Follow me on my journey to 16'

[pursuit16]

so on the way to practice, i just couldnt seem to focus on what had to be done. Now it was an hour long car ride, and i drive by myself, so i had plenty of time to think. I eventually was able to keep myself reminded that i need to start getting my step out. I pictured it a couple times in my head and saw it happening. When i showed up, my coach gave me a little speech to help hype me up and i was real excited to get started. Well after warming up, i go to look for the 13 7 160 that i usually 4 step on. Not there. My coach didnt bring it but i decided to just grab the 14 150 and hold the same spot. That seemed to throw me off a little and jarred my focus a little. After a few jumps i moved back to 7L. Never really felt great on the runway and was feeling a little slow. after a getting a little angry i convinced myself that ive done it so many times and that ill just go with it, so after a good amount of bad jumps or run throughs, i started to put together a better looking run and take off a couple times in a row. I was still not up to full speed but i was getting off the ground. Never really got the step out any further than 10 6 but thats a start. Now i just gotta make sure im consistant with the run up and gotta be patient with my cadence.

Today:
8 x 150m @ about 85% trying to get some general conditioning in.
7 minute abs
pull ups and lunges in the weight room

After working out today i felt that i need to get a little more true speed work in and im thinking either tomorrow or sometime next week ill do something like 10m, 20m, 30m, ..., all the way up to 100m
and of course, pole runs one day.

[rainbowgirl28]

It sounds like your focus is in the wrong place. Getting your step out is the goal, but you can't magically get it farther out by wishing it to be so. What things do you need to do to make it happen? I don't mean practicing from short run either, I mean like getting your hands up faster or earlier or running with your knees higher... ?

[pursuit16]

i am trying to focus on driving my knees higher on my last few strides. I seem to lose my knee drive as i get closer to take off. I also am trying to focus on cycling my legs faster on the last few strides and get my take off foot underneath me rather than striding out and reaching forward. Is there anything else you have in mind to help with this? These things seem to help a little bit, and are much easier to control on a shorter run but when i have a longer pole and am from a longer run I tend to take off close to where I do from the short run and can definately feel a little reaching in the last couple strides

[pursuit16]

Its been a few days since my last post, and a lot has happened since. to start, vault practice on sunday was short, but went well. It was the first practice that I didnt jump on anything smaller than the 14' 160 from a full run (granted that i only took about 5 7L jumps). I was feeling pretty good about the meet the next day.

As far as the meet goes, I came in at 13', cleared 13' amd 13' 6" clean and then hit 14', a new PR, on my 3rd attempt. my 14' 6" attempts werent great, but they werent terrible. Everything up to the inversion was good i just wasnt getting upside down. Im pretty excited that i finally got a PR this season, but i want to keep pushing for more.

Practice today was a 20 min recovery run, abs, and a little upper body work in the weightroom

[rainbowgirl28]

Congratulations on the PR! What meet was it?

[pursuit16]

NJ varsity classic in the New York Armory

practice today was 6 50m sprints @ 100%
10 min cool down
6 min abs

I really need to build some run way speed and get my take off out to continue to make improvements. Ive been getting better in these areas, but still feel like there is much more room to improve

[pursuit16]

So I had another meet tonight. I needed to clear a height or the season would be over til nationals. I ended up clearing 13 6 On the 14' 160. I was a little bummed when I got there cause I found out two meets were going on and we were going second. I was halfway through warm ups at this point. I ended up warming up again before our competition, then again with my 2 minutes of runthroughs before I jumped. So I essentially warmed up 3 times tonight. Not my favorite thing to do but I didn't take too many jumps. Well anyway, I felt good other than the fact that I was taking off at like 10 feet, which is still a huge issue. And ive gotten to the point where my step doesn't need to move out, cause i just end up reaching my last few strides. I'm going to spend some time doing drills cycling my legs at practice this week. All in all a pretty average performance, I missed 14' 1" and didn't really have any great attempts, I came down on everything cause my step was so far under. I won the meet tho which means I'll compete for the school one more week. My goal is to try and get my step out more and more each practice from this point on and KEEP IT OUT when I get to meets. I know it sounds repetative but I promise I'll get over this issue soon and you'll never hear me say anything about it again. I'll keep you posted.

[pursuit16]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7_bG4drhic

footage from fridays meet. thoughts?

[pursuit16]

Well long story short, our coaches bailed on us today. They got frustrated because there was a misunderstanding and they told us to go home. Me and one other teammate decided to do a couple circuits through one of our halllways in school (track is covered in snow). It was about 50 to 75m long and we ran the length at a moderate pace and then went as fast as possible up and down the stairs each lap. We did 6, just something to get the legs moving after a long weekend.

Did a quick push up circuit and then 30 handstand head taps.

Left practice pretty angry with the way things went, at least i got to blow off some steam with a little workout.

[superpipe]

Gotta tell ya, you have a damn good approach run. I like how tall you run, you're relaxed and the pole drop looks pretty good. That's one of the toughest aspects of vaulting. The only real "hard" part you have to fix is a free take-off. The problem is you like to "block" which makes feeling comfortable with a free take-off very difficult. You don't quite "jam" a straight left arm like alot of vaulters, but it's damn close. Both hands should be pressing straight up aggressively, but at the same time the shoulders must be relaxed. This allows the body and chest to move into the "pocket" upright and get the biggest pre-stretch possible at the jumping take-off. You should get the sensation of "pulling the pole in with you during your take-off jump". Blocking gives the sensation of "pushing the pole in with you during the jump". Here's a picture of one of my young athletes hitting a good take-off position where the COM moves into the pole as much as possible.



The only other issue I see is you loose control of yourself in the swing and inversion off the top of the pole. Do you work swinging "bubka" drills on a highbar? You should. It will help you stay in control of the swing and inversion. It's details at the end, but you also end your vault up top way to soon (mostly because you loose control in the swing). You literally let go as the pole is still recoiling. Work swinging "Bubkas" on a highbar to help learn control of the swing and inversion.

Keep at it, you have some great potential.

[pursuit16]

thank you for the input. Ive been trying to narrow up my hand grip slowly to try and fix the blocking problem. As for bubkas on the high bar, I did them on a regular basis funtil it got cold out and i dont have any bars inside so ive only done them at a few practices this winter. ill do them much more regularly once the wether gets warmer

[pursuit16]

Practice today:

4x50m @100%
4x100m @95%

6x50 abs

Felt like a pretty good speed workout. I have vault practice tomorrow and im pretty excited for it. I was explained all the details about how to use my mid mark and im looking forward to seeing what part of my run needs work. I have a pretty good understanding of how it all works and i think it should help me get things rolling. Ill keep posting with how everything goes