I am starting this blog for some auxiliary advice and tips on my training, jumping, and goal-setting as I begin my college vaulting career at Mt. St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, MD. But before we go into all of that, maybe it would help if I started from the beginning so that everyone knows where I'm at mentally, physiologically, and emotionally.
So here is the story...
Freshman year of high school I tried out for soccer but didn't make it. (By this point I was already doing excercises that were way too much for my back.) I waited for winter and tried out for basketball. I didn't make that either. Spring rolled around, and I decided that I needed to make a team this year or I'd be unattractive to colleges (freshman thought-process at work here!). So I decided to run distance for the track team... I was petrified that I wouldn't make it, but I did and was very happy about it. I liked being part of a team, having people to look up to and suffer through workouts with.
I was attracted toward pole vaulting right away... I don't know why, I guess I just wanted a challenge, or maybe to stand out and do something risky. I definitely thought it would be really fun. I signed up early on and started training... sort of. I listened to every bit of coaching I got in those days as if it was divinely inspired or something. Looking back I realize that not much of what I was taught was correct. I did not do very well, but I did certainly have a lot of fun. I started neglecting my distance work outs and jumped more when I could... I became hooked.
Freshman year ended and I wanted to do some work in the summer, so I went to Slippery Rock for a week and improved quite a bit! I had been jumping about 8' or 8'6" at the end of the season, but at the end of that week I was jumping about 11'. It felt fantastic. This is also where I was first exposed to any extensive hands-on coaching that wasn't skewed (though my head coach actually tended to do a decent job when he had the time to watch me and everyone else jump). I had the great opportunity to meet altius there as well... A couple days or so after I got back, I wound up here on PVP, asking all sorts of beginnerish questions and making a million stupid comments and suggestions (but I do remember making a FEW intelligent posts back then). I was very green and immature, but I began learning, really learning. I have always had a knack for picking away at a topic relentlessly until I was totally satisfied with my knowledge of it... It was no different with the vault. I got a copy of BTB2 and a 13'7" 160 UCS/Spirit to do some practicing with. (I actually didn't do all that much practicing that summer after camp, come to think of it...)
Fall of sophomore year was upon me, and I tried out for soccer again. Made the team. I put vaulting aside for a bit as I trained through that season. I didn't get to play very much (I probably should have been, but that's an entirely different story), but I definitely got in shape and had a bit of fun with the other guys. Again, I absolutely loved being part of a team. I did go through a bit of maturation that fall.
Winter. I tried out for the basketball team again, and was once more unsuccessful... I was actually pretty upset about it. However, my computer science teacher was actually the boys' indoor track coach, so I asked him about competing that season. (I bragged that with a few weeks of training I'd be jumping about 12'... well, what else would you expect from me!?
) He said he'd love to have me (even without the ego-flag I was so proudly waving around)! So I got on the indoor team and started to practice.At this point I had begun to understand a bit about the vault and was cautious about what advice I listened to. I even started coaching a freshman (maybe two?). I think I jumped 9'6" at my first meet... I was disappointed. I missed twice at 10' and opted to pass to 10'6". (Typical PP, eh? I think that this is when all that started... right at the beginning of my sophomore indoor season. I had a bit of success under my belt and knew a thing or two and just figured that I was king or something.)
There was a lot of running at practices... I didn't actually get to train all that much with a pole. I did a lot of 400 ladders and things like that. Yet again, the whole team thing was something I liked a lot... But I really wanted to get away and do walking plants, sand drills, etc. Near the end of the season I did. I believe that at that point I had jumped 10', but I'm not sure. I did not improve very much... It was frustrating. Everyone around me was jumping just about the same as I was, and I knew that they were all terrible heights, that all of us were capable of jumping 4' more than what we were at... And I was starting to figure that I would have to do it on my own, because there was nobody to coach me there.
