Missing the pit

[golfdane]

In regards to Gerasimov

His run-up starts on the left side of the runway, and progresses to run towards the center of the runway. He's almost aiming for the right side of the pit. It the pole recoils too fast (pole a wee bit to big), will it throw him to the right.

Take a look at some of Hooker's jumps. Recently, it seems like he's running down the right side, centering on the last 2 steps, and still lands on the right side of the mat (sometimes outside PLZ). Like he knows it'll throw him to the right, and he compensates by aiming left on the last strides.

[divevault]

As a high school Junior, Scott had been jumping 17' for several months before he began to drift to the right. I video taped him from the front and side on dozens of jumps and compared them to many elites in order to figure out why this was happening.
The following are two issues with his jump, that as we worked on, the problem seemed to go away.

1. From a front view, I noticed that he began to cross his steps beginning from his third left out from take off. It seemed to coincide with the flip and raise of the top hand. As he neared the take-off, his center of mass appeared to be driving somewhat to the right as he left the ground. This also seemed to pull him to the right side of the runway as well.
We tried many fixes that appeared to help. From painting a white line down the center of the entire runway, to having him modify how he carried the pole. We also worked on adjusting the timing of his pole drop as well.
2. One of the more exciting catches was when a close-up of his hands revealed that he was gripping the pole with his left hand as he raised it. This meant that he was allowing his top hand to release which caused the pole to rotate in that hand. As a result, the wrong side of the pole was facing him at the plant. In many of these videos mentioned earlier, you may notice the abnormal swing of the pole to the left. The fix we came up with was to stick his top hand to the pole until he became used to planting it correctly once again.

At our facility we had an additional mat on each side of the pit. Yet for his safety while competing in meets, it became a priority to find the cause. Besides, crossing over the center of the bar makes the jump much more efficient.

I read some of the assessments earlier in this topic and think it is all great comment. But I thought I would pass along to others what we did that seemed to get results.

[KirkB]

As a high school Junior, Scott had been jumping 17' for several months before he began to drift to the right. ... the problem seemed to go away.

5.66 today! Problem solved!

Kirk

[Tim McMichael]

2. One of the more exciting catches was when a close-up of his hands revealed that he was gripping the pole with his left hand as he raised it. This meant that he was allowing his top hand to release which caused the pole to rotate in that hand. As a result, the wrong side of the pole was facing him at the plant. In many of these videos mentioned earlier, you may notice the abnormal swing of the pole to the left. The fix we came up with was to stick his top hand to the pole until he became used to planting it correctly once again.

Wow. Great catch. I wonder how often this is the cause of fading right. I was just watching a video Joe Dial has made of all his jumps in high school and one of the things he describes is exactly this. He once experimented with turning the soft side a little to the left with the result that he crashed into the right standard. Joe's video is awesome by the way. The jumps were recorded on an old super 8 camera, so the footage is a little grainy, but the jumps are great, and Joe's commentary is really the highlight. If anyone wants to track the development of one of the greatest high schoolers of all time, it is worth checking out.

Also, thanks for the insight. There is nothing like hearing it from the coach themselves. It makes my initial commentary on Roth even more embarrassing. I think I actually used the word "obvious."