16' PR any advice welcome

[trayoates]

Im a senior in high school this is a video of my PR this saturday at an USATF certified meet. let me know what you think, im aiming for 17'3" by the end of the season. all the specs should be in the description.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNJzDs3NIhY

you can search Tray Oates in youtube and look at some of my other jumps as well!

[rainbowgirl28]

Are the meet results posted anywhere? I'll throw them up on athletic.net.

[trayoates]

not yet, ill get my coach to get in touch with the official. it was run by Charlie Polthunamus (spelled his last name wrong) if you know who he is.

[rainbowgirl28]

Yeah have them email them to me and/or post them here to PV Power.

[altius]

Brief and in haste. If you want to jump 17'3 you need to move to - at least! - a 16 step run up and 16' poles. You also need to reconsider your whole planting action;take look at Bubby's movement and timing. Also looks like a flat take off with the pole loaded early - probably the result of the way you use the left arm in the plant.

What is your body weight - need to know that re the pole you are using. Your problem is that with a flat take off and early loading you get early big bend -may be told to move to stiffer poles but that will bring further problems. You must improve your run length, plant and take off. Good luck.

[charlie]

As i have given you some advice before, Your plant and vault are fine. You are doing what i call a bent arm hold space BLOCK, almost a clutch. If you would have a EARLY bent arm PRESS SUPPORT UP and to the LEFT, you could get back much earier and catch a huge blow up off the pole and acctually clear 17' on the pole your on!!!

[altius]

You are doing what i call a bent arm hold space BLOCK, almost a clutch.

Will someone please translate this for me - I have no idea what charlie is talking about - not sure he does either.

[charlie]

Just because you don't know doesn't mean i don't!!!!!!

[DLM]

What I see in your jump is that you are under for my taste, which causes your take off to be up and through or even a little below your lower hand. I am an advacate of a free take off. If you moved your take off point so that you where able to jump through your upper and lower hand, the (window as we call it) I believe your angle of the pole will be greater, your swing speed will be better and there will be less stress on you. Just a thought. other then some fine tuning you look like you jump will. Good luck.

[altius]

Well Charlie I hoped it wouldn’t have to come to this because you are clearly an enthusiast and make an important contribution to pole vaulting in your area.

But it has become ever clearer to me that you are a ‘one eyed man in the kingdom of the blind’. The major problem for me is that you have claimed to be an advocate of the Petrov model and yet the only two video clips I have seen of athletes you claim to have coached shows that the pole has a considerable bend BEFORE the athlete leaves the ground. Now while there are a number of specific elements of the Petrov model, the absolute key is that the pole is not bent before take off! In an ideal free take off the pole should be unloaded at the instant the athlete leaves the ground. It is pretty easy to see on film if this is happening.

In Troy’s case – and remember he asked for comments on the film he posted – this is clearly not the case. As I indicated in my original post –and as anyone can see – he has a massive early bend ; what in the past I have termed a compression bend. The problem is that he is athletic enough to exploit that bend ON THAT POLE but as he moves to stiffer poles he will actually feel the pole increasingly fighting him and preventing him from rolling it forwards - so although he may go high above the bar – he will have little or no penetration and come down onto it and not clear it. In a worse case scenario the pole will kick him backwards into the box or onto the track. Unless he changes his emphasis at take off this is inevitable. This is all explained in BTB2 with easy to understand diagrams – I specifically included it because I have watched a lot of vaulters in the USA over the last fourteen years and it is a common problem – one that has the potential to lead to injury or even death.

While it is not clear from the film Troy submitted on PVP I did take a look at his jump earlier in the year which is also on Utube. While he has obviously progressed from then it is very clear that he has a major problem with his plant – and again does not follow the Petrov model - In which the tip of the pole is not lowered into the box by allowing the left hand to drop – almost below the hips in Troy’s case.

In the Petrov model the left hand is ideally kept around chest height and acts as a fulcrum around which the pole rotates as the right hand moves up so the tip moves down into the box without the left hand being lowered. In this way the pole does not have to move a long distance up into the plant - as Troy’s pole obviously must from that initial low position his left hand is in one step out.

Now it is easy to talk the talk- about the Petrov model – or anything else for that matter, but it is worth noting that I have also walked the walk –to coin a phrase.
So between 1986 and 2000 – when I stopped coaching boys – the lads I coached included the following athletes;
Patrick Jesser 18 17’8”, Matt Filsell* 17 17’4, Adam Steinhardt 18 17’3 **Steve Wilson 18 17’2, Aaron Grey 18 16’9, Greg Halliday 18 16’9, Chris Lovell 18 16’5, Tom Lovell 18 16’5, Sam Christie 18 16’3, David Cardone 18 16’1, Adrian Barei
 18 16’1.

Just to clarify the fact that these were not performances pulled out of this air – five of the first six competed at the World Junior Championships where the qualifying height for entry was 16’5, Aaron Grey jumped the new qualifying height of 16’9 – but after the closing date for entries, while the twins jumped the old qualifying height in 2000 but could not make 16'9 – if either had done so they would have gone to Santiago in place of Steve Hooker!

Now this was not a case of them turning up to a two day clinic and me waving my magic wand over them. With everyone except Steve Wilson - who came from the USA as a 15’1” jumper - I taught these boys as beginners. So this should confirm that I do have some idea of what it takes to help someone become a 17’ vaulter – and from scratch. Film of Patrick Jesser and the Lovell twins – who all jumped 16’5 or better in 2000 - is available on the BTB dvd and again you will see my athletes showing some elements of the Petrov Model – including an unloaded pole at take off.

Charlie – because I do respect your contribution - I hope this post is seen as educational rather than confrontational. I have been fortunate to spend time with Petrov and two other great Russian coaches Parnov and Botcharnikov –as well as the legendary Anje Krysinski of Poland – and their athletes - and have learned an immense amount from them. Indeed I had a long conversation with Dimitri Markov on Sunday morning hoping to convince him to take on a coaching role in Adelaide. Some readers may remember that Dimitri won the 2001 World title in Edmonton with a championship best of 6.05m – the highest jump ever in a major competition. Just watching him jump in training was an education in itself.

[grandevaulter]

I'd be glad to try and translate Southern American English into the Kings English pole vault language. By the way, why is a dog barking at a USATF sanctioned event?

[VaultMarq26]

As i have given you some advice before, Your plant and vault are fine. You are doing what i call a bent arm hold space BLOCK, almost a clutch. If you would have a EARLY bent arm PRESS SUPPORT UP and to the LEFT, you could get back much earier and catch a huge blow up off the pole and acctually clear 17' on the pole your on!!!

This makes absolutely no sense. It is just a jumble of multiple run-on sentences. You seem to have a lot of excitement for the vault. Can you explain this better?