PoleVaultPower.com

OK, so while I was looking through some youtube videos i found a great turning drill involving a platform on wheels and a pole

You simulate the swing up and pull through by sitting on the cart and putting the pole end against the wall, as you pull through after swinging the cart moves and you start your turn. I tried this on the cart I use to bring the mats from our shed to the pit, and it worked great! except the cart was too heavy and the wheels locked up, preventing me from finishing the drill

Its similar to the second half of this drill except its with a real pole and the end is planted against a wall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IGDOIGwBfU

I'm working out ways of building a lighter cart, possibly using wood and wheels from shopping carts, anyone have any ideas?

I like the idea! maybe two skateboards with plyowood? That'd be cheap and easy, Anything you can lay down on really. Otherwise you are getting into the cost of wheels, bearings, axles, screws, etc.


Make sure that when you do this drill, you keep your hips from turning as long as possible. Turning too early will make you flag out and lose some of the energy you put into the pole.

Buy a mover's dolly at Home Depot or its ilk for about $20 and put a piece of plywood with a bit of padding on it and you're set to go. The 4 wheels rotate independently so you can move it in all directions. If you use just one, the vaulter has to balance on top of it and that might be of some value in staying aligned with the pole. You can do this drill without wheels on a school gym or terrazzo floor or other smooth, slippery surface if you dress the vaulter in some old polar fleece (sweats and jacket). I've thought of trying this drill at an angle -- a wheelchair ramp or on a wide stairway with a cheap piece of 4 x 8 smooth, shiny surface paneling so that the vaulter had to move some weight up along the pole and keep his or her body balanced in alignment with the pole. It's still a two-dimensional drill though -- it's missing the "flagging out" dimension.

i feet like the skateboard idea is a little too flimsy, and the floor is good temporarily atleast. I want to build a cart so that I can gradually add weight to it to simulate more stress from the pole

Gotta interject really quick...

A drill like this is something for one of those really 'off' days that don't fit into your normal training schedule... Not any real kind of focus should be put into a drill like this. If you want something more useful, try this on the rope.

Just thought I should point that out, especially to a beginner such as yourself yankee! Back to the construction discussion!

Just wear soft socks and sweats. You can do it with a real pole on a gym floor, no wheels needed.

Darth Vaulter wrote: ... You can do this drill without wheels on a school gym ... floor or other smooth, slippery surface if you dress the vaulter in some ... sweats ... I've thought of trying this drill at an angle -- a ... ramp ... so that the vaulter had to move some weight up along the pole and keep his or her body balanced in alignment with the pole. It's still a two-dimensional drill though -- it's missing the "flagging out" dimension.

You don't need the ramp. Just work on increasing the SPEED of the drill. Get the motion down pat, then do it faster and faster.

If you're not "square to the pole" and shooting straight "up" (actually shooting horizontally), then you will flag out ... so it's not really losing that dimension. And the quicker you do it, the more you will tend to flag out (do it imperfectly).

This drill should also be complimented by a similar motion on the rope and/or rings.

Kirk

Dont bother!! A waste of time with little if any transfer to the vault!

When will you guys realize that the top end of the vault is the least important part. The way to get vertical off the top of your pole is to do EVERYTHING else right. Get fast, get strong, plant high, swing hard. Trust me, watch Bubka's 6.11 vault, he isn't applying any force on top, he is just getting thrown over the bar by the momentum he has already generated. There is no "push off" and you sure as hell don't have to condition the movement patterns.

EIUvltr wrote:When will you guys realize that the top end of the vault is the least important part. The way to get vertical off the top of your pole is to do EVERYTHING else right. Get fast, get strong, plant high, swing hard. Trust me, watch Bubka's 6.11 vault, he isn't applying any force on top, he is just getting thrown over the bar by the momentum he has already generated. There is no "push off" and you sure as hell don't have to condition the movement patterns.

I agree with everything you said, except the last "condition the movement patterns" part.

IMHO, it's a waste of time to build special equipment for this drill. But on a rainy day (when you can't vault and are looking for "indoor drills" to do to play around), putting the pole up against the wall in the gym, and sliding across the floor in the manner described in this thread can be a fun and interesting thing to do. You can discover how you will EVENTUALLY fly straight up ... once you get your swing going "properly". Call it "playing around" if you like ... I agree that it's not a NECESSARY part of your training regimen.

More importantly tho, in my day, I DID visualize the top half of my vault quite a bit in college (not HS). and this visualization was not just mental ... it included sitting on the ground (while warming up, or waiting for your turn to vault, let's say) ... holding onto your pole, and then sliding it downwards (along the ground) in a manner similar to how you would FLY off the top of it.

It's a way to psyche yourself up that you're going to do everything in the run/plant/takeoff/swing that will make you fly off the top of the pole. Visualizing this without also visualizing the bottom half of your vault is futile. You can actually visualize this with or without the pole. The pole isn't that important ... but the body motions are. It's like how a gymnast, trampolinist, or diver goes thru the "mental motions" of how he's going to perform a certain trick or series of tricks.

But there is also one "small" technical tip here ... and it's more of an elite tip than an intermediate one ... it's definitely not a beginner's tip because it only applies to when you do in fact FLY off the top of the pole (with a pushoff measured in feet rather than mere inches) ...

It's important to DELAY your turn. If you turn too early, you flag out ... and you have LEAKAGE. Your extension is done once you turn, so you need to finish your extension before you start your turn. So EXTEND straight up, and then TURN at the last possible instant. This means that your turn needs to be very quick, so that you CAN do it at the ultimate last possible instant. You can train yourself to do this by conditioning your body to do it QUICKLY (leading with the lead leg toes ... crossing over the trail leg toes). This is the "condition the movement patterns" that I'm referring to ... and you can practice this not only in your visualization drills, but also on the rope or highbar. But again, it's nothing that you need to worry about until your pushoff begins to exceed 2 feet or so.

Kirk