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hey im a junior now and just started vaulting the end of my sophomore year. im 6'2" 160lbs. and ive been adapting to the vault pretty well so far. im going to a vaulting club now and everyday i keep hearing "quicken the feet and the hands". its very frusterating to me because i try to fix any mistake i am told of. whenever i feel that my hands are high at take off i feel either way under or way out (which is probably a problem with my run).

three main questions.

1. which is more important, running as fast as i can or putting the feet down as fast as i can?

2. i've been doing plant drills for awhile, anything else to quicken my hands during the plant phase?

3. ive noticed that if i get on a pole that bends a lot my timing is totally thrown off, like my body doesnt know when to swing and use the bend and i seem to just do a half swing or no swing at all, is it normal to have to learn to deal with the bend?

any advice is greatly appreciated. thanks

andy

1. As fast as you can. But you should go as fast as you can a certain way... Stride length should only increase until the last 3 lefts, then only CADENCE should increase.

2. Do more plant drills!

3. Try the platform drill. Stand on a high platform, jump off with the pole, swing, and extend out toward the back of the pit.

thank you sir.

i dont go back til monday...so i cant really do much other than lifting / maybe a running workout


i wish i could vault 8 days a week

As you increase the speed of your hands and get your plant to be "on time", this is going to get you to drop your step and put you in a better position at take off... If your run is a tick inconsistent you will feel like you are wicked far out because you are not going to be used to having your step be truly on. If your plant is late your step is going to be wicked under and you will feel way to close and jammed at take off.

My suggestion is start training with a slide box. This will help you just focus on the pole drop and take off and repeat the motion with very little energy expenditure. If you start to drop your pole quicker, the weight of the pole will pull you forward slightly and your steps/cadence will increase. Helping with your body angle, cadence, and take off step. Slide box also makes you train with an 8 inch deficit because the box is flat on the ground... this decreases the pole angle forcing you to have a better angle, when you go back to a normal box this will help allot at take off...

Always keep in mind, and most High school vaulters don't under stand this. You train to vault, you do not vault to train. Work on technique but also work on sprint tech, strength, and take off angle.
hope that helps...

its funny you say that because my coach had me doing slide box drills the last 2-3 practices. i did a lot better with quickening my feet(im usually under and have a late plant)...my feet were pretty on and my hands were better. he put a piece of foam on the track where i should be taking off and that really helped for some reason, my feet went at the right cadence. i still have to work on:

1. getting my hands high and in front of me(jump into it) at take off

2. jump up more, my coach says i kinda just let the pole take me sometimes.

and yes i agree that you train to vault, i just have so much to improve on i cant do it all in one drill

I would say NO to sliding boxes.

You will tend to, maybe very gradually, start to subconciously block with the bottom arm.

At least make sure you (and your coach!) are aware of this phenomenon.

I would suggest using a towel, or even nothing on the track when you drill your plant.

hmm interesting point. i havent heard of this but with your knowledge im sure its credible. however i will say that i am pretty far from blocking at the moment and i will also say that i believe minimal blocking can actually help your jump. i could be dead wrong and i know a lot of people are very anti block and i am too, im just saying a very little bit( you automatically block to some extent). i'll be sure to ask my coach about this. thanks pp

beers1213 wrote: ... I believe minimal blocking can actually help your jump. ... I'm just saying a very little bit (you automatically block to some extent).

If you believe that you "automatically block to some extent", then you're probably already blocking too much!

beers1213 wrote: ... i know a lot of people are very anti-block and i am too ...

I'm also in the anti-block camp. How did you guess!

But for a very good reason ...

When I was in HS in the late 1960s, I followed John Pennel's technique. He was the WR holder at the time, and he emphasized a strong bottom hand push on the pole. This was written up in Dr. Richard Ganslen's book "Mechanics of the Pole Vault", which was the PV bible at the time. So naturally, as a HS kid, I believed that his was the best technique to emulate.

It stalled my swing, causing me to compromise my technique severely. When I stalled after pushing too hard, I pushed even harder - trying to bend the pole even more. What I read was bad advice, and I interpreted it and extrapolated it to the point where it made my technique even worse. I probably vaulted at least a foot (and perhaps 2 feet) under my potential in HS, due to this problem.

All this stalling out was also very dangerous, especially with the poor pits we had back then. However, I was lucky to not get injured in HS due to my poor technique. Very lucky.

When I got to UW, it actually took Coach Shannon two full years (less injury time) to break me of the habit of pushing. Even my three serious injuries in these 2 years can be traced back to my poor technique. I stalled out and landed in the box on all three occassions, putting me into a cast for most of my first 2 seasons.

I might have been lucky to escape injury in HS, but this luck ran out once I got to UW. So lesson learned: DON'T PUSH. NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT!

There's many other threads about this topic. The general consensus is "don't push at all". However, there are naysayers, which I attribute to coaches still relying on John Pennel's technique as being "sound". Some people are slow learners, and some are just old fogies. Me, I learned my lesson the hard way!

Kirk

woah woah woah, i must say i didnt mean it like this.

ok my definition of blocking is the distance your away from the pole, which i know is wrong, but thats how i think of it, im close to my pole now(less bend) because im on a heavy pole, if i run and get aggressive i will create more space, so more like bending than blocking. im just saying that it "looks" like blocking is a good idea, more space=more bend=more power, but like you said at the cost of stalling out and injuries its not the way to go.

in the end, i dont try to block, im not going to "try" to block, i just want more space because space = bend and bend= more height. make sense?

Be careful:

space = bend and bend= more height. make sense?

No. It does not. I know what you MEAN, but that does not mean that it makes SENSE... because it doesn't. It would SEEM to, especially to high schoolers (and plenty of other athletes and their COACHES), but it does not. As agapit has showed us, we must sometimes question our 'common sense', because it can be quite wrong. Peruse through some of the laterish "Bryde Bend" posts and 'discover'.

haha i gotta watch what i say, you must realize powerplant, when i say something its what i mean, not all the scientific stuff, this sport is so complicated im not sure if anyone understands everything about it. im sorry i misphrase things but i am not a master vaulter...yet:) haha....i shall look into this bryde bend though, thanks

It is a complex event, no!? That's the fun in it! It's a challenge!

Pay particular attention to where KB talks about how he messed up in his later career.