Utilizing 2 pits in practice

[Bubba PV]

Great ideas guys and gals!! At The Woodlands High School (25 miles north of Houston) we have a pit on each end of a 148' runway. Photos ½ way down this page http://www.bubbapv.com/Pages/TWHS.htm We call one pit the "Main" pit and alternate days that the kids jump on it. So on MW the main pit has the better vaulters while Pit B has the newer kids working through their drills and learning to extend to a high bungee with the standards all the way back.

On TTH they switch and the younger kids get to jump at a crossbar on the main pit and the better vaulters work through their drills on the other pit. I constantly walk between the two pits during the offseason while the PV coach is in football. When we get our coach back we rotate.

I've had no shortage of parents who like to play a role in practice either with the bar, bungee or just watching and offering encouragement. Hope this helps. Bubba

[vaulternick]

One other suggestion would be to break the team into "JV" and "Varsity", and have dedicated times for each. This way you would be able to weed out the beginning vaulters who probably won't stick with it.

Either way, get help or reduce the # of kids you coach at one time. They deserve it and so do you.

I currently split up my groups into "Beginner" and "Amatuer." They don't vault high enough to be called advanced. I have my top 10 jumpers as amatuer and everyone else is in the beginner group. You have just made me think I should do it differently...
My new idea is this. My amatuer group will consist of 8 vaulters. The top 3 girls, top 3 junior/senior boys, and top 2 freshmen/sophomores. Everyone else goes in the beginning group about 11-12. At least once a week, we have a vault off to see who is in which group. Kids can transfer all the time depending what they do in the jump off... What do you think?

As far as the number of kids I coach, I've thought about this many different ways. You have to have a beginner group otherwise you won't have anyone who will be decent in their 3rd or 4th year of vaulting. But the beginner group always takes up the most time... If I kick everyone out who doesn't have a shot at it, I may be tossing away a 15-16 footer (good for our area). I had a 1st year sophomore only jump 8 feet. 2 years later he set our school record at 15-4. Not great, but my point is who cares about a sophomore that jumps 8 feet?

In a perfect world everyone would have 2 coaches and 2 pits and enough poles in all the lengths we would need. But that is not the world we live in. I have a hard time figuring out were to draw the line. Any advice? I'll take it.

[rwelch]

I re-read my post and I can see where it might have sounded a little cut-throat. My point was: from my experience, i get between 5-10 brand-new, never vaulted before kids who come try to vault. After they figure out that vaulting isn't laying on the mats between jumps all practice, they usually find something else to do. In fact, I make the first couple of weeks brutal simply because not only does PV require the athletes full attention while they are doing it ( to succeed and be safe), it allows me to see who will make a dedication to the physical demands of the workouts. I am not saying that you have to EXCEL at the workouts, or drills for that matter ( I don't cut anyone who tries; I have removed vaulters who thought they could practice their other events all week and then vault at the meet) but you have to put in the EFFORT.

Anyway, back to your ideas: sounds like you have come up with a system that will work for you. I also liked what BubbaPV is doing as well.

Happy Vaulting!