Vaulting in the Big Leagues

I hate to keep all this injury crap going, but I’m kinda injured right now also.  I was just doing some stuff in the weight room and popped my shoulder out of it’s socket somehow.  Got it back in, but still hurts though it’s kinda fading, after a week.  Hopefully just a minor injury.  Anyway, Lane, my world class pole vault coach, is now in charge of the whole track team’s workouts, which is pretty sweet.  I’m actually learning and doing running drills that should help my running mechanics a lot.  Trying to turn over a new leaf in track this year, as I wasn’t too great last year.  I think I’m already close to how many practices I went to last year.  I’ll try to post more often.

All season I’ve been struggling with consistency. During meets, getting all adrenalined up, my steps have been crazy, and I have been that guy that goes high and comes down on the bar. As a result, I moved from clearing 13’6 from 4 lefts to clearing 13’0 from five lefts. During practice this week I finally moved back to six lefts, and hopefully have finally got into a groove. I have conference this weekend, so hopefully I will do better there. My conference is kinda unique in that we are spread all over the country and never get to see each other in dual meets. We got Brandeis in Massachusetts, NYU in New York, Emory in Georgia, UChicago in Illinois, Carnegie Mellon and Case Western from who knows where, and us in Missouri. This makes for a pretty cool experience as we are getting flown down for conference and staying in hotels for two nights. From what I’ve heard, the school is throwing down $25,000 for this one trip. Anyway, I would say that this season has been a bit of a transition season.

So this past Wednesday I sprained my ankle.  It seemed just as bad as any other sprain I’ve had, but I started icing it hardcore with this new icing machine my school has.  I iced it about 3 times a day for about 20 minutes each time.  I also tried to walk on it without a limp almost right away.  Amazingly, I had a meet this Saturday and somehow vaulted on it.  I taped up the ankle really well, and had to adjust my steps from 53′ to a little over 47′.  The weirdest thing was that I was able to get on the same pole I got on last week (13’6 165) with a higher grip and the same amount of penetration, making the same height (13’6).  Very weird.  On a side note, I saw a result that my former teammate Eric depalo jumped 5.00 meters (16′ 4.75″?) which is amazing.

So, I havent written in quite some time. As a couple of coaches found out, I missed quite a few practices last semester. In fact, although we had two or three pole vault practices a week, I only made 7 total. A lot of it was that I wasn’t getting stuff done on time and was really scrambling to get stuff done and fit in some sleeping time, especially towards the end of the semester where I had 2 twelve page final papers that I should have started much earlier. Anyway, I think I’ve got myself together this term, and so far I have not missed a single practice. It seems like it paid off tonight at our first meet. I actually just got back from the meet, because the place was 3 hours away. Anyway, I jumped 13’5.25″ or maybe .75 from 4 lefts holding at 12’10″ on a 13’6 160. I had some really great attempts at 14′ on one of our mystery poles, but landed a little shallow, though I had good hip height over it. Someone’s got video of it, so I’ll try to post the jumps online. Anyway, I think something I neglected to mention technique-wise was the runup. My runup is completely different, but it was so easy to change that I didn’t even really think about it. I always knew that the run was supposed to get faster and steps shorter, but I was never forced to really adjust. However, when Lane made me change by telling me to jump my four left from 53’0 as opposed to the 46′ I used to run from. Though it was a lot of effort to get some huge steps, it now feels really natural.

Ok, so due to my school schedule I haven’t really been able to go to many pole vault practices. Today was my 6th practice (I looked it up in my journal). Still, I feel like I’ve gotten a good amount better. I vaulted from a three left for pretty much my first time this season (I tried a three left one time at the end of a practice about two months ago). My PR stats for my 3 left today:

Step: 38’6, Grip: 12’1 on a 13′ 155, PR: 12’6

My last two jumps I moved to a 13’160 gripping 12’5, and just started getting in well. I think once I’m comfortable on that pole I will be able to make 13’0 and maybe 13’6.

