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I would greatly appreciate any feedback on what to improve-- but most importantly is HOW to improve what needs to be improved. She has the NY state record for 7th-8th grade indoors & outdoors. I feel like once she is able to get her hips to the top hand and shoulders underneath her that she is threat to challenge the national 8th grade record of 12-2.

Age: 13
Grade: 8th
Bar: 11-1 (her PR is 10-9)
Grip: 11-9 on a 13/160 carbon mystic
Takeoff: 9'
Standard depth: 80cm
Height/weight: 5' 10"/140lbs

http://www.youtube.com/user/mjaubbs40#p ... QcIXedYWlE

Her left arm is working great but she does not relax and start to pull or fold it when her feet get to her hands. The result is that her hips get droped and her head goes up. got to fold the left arm at the elbow to keep the hips going up.

Doug Balcomb

mjaubbs40 wrote: I would greatly appreciate any feedback on what to improve-- but most importantly is HOW to improve what needs to be improved.

MJ, congratulations on teaching her a mighty fine run, pole drop, and plant! Very precocious for her age!

If anything, her plant might be a little too EARLY ... but that's a minor point.

She lacks strength and technique in her swing, but that's to be expected at her age.

Her most obvious fault right now is that she's throwing her head back. I believe this is causing her back to arch. Instead, she should be striving to CURL her back ... so that her hips can rise above her hands.

Re the HOW part ... I would get her on the highbar or rings and practice Bubkas to get the idea of curling the back ... and obviously not throwing her head back. Also on the highbar or rings, I would have her focus on swinging the trail leg thru strongly. You can search for my "hinge whip highbar drill" for that.

Also have her work on her abdominal strength ... situps, leg raises ... anything and everything that strengthens her core.

Just about any other gymnastics drill will be beneficial to her overall strength, agility, and coordination in the air.

I think the rings and highbar drills will help her IMMEDIATELY. The ab work and gymnastics is for next year ... would even be detrimental to anything you're trying to accomplish in the next month. The #1 drill for her is Bubkas. You'll find them here: http://www.polevaultpower.com/media/video/skillsanddrills/

Kirk

KirkB wrote:

mjaubbs40 wrote:

Her most obvious fault right now is that she's throwing her head back. I believe this is causing her back to arch. Instead, she should be striving to CURL her back ... so that her hips can rise above her hands.

Kirk

I agree with Kirk, this is a must-fix if she wants to go higher, not to mention it has the potential to be very dangerous at higher heights. The good thing is it's pretty easily fixable. Do the high-bar and ring drills and you can use a variety of cues with her like: Roll your shoulders back, pop your chest, etc... Make the connection that when she throws her head back, she'll be stuck. If she rolls her shoulders back, her head will follow naturally. You can even show her on the video that the second she throws her head back, she gets stuck instantly.

And last thing, remind her to not land on her feet!

dougb wrote:Her left arm is working great but she does not relax and start to pull or fold it when her feet get to her hands. The result is that her hips get droped and her head goes up. got to fold the left arm at the elbow to keep the hips going up.

Doug Balcomb

Any drills, cues or thoughts on how to get her to do this, or does she just need better body awareness, practice doing it, and watch herself on film? Thanks for the input.

KirkB wrote:Her most obvious fault right now is that she's throwing her head back. I believe this is causing her back to arch. Instead, she should be striving to CURL her back ... so that her hips can rise above her hands.

Re the HOW part ... I would get her on the highbar or rings and practice Bubkas to get the idea of curling the back ... and obviously not throwing her head back. Also on the highbar or rings, I would have her focus on swinging the trail leg thru strongly. You can search for my "hinge whip highbar drill" for that.

Also have her work on her abdominal strength ... situps, leg raises ... anything and everything that strengthens her core.

Just about any other gymnastics drill will be beneficial to her overall strength, agility, and coordination in the air.

I think the rings and highbar drills will help her IMMEDIATELY. The ab work and gymnastics is for next year ... would even be detrimental to anything you're trying to accomplish in the next month. The #1 drill for her is Bubkas. You'll find them here: http://www.polevaultpower.com/media/video/skillsanddrills/

Kirk

Thanks very much, Kirk, I appreciate your input. At 5' 10" and 13 it's challenging for her to be a "gymnast" on the pole. She takes great pride in the way her abs look, but the fact is she does not have a strong enough core. We do have rings and a high bar at our house; I'll start taking video of her on it so she can watch herself. Thanks again.

Tincup1215 wrote:And last thing, remind her to not land on her feet!

Thanks for your cues in the 1st post, Tincup. As far as not landing on her feet, I've been telling her and all of my vaulters that and why not to since day 1.
When she corrects her technique, she'll start going more up instead of out and it should be easier for her to land on her back.

Hello,

From what I can see, I think she's rowing really hard just before she's supposed to extend. How long has she been vaulting for? It's a common mistake to want to do something at this point - a lot of youngsters try to keep their heads up (perhaps watching the bar) or they may naturally want to row. Rowing/pulling or otherwise manipulating the pole too much will cause you to be out of position during the swing. Ultimately, if you row too much you will not be in a position to project yourself upwards. It will put you out of position and it will also separate you from the energy of the pole (let me know if you want me to explain that more).

