Fixing Take off (Making it free)

[VaultPurple]

Here is a good drill that worked on forcing the vaulter into a free take off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNa6zw_V ... ideo_title

The drill follows DJ's chart very closely. For 3 lefts I had both guys run lone left back from their 2 step mark (Adding take off, two stride lengths, and penultimate that are listed on chart). I did this for the numbers for a 12' grip and had them vault 3 lefts with the 12 grip, making sure they hit the 2 step mark. Then at the take off I put a foam mat (part of the standard protectors) right in front of where they are supposed to take off and made them run and concentrate on high knees and quick feet and then really jumping as much as they could. This really emphasizes the quick feet and big jump at the end.

After working on this I took the same principle and moved them back to 6 lefts. Both of these guys pretty much grip the same and run from the same place which in the last meet was about a 14'8 grip from 81'. So in the drill I had them both start by gripping 14'. They ran back 3 lefts from the 47' mid and it came out to be about 79' (two foot closer than in the meet but with the same speed for the first 3 lefts). Now I had them run forward from 79' and hid the 47' mid with full speed, then concentrate on really turning over their feet and striking the ground with really quick steps, but making sure not to stutter. I still left the cushion on the runway because it is about 2 inches thick and the body naturally does not want to step on it. This forced them to run really tall and really get their knees moving up and down. The video shown I actually had the one guy move his grip up to 14'4 and back to a 48' mid because he was almost landing off mat with 14' grip. Each time I moved their grip up I moved it an increment that is listed on the cart (ex, from 14' to 14'4 and just had them move back 1'), the extra foot allowed them to carry more of their speed forward while still being able to turn over with the same frequency.

As you can see from the video they both ended up with a nice tall plant. And the beauty of the mid mark chart is that shortening the stride for a 48' mid makes them run the speed the chart says 7.7 m/s (I rigged up a speed trap and got the time to be like 7.8).

[altius]

IMHO it does not matter how much you play with the mid mark if the athlete is late with the plant - I believe the two vaulters shown are half a step late with the plant -this make a free takeoff difficult to achieve.

[Barto]

Their tips are too high. Their drops are late. They are not letting the pole drop "free" and chasing it into the takeoff.

Here are a couple of freebies.

Practical Pole Vault Takeoff:

Get the tip down. Mandatory that the pole be horizontal when the vaulter is on top of his next to last stride with takeoff foot.

Tighten up the mechanics of the curl/press arm action. Getting the tip down will help with this, but some attention must still be paid to it. Mandatory that Top hand curl to ear similtaneous to ground contact of heel of penultimate foot. Mandatory that top arm is at full extention before takeoff foot contacts the ground.