NEED TO PR!!!-High School Vaulter

[EdillPV]

Hello,
My name is Eric Dill, I am a senior in high school in California. I started vaulting my sophomore year. I am 5' 10" tall and weigh 163 lbs. I am currently on a 15' 165 lb. pole in which I used to make my PR this year of 14'. I started vaulting on the next pole up, a 15' 170 lber, though I haven't really gotten up on it yet. Here is a video of me going 14'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS2OKDte ... annel_page

Please help! This is only my 3rd year vaulting and my form needs a lot of work. Let me know what you think I should do.

-Eric

[EdillPV]

sorry I forgot to mention...I'm the 2nd vaulter in the video...

[KirkB]

Eric, the quality of the vid is very poor but I'll do my best ...

I'm using the Firefox DownloadHelper http://www.downloadhelper.net/ (which allows you to stop-frame youtube vids), so if you want to follow along frame by frame, you'll have to do the same.

Let's call Frame #1 the one where you've planted the pole above your head.

#2 is after you've left the ground and the pole starts to bend. It looks like you got sucked under a bit, but your body position on this frame isn't too bad ... yet.

#3 looks like your swing was decent (not perfect tho), but it's hard to tell, due to poor vid quality.

#4 is clearly visible, with most of you being against the blue sky background. Your body posture is quite poor here - you should be more straight up-and-down. (So #3 probably wasn't that great ... but it's hard to tell.) That's a result of being under, and not swinging. You're probably just hanging on the pole and letting it do all the work. You need to work the pole ... not let the pole work you!

#5 you're starting to pull in the trail leg. This shouldn't be necessary yet, if your takeoff was out more, and your swing was more active. Pulling in the trail leg here is a natural reaction to "save" the vault.

Everything I tell you after this is minor compared to what you need to fix in Frames 1-5.

#6 you're just before what DJ and I call the "flat back" position.

#7 you're just after the "flat back". It's actually quite athletic of you to start extending here, rather than just riding the pole!

#8-14 you extend and turn not too badly. I could tell you a thing or 2 about this phase, but it REALLY doesn't matter. I would like to see you put so much power into your plant, jump, and swing that by the time you get to #8-10, you're going to be FLYING off the pole.

If you watch vids of Bubka, you'll know what I mean. He's moving so fast by then that how he turns and clears the bar REALLY doesn't matter ... he has so much clearance height ... he's quite sloppy over a lot of bars. So don't worry about your extension. It's already not bad, and it isn't where you need to focus your technique and training efforts.

Also notice that I haven't commented on your run and plant. I usually don't do that, just because I'm no expert in those areas, and I don't have time to tell you EVERYTHING you need to improve. But you should fix your run and plant before you can expect to fix your takeoff and swing. If no one else advises you about your plant, I will, but for sure you won't get any advice from me in improving your run. Other PVP contributors know far more than I do in that part of your vault!

Next time you vid, you shoud try to get the videographer to get a better camera angle ... a little more to the right. Also, it's awfully hard to distinguish your lead knee drive against the backdrop of the people standing behind you. If the cam angle was even more to the right, then the takeoff (the most important part where you need contrast) might be better against the cars in the background (rather than the people).

You can't do much about how sunny it is, but maybe if you wore lighter clothing, you'd show up better on vid.

Eric, you have the POSSIBILITY of another foot or 2 of improvement ahead of you THIS YEAR if you work hard on fixing up your run/plant/takeoff/swing. You show a lot of raw talent. You just need to improve your technique!

Kirk

[sivaulter]

EDillPV has a lot of potential. He ran a 4.7 40m this year. Anyways I'm his teammate and here is some updated video in much better quality. He is the vaulter with the short hair. We know that his plant/takeoff was pretty late and bad that day, which the rest of his vault suffer. We're going to be working on some plant and swing drills. Any other advice with this better video would be really appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Kmo33UPyM

[sivaulter]

oh yeah, I forgot to add. The second vaulter is about 5'9" and 145 lb. He is on a 15' 170 Spirit. He's the one with the black hair.
What we know about him now is that he runs a little low (but he's still really fast), and needs work on his swing as well. Again, any advice would be really appreciated.

[ivaultgood]

Hey my name is Matt, and I'm the other vaulter in the video. I could use any advice. Thanks.

[altius]

Suggest you guys all come to the vault clinic Sean Brown is organising in Marin county in the first week of June!!