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!