Right or Left????

[John]

I have a girl who is right handed (has been vaulting as a right hander), but she keeps jumping off the wrong foot. Come to find out she is also high jumping as a lefty. I had her do a round off for me and she does it as a lefty. Any thoughts on what I should do to help her?

Have her switch to vault left handed? or Keep working with her as a right hander and just keep drilling jumping off the correct foot?

Confused Coach

[Aviendha]

i'd switch her....i'm right handed, but vault lefty...there's another fairly recent post on this somewhere...but i think the general consensus was that its a lot easier to switch hands then to try to make someone jump off a foot that just "doesn't feel right".

[pv4life]

we have the same thing w/ a guy only he won't listen to us when we tell him to change. He does crappy as a right handed vaulter but much better as a left handed vaulter, but he wont change b/c je says it feels wierd.

[rainbowgirl28]

I'd switch her.

[PVPirate26]

i agree, switching her sounds like a good idea.

[master]

My vote would be to try switching her. Of course you would need to work with her a lot and see how it goes. If there is minimal performance loss then there is a good chance the switch will be good for her.

I think I heard that Stacey Dragila switched while she was in college. Does anyone know this for sure?

[izzystikchik]

well, what year is she? And how long has she been jumping? Because if you switch it may take a while to get used to, not as long as when you first learn how to vault of coarse, but it won't be an over night change. But if you think its worth it, then it is worth the chance

[RidinHigh]

We had a girl vault all of last year right handed and we couldn't understand why she was jumping off her wrong foot or even both feet at the same time every time she vaulted. She cleared 8'6 that way last year. Over the summer she went to a camp and they changed her over to left and her 2nd meet out this year she already tied her PR and is looking so much better as far as form and how she flows through her vaults.

[HighVaultage]

SWITCH

[Russ]

Yep.

I've had 2 right-handed gymnasts become vauters who both were used to taking off w/their right foot when "vaulting" in gymnnastics. We experimenmted with switching. One tried it and decided to pole vault righty - and it's worked very well for her so far.

The other one made the switch to lefty and that seems to be working okay too (but she's a beginner so it's hard to really be sure).

When they are beginners I think it makes sense to go ahead and experiment. In my 2 cases, both girls seemed to be able to tell pretty quickly (one or two practices) which felt more natural/comfortable to them.

[altius]

In the minority again - but hand dominance is important because the top hand is controlling and manipulating the pole from the first step through to take off. IF the athlete is ambitious and talented they should change - if they are not then it wont make much difference. If they have been jumping like that for a long time it will be difficult to change but it is easy to get young athletes to adjust to jumping off the correct foot by using a formal 2 step jump /4 step jump 6 /8 method. Begin with the right hand on the shoulder - Right foot back then Right Leftjump.

Of course it is vital to improve their jumping ability off their non preferred foot - if they are serious about the vault they should switch to long jumping and hurdling of the left leg.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

I absolutely agree with Altius. I spend a pretty long period of time (especially with newbees) doing two step pole climbs and vaults. It has tendency to eliminate any bias and reset the internals. Besides it has great benefit in that it teaches how to take off and tends to build upper body movement. Get these down and move back.