadily improving and we need to get that grip higher, but I need him to be a little more in control through the latter half of the vault first.
3. Stop pulling with arms! I call this the "peek-a-boo". Unfortunately, you will see a lot of you do this - Watch and see him start to swing, then when he approaches the bungee, instead of swinging upside down he will pull his shoulders and head up with his arms to look over the bungee. Pole Vaulters... .WE CLEAR THE BAR BY GOING UPSIDE DOWN! Not by looking over it! Continue your swing and get upside down! The peek-a-boo stops the pole rotation, and stops your swing, causing your feet to come crashing down onto the bar. 

 

Hannah C.
Time to become an expert, Hannah!Here are some of the things I was talking about today.

1. Your arms are late getting up in the plant, and are moving slowly through the flip and extension. Likely because your feet are slow. We tend to move them at similar speeds. So you need to RUN, ACCELERATE, and keep your last steps fast and aggressive, instead of long, reaching, and passive.

2. I need to get you to connect with the pole at take off. At the moment of take off, you want to be pushing the pole to vertial... get it moving!
3. Swing long... and keep swinging. The swing is not adding anything to the vault because it is all tucked in..  you are picking your feet up and putting them up there instead of SWINGING there. And then the pull... the "peek-a-boo" again is stopping everything.

Cause & Effect - Improving the Swing

Vaulters are always excited to see film of themselves jumping.It is great to see what you are doing. It is also commonly quite painful... Film doesn't lie. The more educated you get about how you should look, the more painful it can be to see all the things you are doing wrong.

Before we get to my main point, let me cover this one. Never get too frustrated about all the things that need to be "fixed" in your vault. The way I see it, the more things there are that you can do better, the more opportunity you have to jump higher. As much as we want to see ourselves vaulting perfectly... it would be MUCH worse if you did everything perfectly and were still only jumping nine feet. So remember... flaws are opportunities.

Now, on to what I wanted to talk about. When you watch your film, you are bound to see things that aren't right. Young vaulters, whether watching film, or out at practice and jumping, like to focus on the "top" part of the vault - the swing, the pull through, the turn, the fly away. For good reason, that is the fun stuff! Flying through the air is why we all pole vault!

The swing is something that most people can "see" in a vault... even beginners and even parents, once they look. How far inverted are you getting? Are you swinging just to perpendicular or are you continuing to swing all the way upside down? Check out your film and see where your swing is.

Does it look like this?

If it needs improvement, then you would work on your swing, right? WRONG. Sometimes there is work to be done on your swing. Often, though, the poor swing is the result of things you did earlier in the vault. Your swing (and thus everything else in the vault) can be limited by your takeoff, core strength, arms, plant mechanics, head position, approach, and pole drop. You could be doing something in your first step that is limiting your swing. Finding the cause is critical to opening up your potential.

The last post was a Film Review of Jason Colwick and his incredible swing. We talked about his swing by learning about what he did before his swing with his arms... realignment. And we talked about realignment by talking about what he did before that - making space and going elastic. If you missed it, check it out here.

The next few technical posts are going to help you get a fabulous swing... by working on doing things well before the swing. We will look at being hollow at take off and an effective pole drop. 

Don't skip past these things, wanting to get on to the exciting stuff. Mastering thee more "boring" and "basic" elements will make  your vault much more exciting, and the proof will be found in the PRs! 

Film Review... Swing and Realignment

Here is some film I have been promising Noah I would put up. This is Jason Colwick. Jason was a very good vaulter for Rice University, won National Championships a time or two I think... can't remember the full run down, but he won a LOT, and jumped really high. Jason did 2 things that most people don't.



1. The Double-Legged Swing: Most of us are taught to drive up the drive knee and keep that leg bent while swinging a straight trail leg. Jason has no knee drive, swings both legs long, and does it quite well. This is not something I would intentionally teach, but if you do it, it can be done well!

2. The Realignment: Realignment is a critical element that is not very well understood. I will go into exactly what it is and why you should do it later on, but for now check out the film of Jason and look for it. Look for 3 things that Jason does.
      1. Makes Space - See both arms extend upward, creating a lot of "space"... between his body and the pole.
       2. Goes Elastic - Immediately after the pole connects to the back of the box, the arms go elastic. Meaning... Both arms relax enough to let them move behind him - his right stays extended and his left flexes to get this elastic position.
       3. He realigns.... QUICKLY and POWERFULLY! His left arm, that was bent in the elastic position, hits back out - up and out  (not down!). His left arm is now extended and he is pressuring the pole (not pulling!) throughout his swing.

Space.... Elastic.... & Realign. Put those 3 things together (Dustin!) and you can start jumping really high! (15'... 16'!?) Now watch it again (and over and over and over...) and see if you can see what I am talking about. Start training your "eye" to see it!

Wise Words #1 - Tom Hays & Greg Hull on the Swing

As both a vaulter and a coach, I have been inspired and taught by many different people - coaches, athletes, kids, business people, parents, and friends. Sometimes it is helpful to hear something in the words of another person. So this is the beginning of a new series called Wise Words. Each Wise Words will be me sharing with you the wise words of someone else.

