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Just curious to see what other people thought the best way to improve your vaulting is. I personaly think getting as fast and strong as you can while maintaining the lowest weight you can is a good way to do it.

vaulter870 wrote:Just curious to see what other people thought the best way to improve your vaulting is. I personaly think getting as fast and strong as you can while maintaining the lowest weight you can is a good way to do it.

weight only matters if you are carrying excess and it is keeping you from either running faster or getting your booty up above your shoulders in your vault.

you are right on with the speed thing though

The best thing you can do to improve your vault is make the effort to go to where you will get the best coaching.

Ya know? I was reading an article about Toby Stevenson and it talks about how he's pretty much self coached. He brought up the fact that when he practices he video tapes every vault and uses it between jumps to "coach" himself. Man that makes a lot of sense to me. We all pretty much know in our minds eye what the "perfect" jump is and who better to tell us what we need to do to improve our form than us. Video cameras are so cheap now-a-days (shoot, you can buy one for less than a pole costs) that I would think it's a manditory piece of training equipment. What do you all think about it?

souleman wrote:We all pretty much know in our minds eye what the "perfect" jump is and who better to tell us what we need to do to improve our form than us.

I disagree. I think most high school kids and many college kids have no clue what the perfect jump looks like, or even a good jump.

There is also a big difference between knowing what is wrong and knowing what to do to fix it. That is why many people who were great vaulters do not make great coaches. They do not know how to communicate the changes necessary to fix the problems.

Get a good coach, one who emphasizes conditioning as well as technique, and work regularly with that coach. Everything else will take care of itself.

I do agree with getting faster and stronger while staying light and FLEXIBLE. Then their is natural ability, coaching, equipment (definateley agree with the camera) and being able to practice and train.

Becca, we should be able to know the difference. If I look like a ruptured duck going over the crossbar (even though once off the ground I thought is was doing it right) If I saw that on video, I could change that to look more like (in my day) Seagren. We learn everthing we do via repetition and immitation. At 53 (and only if I REALLY had to) I could do all of P. Diddy or Daddy or Doodees', (oh h*ll you know who I mean), dance steps if my band were to ever play one of his songs and I had to be the rapstah out front. With enough practice and watching me do it via video, I can guarantee (even though it would look dumber than h*ll, a 53 year old guy doin' rap) I'd do it right. That was my point. You look at T Mack or Toby or Bubka or old Seagren clips and they are doing about everything, once off the ground.....right! and pretty much the same. I am not going to belittle the importance of a coach. I didn't place at state the one year I went because I didn't have a coach to tell me to buy the opening height but instead, because I was so overwhelmed by just being there, I tried all three attempts in a pouring rain. One thing I learned, ya gotta be able to hold on to the darn pole in order to go anywhere. WELL......DUH! I've watched enough good guys and bad guys jump to know the difference between good form and bad. But I have no idea what I ever looked like when I vaulted regularly because I never saw me jump. I bet if I had of seen me jump I know that I could have self diagnosed myself up another 6 inches. Maybe not, I don't know, Like I said, I never saw me jump. I'm ramblin' now, but I just can't help but think this video deal is a viable training tool. Later..............Mike

souleman wrote:We all pretty much know in our minds eye what the "perfect" jump is and who better to tell us what we need to do to improve our form than us.

I agree, i have filmed a lot of my jumps and compared them to other "really really really Good vaults" and it has helped me a lot. Plus, just watching any vault and pointing out the good and bad helps a lot. Its pretty much what i do everyday.

Based on your current conditioning, the right weight training and speed workouts can easily add inches. You do reach a point where your body won't really put on any more muscle. After that you've really got to find out what your weaknesses are and commit to fixing them. I'm a big proponent of video, and slide box too. Pole runs, pole runs, pole runs.

clear higher bars

clear higher bars

always a good start