Additionally, two other things that haven't been touched up on yet:

Her last step is too deep/heavy and she is losing a lot of energy from it. She's jumping up well but the step is just too deep - knee is quite bent and she strikes the ground first with her heel. I think she's losing a lot of runway energy in that last step.

Also, the way she plants the pole puts her left hand in a position to where she can't use it very well. Her hand is wrapped around the left side of the pole rather than supporting it from behind. This means that she can't project all of her energy into the pole after she has taken off. Additionally, having her hand so far to the side makes it very difficult to pass under the pole (unless she fixes her hand mid-flight), increasing her difficulties in swinging up. Lastly, having the hand in this position will make her more prone to pulling on the pole.

Adding all that together, she's losing a lot of energy without even taking the swing into consideration. If she can fix the things mentioned, she won't just be able to swing up well - being 5'10", with a stride frequency like that I would say that this girl could use some massive poles if her technique is corrected!

I'll add some more to my post later, I don't have too much time right now.

-Andrew

P.S. One very very very good thing though is the free take off - congrats on that!

I posted a couple videos of Karmen vaulting at practice today in the backyard. These aren't her best takeoffs (a little inside--probably tired and not as "crisp" the last 3 lefts as she could be) but they are typical of her swing when there is no bar.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mjaubbs40#p ... 7NSt8jZtKc

She was gripping 11-6 on a 13/155 carbon mystic. Smaller than the grip/pole from her meet/other video.
7 lefts: 80' (the meet video is 6L--we try to go long run in practice once a week--haven't had her jump in a meet from 7L yet)
Takeoff: 8-3, should have been 8-6 to 9'

She was a tired little girl today. Kirk, after vaulting, we tried some high bar (cheater bubkas) and some hip circles (I spotted her)--didn't get video of that though. We did a long run because due to weather forecasts in western NY this week--it's probably the only time we get to jump this week.

First of all, that's the best backyard setup I've ever seen. Lucky girl.

Andy_C mentioned she is losing energy at her take-off. I agree with this alot, but I wouldn't attribute it to her last step causing the problem. Just to redefine the energy loss issue at take-off, she is very flat and her hips are too low at take-off. Andy_C said this, I'm just re-phrasing it. The biggest issue is her hips are too low at take-off. That's why her take-off leg is too bent. Just to finish the point, when the take-off leg is too bent (hips are too low), you'll never jump off the ground fast enough. It's now become a squat exercise in the gym. You want the hips high such that you have a very slight knee bend at the take-off. Now the jump at take-off is using your pre-stretched muscles that can react as fast as possible, like a stretched rubber band. I hope that wasn't too confusing. SO now onto how to fix it:

First, don't think about how much bend you have in your take-off leg. This happens naturally if you run tall. You're actually striving to take-off with a straight leg(no bend in the knee). That will never happen, but again, don't think about this. I just wanted to mention what it should look like.

The key problem here is she runs too low (hips are too low) starting from her first step. The first step needs to be an explosive "high bounding" step. If the first step is low, the whole run-up is shot because it's very hard to fix problems mid run. Think of the acceleration as "high bounding" until you get up to speed naturally near the mid-mark ( 3-lefts from take-off). At that point you're trying to get fast leg turn over to set you up for a perfect, explosive take-off position. Watch this Bubka video. It's the ideal approach run mechanics. You should feel like you're bouncing up and down on the acceleration phase up to the mid-mark because every step in the acceleration phase is an explosive "bounding" movement to keep your hips high until you get up to speed where it's easier to keep the hips high.
http://www.mansfieldathletics.com/pole_vaulting/video/Bubka_Video1.mov

As for the take-off, I think your bottom arm and bottom hand look great. The key is having the bottom arm elbow bent way out to the left to create the window for your head and chest to move through. Here's the Bubka pic of it and I think you hit it pretty well. You'll hit it even better if you keep your hips high throughout your approach run and get a free take-off ( step slightly out so you can jump off the ground cleanly).

'The key problem here is she runs too low (hips are too low) starting from her first step. The first step needs to be an explosive "high bounding" step. If the first step is low, the whole run-up is shot because it's very hard to fix problems mid run. Think of the acceleration as "high bounding" until you get up to speed naturally near the mid-mark ( 3-lefts from take-off). At that point you're trying to get fast leg turn over to set you up for a perfect, explosive take-off position. Watch this Bubka video. It's the ideal approach run mechanics. You should feel like you're bouncing up and down on the acceleration phase up to the mid-mark because every step in the acceleration phase is an explosive "bounding" movement to keep your hips high until you get up to speed where it's easier to keep the hips high.'

All good stuff but you need to remember that we are talking about a very tall THIRTEEN YEAR OLD girl here. What is technically desirable MUST BE physically possible!!!!

However I find it interesting to note that so far no one has identified the MAJOR and most obvious problem... Take another look -especially at the drills.