Flaming Hoop Vault - Don't try this at home!

04-25-11 Monday Night Practice

Your League Prelim. is tomorrow and I will certainly be there to cheer each and everyone of you on! Here is a little summary from Monday night session: Leave yourself plenty of time to warm up and with a few good jumps, you will determine whether your steps are on. If not, do your full run back. From past Monday night videos, I slowed down some of your approach runs. By doing this, it will allow you to see what your body is doing during that few seconds up in the air. I suggest you study a little of it and make comparison with other vaulters' techniques (i.e. videos from previous posts.) 


Anyway, I'm going to end this with a couple quotes: 


"To improve, an athlete must be willing to go outside his/her comfort zone."
"Your confidence is the greatest coach you could possibly have."


http://vimeo.com/23032111


Something crazy I saw on youtube this evening: (Please don't try this at home..)

Free take-off

Senior Jillian Katterhagen clears 10' (3.05m)

Freshman Kara Zuspan clears 9' 6" (2.90m)

Plant.
The purpose of the plant is to put a pole with minimum energy loses in the position at the take-off where a vaulter will not experience pole resistance during the take-off.

“Free Take off”.
Take-off during witch the vaulter does not experience pole resistance is a free take-off.

“Free Pole Drop”.
“Free Pole Drop” serves two purposes. It eliminates pole gravity resistance on a vaulters body during the run-up allowing speed maximization and allows the bottom of the pole to descend into the box at the time for completion of the “free take-off”.

Steve Hooker jumps 5.61m (4 Steps)

04-18-11 Monday Night Practice

Good luck to everyone that will be competing Thursday and Saturday. I will be heading east coast to visit my family starting tomorrow so I won't be able to come see you. Again, nice job Monday night for those that made it out for practice. If for any reason you missed it, not a big deal... hopefully weather permits and I will see you next Monday evening for another great session. 

Videos are uploading at the moment so do check it out and learn from any mistakes you find yourself stuck in or maybe just keep up with the good work! Have fun and jump high. (http://vimeo.com/22687064)

04-15-11 Friday Practice

Warm day out there but great job to everyone that showed up for a good pole vault session. This outdoor track season is passing by fast, not sure how many regular season meets left before going into those league championship meets. Let's keep on trying to improve yourself, set a goal and we will work toward it. By the way, I notice we don't have any jump videos for the girls at practice today. I would like to get a few videos from the girls so then everyone can see what they have been doing good or bad at practices. It is the best way to learn from your own mistakes. 

Everybody enjoy the weekend but let's plan to be at practice on Monday night! Here is what I'd like to have you guys do for this upcoming Monday (04/18/11):

5:30PM-6:00PM: Plan to be on the track for set up.

6:00PM-6:30PM: Girls on the runway to start warm-up drills/jumps. Boys off the runway to warm-up, pole drills and runs.

6:30PM-7:00PM: Boys on the runway to start drills/jumps. Girls off the runway to do pole drills and runs.

7:00PM-7:45PM: Everybody share the runway for full runs.

7:45PM-8:00PM: Last jump calls.

8:00PM-8:10PM: Packing up everything and be done.

Please pass the message to everyone else, thanks. 

Videos from Friday practice: http://vimeo.com/22474482

Article for digest: Olympic Medalist Jan Johnson Hasn't Forgotten His Chicago Heights Roots

4-11-11 Monday night practice summary

Calvin & Marcelo - Great practice session on Monday, much improve for not jumping at all the week before due to the prep-up for Arcadia Invitational. I see big improvement on the runway, great speed, acceleration, and lots of power at take-off, which is exactly what I need to see during every practices. Calvin, those take-offs were much better by pressing the left arm out. It's nice to see you blew through those 13-ft/165#/170# during the warm-up jumps then immediately went for the 14-ft/140#/145#/150# poles, respectively, so keep it up! Marcelo, same with you, great intensity on the runway, which helped you move up poles quickly, 13-ft/145#/150#/155#. However, after watching the videos over and over again, here are a few things that you need to put focus to:

1. Take-off: don't give in on the left arm, keep pressing both arms up simultaneously! You can improve your take-off by doing the following: be active on those arms starting on those last 4-left, take-off step needs to be right on or better if is a few inches outside (Marcelo-your take-off are often inside, let's fix it). Let's improve the take-off angle a bit, which means arms should be up early and take-off should be execute before the tip of the pole hits the back of the box.
2. Trail-leg: maintain that trail-leg at take-off so you can build that momentum for the swing. Calvin, good job for trying to keep that trail-leg straight for as long as you can but definitely can do better on transferring that strong trail-leg into the swing. Marcelo, video showed how quickly you pick-up that trail-leg and start swinging up right from take off. We got to try harder on this. (http://vimeo.com/22379359)
3. Swing: get to vertical as quickly as possible. Both of you are sitting in a fish bowl, you can take a look at the video yourself. Can everyone put more effort on abs workout? Let's improve lower body mechanics and try to incorporate overall abs sessions during your weight sessions. (http://www.polevaultpower.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9366)

The rest of you girls and guys, great job jumping Monday night! I'm impressed with all the improvements on the runway. I need all you guys to continue with pole drills off the runway before start jumping during each practice. It's no need to rush onto the runway. Pole runs are must and it is the only way you can be more efficient accelerating with the pole in hands. It's simple, the faster you can run with high knee & tall form, the higher you can grip-up on the pole, which allow you to jump higher. Of course, there are many other components to it but let's take one step at a time. Btw, do your abs workout after your daily workout or just do it on your own at home, like that "rockback drill" some of you tried the other night!