For wise words #1 we have Coach Tom Hays from the University of Kansas and Elite PV Coach Greg Hull taking about the swing. I actually just came across this. There is so much garbage - bad advice - on the internet about how to pole vault. Sometimes I feel up for the challenge and I go on a quest to find something valuable. It takes a lot of sifting through incorrect information, but today I found something that I think is really well put.

We have developed takeoffs in the last few months and lately I have been working with Rachel Z, Hannah T. and Kayla on their swings... this information is for you girls. The gist of the swing - maybe hearing Greg Hull describe it will settle in with you!

5 ways to improve when you can't be on the runway.

Two unusual things happened this week, and both affected pole vault training! I have always hated any interruptions in my training. For two reasons - #1 I love to pole vault and #2 because I want to GET BETTER so any day I am not vaulting or training is a bad day. I doubt I am the only pole vaulter out there that feels this way - it takes a special person - a special passion and obsession - to be a pole vaulter. I want to share with you how you can continue to progress (and succeed!) even when things get in your way.

One of the best, and worst, parts of the sport is that there are a million things to work on. It is easy for vaulters to only want to do one thing... vault! But there are dozens of other things you can be doing to improve your vaulting when you don't have access to your pit, coach, or poles.

Back to the 2 things that happened this week:

1 - On Sunday I woke up to a very painful wrist - Monday morning it was worse and I came back from the doctor with an obnoxious splint.

On my top hand of course... not very easy to hold a pole with this thing.

2- I got sick! Every one hates it when coaches cancel practice... you've been waiting all week to get out and jump, and then it is cancelled. Ah! Today I had to cancel pole vault practice for my athletes. I hate to cancel, but I was too sick to go. So no pole vaulting today for them.

These are just 2 things that could happen - there are lots of others - It could be raining or snowing outside, your pit could be stuck in the shed until track season, you might not have any poles, you could have an injury, or you could be stuck sick in bed... but you can still be improving your vaulting. Here are 10 ways to improve your vaulting when you can't be on the runway.

1.  Use your left hand. If your right hand is bothering you like mine, use your left hand. Even if you aren't injured... use your left hand every once in a while. If you are left handed, then use your right. Doing drills with your opposite hand can help you learn the movements better. Sometimes you have done a drill so many times with your good hand that you don't feel the little things you are doing wrong. It will be awkward at first, but focus on the technical cues and teach your left hand to do it right. It will make your good hand better!

I don't preach anything I don't do myself! Check out the film of my 1-arm pole drop... left handed of course on Vertical Edge's facebook page. This is how I spent my vaulting session on Monday.


2. Watch film. As high school vaulters practice, they are surrounded by other high school vaulters and see their vaulting, which, depending on where you are, can be decent or atrocious. Be sure to always go back to the real deal  - so you can know what you are trying to do. My advice is to learn from the very best. Search for some Sergey Bubka or Maxim Tarasov on you tube. 

3. Visualize. A lot of work can be done in the mind, but it takes practice. So spend some time visualizing. You can do it at home in bed when you are sick, going to sleep, or at the track. I love to sit at the very end of the runway to do my visualizing. When you can't pole vault for real, you can always vault in your mind!

4. Walking/Standing plant drills. Drill, drill, drill. Drill until you can do it in your sleep. Get it perfect away from the pit, and it will start translating into your jump. Check out the Slow Motion Plant here.  Just be careful... don't drill mindlessly... always drill with a sharp mind so you are doing things RIGHT!

5. Core! A pole vaulter can always use more core. If you are sidelined off your feet for a while with an injury or stuck inside because of a storm.. get some core work in. Here is one good place to start: Pick 10 different core exercises: crunches, situps, straight leg situps, rotations, leg lifts, flutter kicks, side crunches, toe touches, V-ups, side bends, 1/2 v-ups, superman variations, reverse crunches, etc. Set the timer for 10 min. or 20 min and do 20 of each exercise. See how many you can get in before the timer goes off. We will get to some more advanced core workouts for vaulters later, but this is a good way to build a foundation. *Remember, strength is not gained in a single sitting, but as a result of regularly pushing your muscles to do more, so don't do core once a month. You won't get the results you want. Instead, aim for 3-4 times a week for a good core strength session.

It comes down to a favorite quote of mine, from a song done by Weezer... "If you want it, you can have it, but you've got to learn to reach out there and grab it."

Pole Vault Treasure Trove

Today I want to share with you the best facebook site that has ever existed. The site is put together by David Butler, pole vault coach at Rice University, and expert technician. He has what must be the world's greatest collection of pole vault material - photographs, films, & cartoons. And he is sharing it with everyone on his facebook page  The Vault: how bamboo, steel, and fiberglass changed our lives

It is a fabulous collection of the past and present history of pole vault. Check out the site and be sure to KEEP LOOKING! His collection is endless and never repeats. Some of my favorite things are some of his first posts, so keep looking back into earlier posts. Take the time to read some of the comments as well. He has a lot of good vaulters from the past commenting and discussing what it was like to jump back then - with bamboo poles and landing in sawdust! Their stories are priceless.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

Think your school's pit is bad!? Check that out!  See the comments here.