I forget what happened at Counties that season, I probably came in 6th or something at maybe 9'6", but I definitely remember what happened at Regionals... The way it works in MD is that you either have to jump the qualifying height (which I think was 10'6" for us?) or come in 4th or better for your region. Whatever the Q height was, I didn't jump it. I was just a bit short! At that point I was in 4th place though... However, the #1 seed guy (whose PR was 12') had yet to come in. For whatever reason, he ended up no-heighting. Along with one other vaulter on my team (the only other one from my team to make it to States at all), I was going to States: of course I was elated.
We actually got a bus. A big, long school bus for two athletes and a coach. It was pretty funny... But States was not funny at all. This time it was my turn to experience a NH. I don't know why, but my run was so terrible that I may as well have closed my eyes as I got up from the bench to go to my mark. My step was literally 10' off. What a noob. I pulled my step in so that I could try to do a 4 step approach instead of a 6 (I think?), but that didn't work. I was crushed, but I figured that I had 2 more of these to look forward to...
I recuperated as I looked forward to the coming outdoor season. I was ready to rip it up.
That season was fun, but not very productive. I got to 10'6" and couldn't get anything else out of my jump for some reason. I had begun training almost exclusively for the vault, and I had acquired a decent amount of knowledge by this point. (I had started to get pretty arrogant actually.
) The end of the season was approaching, and then one day I started blowing through BADLY on a pole I'd been using a lot that season, a 13' 145 Skypole. I got my 13'7" 160, and it was actually pretty close to being the right pole. I swear, if I had been able to keep healthy, I would have jumped at least 12' at Counties... But I didn't stay healthy.It was like any other practice... I had gotten down early to warm up so that I could get the pit out by the time practice started (away from the team now...), and I felt this sharp pain in my left hip flexor as I jogged my first lap. I ignored it. Once my warm up was finished and everything was all set up, I started training. The whole rest of the practice went by without any trouble, until right at the very end. I had jogged over to the sand pit to do some straight pole work for some reason, trying to fix some flaw that my coach had seen in my vault. I was definitely pushing it way too hard... Practice time was almost up, so I ran back over to the pit (at the other end of the straightaway) and started doing more jumps (these were full runs now, 7 steps if I remember correctly, and I had been doing jump after jump for at least an hour). On my last jump of the day, it happened: my hamstring tweaked. It wasn't much, but it did hurt and I looked for some attention as I landed just a few inches past the box... but I got no attention. And because nobody told me to do anything about it, I didn't. No ice, compression, elevation, anything. Maybe I stretched it... and if I did it was probably incorrect stretching.
Counties was soon. I couldn't miss that! I didn't get to go freshman year because I wasn't good enough! Actually, I didn't even consider skipping the meet. It never crossed my mind that rest might be the best idea, even though the thought that I should maybe only take a short approach run did. I still practiced hard, hurting it even more. No rest, no ice, no compression, no elevation, no correct stretching, no massage, no creams, pills, gels, or ancient Chinese herbal remedies. Nothing, at least nothing that I can remember. I don't know, I MIGHT have iced it once or twice, but definitely not enough.
Counties came. I went. I warmed up with some jagodins, and my leg screamed. I opted not to come into the competition just yet, and I told the official that I was passing to 12' (this is PP remember, not your average egotistical athlete!)... During those 45 minutes or so, I iced. And stretched. And elevated. Then I came back in (after everyone else was OUT), and I XXX'd. My leg was dead. I probably tore my hamstring that day.
I did not go to Regionals.
That summer I got very serious, lifting most days on a very strict schedule, with regimented supplementation and nutrition... I went back to SRU and did some more work, and this time altius was much more involved with the camp. My leg felt stiff a lot, but it held up with some bandaging. I got my jump up to around 12-13'... from a 4 step on a soft pole... when I was dead tired. (No, this is not ego, it is what happened.)
I trained relentlessly that summer. Up at 5:30 to get to the track by 6:00 most mornings, and I'd be there usually until around 8:00. I also developed a much deeper understanding of the Petrov model and how to practice it and teach it...
I tried out for soccer again that fall, but I actually didn't make it... Too much time spent vaulting, not enough on a field. I was a little upset, but I figured that it would give me a lot more time to work toward my new goal: 16' by the end of that school year. Yeah, that year.
