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!
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Thursday, November 14, 2013
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!
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!
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
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."
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.
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."
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
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?
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.
Amazing! What are your favorites?
Monday, November 4, 2013
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?
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?
Saturday, November 2, 2013
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!
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!
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