Or that! See it here.

Amazing! What are your favorites?

The Slow Motion Plant

The plant is a critical element of the vault. Obviously, you have to get the pole tip from up into the air to down into the box. Unfortunately, too many people miss how that happens. How the pole moves there is critical. Your proficiency in doing it right will affect your ability to jump, your grip height, the speed and direction of your swing, the location of your takeoff foot, and the movement of the pole... it affects everything!

Lets start with a critical fundamental drill. The Slow Motion 3-step Plant.  This drill is critical not because we vault in slow motion, but because this is where you learn what is right and start to train your body to use the right motions. In the vault, everything goes so quickly that you cannot manually control each element - you don't have time! Most of you have noticed that if you are lucky you can think, and control, only 1-3 cues if they are spaced out throughout the vault, but not much more. Since you don't have time to control everything, you want to rely on muscle memory... habits! The slow motion plant is where you start to build those habits... at a speed where you can control everything.

Watch the drill below, then I will break it down. This is the slow motion drill... in slow motion. So you should have time to be able to see the different elements.

I'm sure you noticed something bizarre... the ear muffs. That is a tweak to the original drill. I will talk about that more later, but first let's focus on the fundamentals of the drill. Here is the break down:

Starting Position: Stand upright, lift up the pole like you would at the beginning of your approach, then lower the tip until it is at eye level.

Steps: There are 3 steps:  Left-Right-Left for the Right handed vaulter, Right-Left-Right for the Lefty. Here is the funny part... take BIG enormous steps like shown in the video. No, we don't take steps like this in the approach, but for this drill these steps are an important part. Remember that this drill is slow motion - the big enormous steps give you the time and proper rhythm (in slow motion) to practice a smooth planting motion.

Plant: There are three "checkpoints" to the plant and they correspond to the steps.
1st Step: Flip the pole.
2nd Step: Top hand is at eye level, in front (not behind you!)
3rd Step (Takeoff): Both arms are completely extended and both are pushing up to the sky. Your head is up, not looking down towards the ground.

To do this right, you must do "hands before feet". As you see in the video, the flip will come just before your first step hits, you will pass through eye level just before your second step hits, and you will be fully extended before your final step touches.

Now go back and watch the above video a few more times, identifying all the cues. Watch it once and study the steps, then again and study the checkpoints, and then again and see the flow.

Try it out... Go get a pole, a broom, or a stick and follow the cues and mimic the video above. Once you feel  you have the above cues mastered to the best of your ability, send me a video... I will help you perfect it, and we can discuss the common mistakes. It is important to get it right and then practice it. There is a saying that says "Practice makes Perfect" but really, practice just makes permanent. So you want to be sure you are practicing the right movements.

Vertical Edge Vaulters... does it help to see what I have been teaching you?

Welcome

Welcome to the Vertical Edge blog! I am a serious pole vaulter and a serious pole vault coach, and I put this blog up to help YOU be a better vaulter. I love pole vault and everything about it, but there is one catch... I don't like bad pole vaulting, and I don't like pole vaulting just for the sake of pole vaulting. I like pole vaulting at its best - pole vaulting to see just how good you can be and how high you can go. I guess I like the challenge of pole vaulting.

I love coaching the athletes I work with, but I have found that I am not yet accomplishing all of my goals. While I am helping the local vaulters, I really want to be able to help that vaulter that I was. The one who really wants to pole vault, who is working hard, and just needs to know what to do and how to do it to get better. The kid who doesn't have access to a good coach. If you are motivated, hard working, and want to jump higher than you are - then this is for YOU.

My Vertical Edge athletes - this is also for YOU! I have such limited time to work with you - and if you really want to be great and reach your potential, that alone is not sufficient. What you do when you are not at practice matters - It will be the difference between Varsity or JV, 1st place or 3rd place, or making it onto a college team or not.  So here I will share with you some more technical cues, some video to help you with your technical work on your own, and some pole vault material that will help you gain a deeper understanding of the vault and hopefully motivate you to put in the work to maximize your own potential.

Since the sole purpose of this blog is to help YOU - please speak up! I will start by sharing things for my little brother Chris - who is almost in the same position I was. Unfortunately he is a LONG ways away so I have not been able to help him much. I will also start by sharing things that I think my Vertical Edge kids need to see and hear. But then I need and want to hear from you - what are your questions, do you understand what I'm saying and why. So please comment, ask questions, or send me some film of your drills or jumping and we can break it down on the blog so that everyone can learn from it.

To get this started, I want to share with you some inspiration - one of my favorite films of pole vaulting of all time.



Now THAT is pole vaulting!