That fall was a good time in my training. My leg wasn't feeling stiff like it had been all through summer, and I was really improving. I had also picked up another couple people to work with, and I started coaching after they finished XC practice and on the weekends. I no longer had a team-oriented mindset, I had an individualistic mindset, one that made me my own coach with my own team to train.
When winter came around, things went wrong almost from the very start. My coach said that the first week would be running for everyone, ladders and the like... The first day was fine, but on day two my RIGHT hamstring tightened up a bit. (I thought it was entirely separate from my other injury... what an idiot I was back then.) I went a lot easier, and then finally it was time to vault.
I was not as good as I thought I was.
I had psyched myself up so much for that first jump session, but I didn't do so well, or at least that's what it felt like. I mean, it was okay, but I really thought that I would be a beast.
The next day I felt something bad... Two incredibly sore hamstrings.
It only got worse throughout the season. My first meet was good, a success actually! I PR'd by a foot jumping 11'6". That PR would stand for over a year.
It got to the point where I was in so much pain that I was depressed... I was hurt, couldn't vault, and was starting to get way behind in school for additional reasons... And it became a cycle: bad grades, stress, more pain, tougher vaulting, depression, bad grades, and so on. It was not good stuff. There were only two other good things that season: I won Counties at 11', and I actually qualified for States... I only had to jump 9' I think, but that got me 4th and I took a shot at 12'. (I didn't make it, but I was actually pretty close.) I didn't go to States because of the pain... I had finally learned a bit. I was fighting a lot with my parents about how my condition should be treated. Eventually I was able to convince them to take me to a chiro appointment, and things began to get sorted out a bit. I stopped vaulting for a few months. I jumped in maybe one meet that outdoor season, at home. I think I 3 stepped 9'6" with a stiff pole into the wind... I came in second on a countback I think. Lame. I'm pretty sure I hurt the next day.
I really missed out Junior year, but I learned a lot about injuries and about how I deal with things internally.
That summer I worked hard again. I actually had the chance to have altius come to my high school to do a clinic, and that was spectacular. I was jumping pretty well then too... My 3 step stiff pole grip was 12' on the dot, a grip which I figured out correlated to a 16' vault... There went my ego again.
Senior year came. I managed the boys' cross country team, a job that I thought would allow for me to do a lot of vault training on the side... But it didn't, and so I had very little practice that fall. But I did have some, and I picked up a handful of people who were interested.
Winter did not go so well. That season is pretty well documented on this site already, but in short, I got a huge head and just sucked. Got hurt a couple times right when I was about to improve, and things were just terrible. My one highlight was Counties, at which I overcame an injury to win at 11' on a third attempt (a nearly identical situation as the previous indoor season county championship). I failed to clear 10'7" (TEN SEVEN) at Regionals, and I did not qualify for States. I was utterly broken inside.
Outdoor was mostly uneventful as well. I PR'd in the middle of the season, and got hurt very badly again not too long after. I may as well have skipped Counties... I hobbled and twisted my way over maybe 9' or 9'6", which I think actually still got me 7th or so. Regionals was similar, but I could have qualified for States had I played things better... It was an interesting situation, as I was unsure of my injury status. In the end, I blew through on my attempts at the Q height. My high school career ended. On a blow-through. How stupid.
I took the summer off almost entirely. I ran a bit, and I did a couple of drills in the grass once or twice, but that was it. I was very distracted, as I had a lot of other things going on, including moving from Maryland to Louisville and getting ready for college. It felt very good to take a break.
But now I am back and ready for business.
I've gone through a couple days of practice with my new college team, and that good "team" feeling is beginning to return to me, even though I don't really know anybody yet... I have been a lone-wolf for years now... I am happy to return to being a servant of a team and being strictly an athlete instead of being both athlete AND coach.
I'm optimistic about this upcoming year, but I have a much more realistic mindset now about what I can do. Here are some of my goals (in order of importance):
1. Maintain eligibility
2. STAY HEALTHY (the big one)
3. Practice smart
4. Jump high
- 13'6" indoor
- 14'+ outdoor
The next few weeks are for conditioning, so there won't be any film up for a while... Please help me out when I do get up some video!
