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Hello everyone,

I was hoping I could get some second and third opinions on this one boy I am coaching right now. He is very strong and powerful and can vault on 14s a good 15-20 pounds over his body weight but he can not get upside down at all to save his life. He has a lot of problems, including plant being a little low and not a straight trail leg. These problems I have been working on and have improved already. His biggest problem I am having with him is that he LOVES to "row" his hands forward slowly after takeoff. It literally looks like he is trying to stab the pole into the box while in the air, so by doing this he is causing pole to uncoil early and he is basically throwing himself into the bar. I have even told him to hold his arm behind his head after takeoff, it still does not work as the arm comes flying foreword.

Any help or ideas you could give me to keep from "rowing" forward so aggressively would be very appreciative. Again, I know he has a lot of problems but this "rowing" one is one that has actually gotten worse while other things have gotten better.

https://www.coachseye.com/v/38yE
https://www.coachseye.com/v/61LU

I have more videos but Coach's Eye being stupid and not letting the videos works.

Also, I do Bubka's and hanging stubby drills with him and he is very good at both, upside down no problem. I have also tried putting him back on shorter poles, again hands come flying forward.

Thanks!

Perhaps try a different approach, and talk to him less about his arms and more about other parts of his body, and where they need to be?

Since he's coachable, he will try to move those body parts as you ask (probably by using his arms to do so).

1. His trail leg isn't a trivial flaw - it's quite a significant flaw that needs to be fixed. Get his trail leg swinging properly. You can get him to do this without talking about his arms (much at all). Highbar and chinup bar drills will help here, to get him used to a long, straight-legged swing. And he will find that he can swing this way no matter what he does with his arms (to a certain point). It's just a matter of focussing on the bottom half of the body, rather than the top half.

2. Rowing is causing his hips to stay too low (not getting inverted). Try getting him to raise his hips up above his head. Even if he does this by rowing, that would be a good improvement over his present technique.

Once he learns how to swing his trail leg properly and invert completely upside down, this kid's gonna fly off the top of the pole!

Kirk

Two different extremes in drilling might be helpful... Stiff poles (completely), and soft poles (crushable). Try going back and forth between them with 3-4 step runs, full jumps. Make sure he is focused exclusively on moving the hands upwards and nothing else. Lower the grip for these drills, have him be landing in the back of the pit.

It's hard to see but I'm sure he is under at takeoff. It's really difficult to have a nice straight trail leg swing when you are under.

powerplant42 wrote:Two different extremes in drilling might be helpful... Stiff poles (completely), and soft poles (crushable). Try going back and forth between them with 3-4 step runs, full jumps. Make sure he is focused exclusively on moving the hands upwards and nothing else. Lower the grip for these drills, have him be landing in the back of the pit.

Thanks guys, I will def change up the pole type and do short approaches.

In our last 2 meets I tried what the first poster mentioned about just getting hips as high as possible, because we do not get chances to practice indoors, and he has his worst two meets in a while. Arms coming rowing forward was worse.

I think his main problem is that he initiates his swing with his arms not his legs and hips. We do a lot of the swing drills on rings and high bars since that is all I can really do during indoor season and he has never had any problem with them, so I think it is a lot more takeoff.

Before I read these posts I have been having him do just 2 and 4 step approaches to work on takeoff and swing has been better at times. Still not full invert but better. I hope to have videos up soon.

Here are videos of short approaches

2 Lefts on a 12ft pole
https://www.coachseye.com/v/VXVR

4 Lefts on a 13ft pole
https://www.coachseye.com/v/m3bb

I know I'm not an expert but his take off is almost great for bubka style vaulting which is taught by many of the guys in my area because of the power generation. he needs to just lock in the bottom elbow and that isn't gonna happen till he gets his feet up to be at or over his head in the L position. Once he gets the L the elbow can lock and he can move up the pole, all he would have to do is what we call "hump" the pole and that is him kicking up parallel with the pole. Also he is keeping his head bent looking at the bar, just trying to make it over that height have him kick up at something like a 16' bungee so it forces him straight to hit it, a good drill and he had to just do form it will for the head to stay with the spine and make him look back at the runway when upside down.

Goodluck!

pv170 wrote: ... We do a lot of the swing drills on rings and high bars since that is all I can really do during indoor season and he has never had any problem with them, so I think it is a lot more takeoff.

It doesn't look like he has a good grounding in swinging on highbar and rings. He's shortening his trail leg far too early.

In the 4 lefts vid, he's still not swinging his trail leg long. He does stretch it on takeoff (good), and he doesn't appear to be too far under (good), but then he immediately shortens his trail leg (bad).

If he swung properly on a highbar or rings, he would be keeping that trail leg straight. That's where he has to improve.

There's really no sense in analyzing any other part of his vault. With his current run, plant, takeoff, and stretch, he's all set for a good long trail leg swing.

Fix the swing and everything else will improve along with it. It can't be fixed on the pole until it's fixed in the gym.

PV170, I'm sorry, but I don't believe he's been swinging properly in the gym. You do recognize that he has this flaw, don't you?

It really has nothing to do with rowing. That comes later.

Kirk

Speed, plant jump and takeoff get you in. Strength and swing speed get you inverted and keep the pole moving forward. If you can get the pole into the pit but can't get inverted you need to make your swing up stronge and faster with better technique. We've been using the Pole Vault Swing Up Rack, now available to the public. There's lots of great results, reviews and videos of clubs, coaches and parents that purchased the Swing Up Rack in Instagram #swinguprack @polevaults


http://www.advantageathletics.com/rack.htm