I’ve found that I vault best on a pole where my grip is a little higher than I used to use and the pole feels a little bit softer. That way I can keep my hands moving against the pressure of the pole through my whole vault. I think this is why I can push off higher than before. That, and now that my shoulders are more open I can get a bigger pre-stretch and swing faster. Don’t know when we have meets, but I’ll post it up when I find out.

title says it all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe_3_HiBMtU&NR=1

Alright guys, I guess I didn’t introduce myself in my first post. I did it in my profile so here’s what I wrote:

“I’m Forrest the coolest mentor at PatriotPV. I’m going to Washington University in St Louis. I’m majoring in biology with maybe a double in something called Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology. It’s cool. All I do is vault. And maybe play some frisbee with my floor once in awhile. I expect this year to be very informative.”

For pole vault, Coach Lane started me out on 1 Left, and I moved back to 2 and now finally 3 lefts. Here’s the stats for that:

1 Left- runway mark: 13’6″; pole: 11’130; grip: 10? ish

2 Lefts- runway mark: 26’6″; pole: 13’145; grip: 11’11″ PR with bar: 11′

3 Lefts- runway mark: 38’3″; pole: 13’160; grip: 12’2″

Ok. So now I’m gonna try to explain one of the key things I’ve learned since I started vaulting, and that’s how to drive the chest. I’m kinda tentative to tell you without being there to show you because it is a weird thing. The way I was planting before, with the arm up right next to the ear, does not actually allow the shoulder joint to be loose enough to drive the chest. Try pushing your arm back from that plant position, it moves a little but then stops. Now, instead pretend to plant so that your arm is at a 30 degree angle with the side of your head. Now the shoulder opens up and the arm can be pushed back. This allows the chest to drive. Ok, but you can’t plant off to the side right? This part is tricky. While keeping the arm in this relative position, you need to move it to a higher position instead of to the side. To do this, basically you stretch the right side of the abs and lats, and really reach up (but do not move your arm from the shoulder joint). Left hand does not do too much at the plant, I dont think.  This should be similar to if you hang from a rope by your top hand, COMPLETELY relaxing everything except your hand.  Your hand needs to grab the rope so dont relax it.  Then just put your left hand on where it would normally be, but it should be relaxed.  If you are only hanging by your top hand, you should be in a similar position to what I just described.  You should notice that the right shoulder is much higher than the left shoulder. In the same way, at the plant you should feel all of the pressure through your top hand. If you hit takeoff right, you will naturally drive the chest. Right now, I’m working on trying to get on top of a pole while it is still bent, and trying to extend from there. I’ll be back at thanksgiving to show you if you don’t get it.

I’ve been doing track workouts since September 10th.  Been keeping a journal of what I’ve been doing on my laptop; it’s very useful.  We started training over 100 days before meets start, which makes workouts a bit easier than I expected.  So far, Mondays are usually 200′s at around 36.5 seconds each with 2 minutes 23.5 seconds recovery (each cycle is 3 minutes total).  We started off running 8 and we’re at 11 now.  Tuesday is hills, each one is about 150 meters (about), and maybe 15% incline.  Wednesday 20 minute run.  Thursday I’m not quite sure, I have lab that day.  Friday is 100′s in about 13.5 seconds with each cycle being 1 minute (abou 46.5 seconds rest).  We have worked from 8 to 11 reps now.  I had my first vault session this Friday instead of the 100s.  My coach is Lane Lohr, who vaulted 18’8 before and is apparently good.  I have learned some new ways to think about the vault, but I want to make sure I’m right before I relay the knowledge.  So its coming.  Class is not bad, I took a hard schedule in high school, so it seems pretty much the same.  I only have 5 classes (1 is a lab), so there’s a lot of spare time I need to manage.  Had my first chemistry test, which I hear is a weed out class for pre-med people.  Average was 64 and I got 82.  It was cool, studied pretty hard for it.  Thats it I have more tests coming up.