PoleVaultPower.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVAqTNdaRHk

This is one of my practice vaults. I'm a senior in high school, 5'10" 165lbs vaulting on a 14' 180 spirit gripping around 13'8". I think the bottom half of my vault is descent, but i can never seem to finish on the top end. I know that i dont cover the pole very well. Critiques are desired, as i am trying to really put together the top of my vault and i'm having difficulty doing it. Core strength isnt an issue. I'm certainly not claiming to be anything close to Bubka, but i found it helpful to compare my video with one of his vaults to see where i need the most work.

look like you need to get more inverted and push off more

Keep that top arm straight for longer. You are pulling too early with it and it is keeping your shoulders from getting back, and it is just killing everything on top of the pole.

pool_man_007 wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVAqTNdaRHk

This is one of my practice vaults. I'm a senior in high school, 5'10" 165lbs vaulting on a 14' 180 spirit gripping around 13'8". I think the bottom half of my vault is descent, but i can never seem to finish on the top end. I know that i dont cover the pole very well. Critiques are desired, as i am trying to really put together the top of my vault and i'm having difficulty doing it. Core strength isnt an issue. I'm certainly not claiming to be anything close to Bubka, but i found it helpful to compare my video with one of his vaults to see where i need the most work.

o by the way your knee drive is pretty goooodd

Swing up more and try to get vertical. Other than that and what everyone else said, it looked decent to me.

thanks for the feed back everybody, i'll try to work on being a little more patient with the pull to allow myself to drop my shoulders

No prob. I just hope I was helpful.

every little piece of information helps

First off, i would like to nice that is a nice example of a free take off which can be very difficult to do

Okay lets see

your hands are pretty tall at take off, however, you lose your hips right away. you need to work on driving the chest up and forward into the jump while letting your right arm drag back behind your head. This will put you in a more powerful position to swing from and thus improve the rest of your vault.

Accomplishing this however is a little difficult. First i would learn to do one handers. Simple carry the pole on your shoulder and as you approach the box, plant with the top and hand and jump the pole up as hard as you can. While you do this, force your hips to stay behind the pole. Once you can do that, continue to raise your grip higher and higher. If you can learn to hold really high in this drill, it will fix the problem becca mentioned, about pulling with your top hand.

Do you know why you dont want to pull with your top hand?!? because the whole goal of pole vaulting is to move the pole to vertical. so if when you take off, you pull the pole down.... your putting energy into the system in the wrong way.

Okay Next. You ahve a nice long trail leg. However, after your leg passes through the chord of the pole (when your hand hip and foot make a line to the box), you need to role your hips upwards. This is why your hips are low in the vault and you cant get good extension upwards, and why your flag towards the bar. To do this, i suggest learning on short run starting with a straight pole. Take lots of video and compare feelings to results.

Looks like you have a lot of good stuff going. Keep learning and making those improvements!!!

Thanks alot, that is exactly the kind of post that i like to see, not only telling me WHAT i'm doing wrong, but HOW to fix it. once again thanks a million, that should help alot