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Throughout my pole vaulting career, ive come to find that so many vaulters seem to max out in the 13' or 13' 6" range. It seems to be a common height among high schoolers whereas 14' or 14' 6" seems to be much more rare. With my junior year season on its way out, and a PR of 13' (as of 5/27/11) I know I will have all summer and all fall to put in work towardss my jump. Last summer I began training with Coach Dan Bertolami at IPOLEVAULT in tuckerton nj. After improving my PR by 2.5 feet since last year, I really have big expectations for this upcoming summer and although it seems like my coach really seems to produce a lot of 13'/13' 6" jumpers, he has produced a couple guys in the 14' 6"/15' range. Basically, I want to know from people who have experienced this point in their career what they would do to reach the next level. In no way am I content with jumping 13' and I am willing to do virtually anything to reach the next level. I have plans to lift and sprint 3days a week throughout the summer and jump two days a week. I really would like to know what kind of technical improvements I have to make on my jump and what kind of changes i have to make on my traing routine. below is a link to my youtube account that contains videos that show my jump, athletic abilities and my improvement since last year. Please be honest and help me to do what I need to in order to make significant improvements in my jump.

http://www.youtube.com/user/zw5101?feature=mhee

Thanks, Zach

First off, it seems you're doing a lot of things well.

I had some trouble seeing everything in some of your jumps, but as far as things to be improved go, your plant and take-off are where you ought to focus. Your run is pretty good, but it seems to get a bit screwed up on your 4th step out (just before the pole transfers through parallel). Your hands drop a bit low, which means you have to catch back up with your run to get the pole up in time. This might be what's causing your take-off to be fairly consistently under.

Does this help at all?

Does this help at all?

yeah definately, you explained how i need to improve my plant but only thing is what do you think needs work in my take off?

It seems to be under most of the time, which is obviously a pretty common problem.

If you have access to a pole, work on this in the sandpit as much as possible. LOTS of reps from three lefts, high grip (nearly stalling out), making sure you hit the pole with high hands, tip off the ground, a solid core, and that you stay behind the pole to ride it down.

If I understood your first post correctly, you have access to a real pit this summer?

yeah i do. and thanks, ive known of this problem and have been working in practice to try to fix it but it still needs a lot of work. ill definitely try out working on some sand pit drills. thanks for the input

Sure thing! I'd love to see video of those as well.

Make sure almost all the sand work is with a stiff pole too!

powerplant42 wrote:Sure thing! I'd love to see video of those as well.

Make sure almost all the sand work is with a stiff pole too!

I actually had practice today and my original goal was to try to work on a full run and getting on bigger poels but kept running through and couldnt get my step to where it needed to be so i ended up working on it from 4 lefts. I did do some sand drills but couldnt manage to get it on video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9kow1qAPUA heres the video that i got. Notice that on my full run im taking off way under (which is how my jump usually is) but on the 4 step it was better. I was trying to get my step right in line with the front of the square of duct tape. What do you think?