Anyone Coach Vault?

I've got nothing to offer you except mad respect. I had a kid go 15'3 last year, and had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with it. One of our former 14' kids has been kind enough to enthusiastically coach him the past few years.

Prior to him, the head coach before me had several 14' vaulters. He's just that typical old school renaissance man coach who could coach every event decently, but none of them great. Pole Vault was always done after "normal practice" ended at 5. then over to pole vault until 6. it really is more time intensive than anything else by quite a bit. Maybe with the exception of throws, which tends to function kind of as it's own sport.

I've been around 15 years of 14 foot vaulters and still haven't learned anything outside the logic of moving standards and checking marks.

BIG KUDOS. hope somebody can come in and riff on some cool stuff with you.

Another common CoachB W

Thanks guys! I think this was a compliment. I'll take it as such. Ironically, our 14' kid's initials are BW and the kids all call him B-Dub!

Update

I'm super fortunate to live in the same town as the current national pole vault coach of the year. We've been communicating pretty regularly. My guy is stuck at 14'0. He won a decently competitive inviatational last week. but he was really not penetrating the pit. In my intermediate coach's eyes, my guy was going into his swing way too soon, but we've been trying to fix that for a while. I sent the other coach some video of his best miss at 14'3 from last week and she pointed out something that I've never noticed in any vaulter before (because I just didn't know to look!). Anyway, we've got our marching orders and we know what to work on now. so things should be moving in the right direction.

Other guys are at 13'6 and 12'3. We've got 4 more beginners that should be getting to 10' pretty soon. Heading out the door to practice RN. Spring break is great for fixing stuff. My top girl is still at 9'6 but has made major changes to her jumps and should be reaping the rewards before the end of the season.

The funny thing about this event is that you can fix something and it actually results in missing bars in meets because now you're planting better and blowing through bars on the way up or you're able to get on bigger poles and the timing of your vault is all thrown off on the top end.

Second guy over 14! top guy to 14’9. Attempted a school record of 15’2.5 but just wasn’t penetrating the pit enough. Once the plant becomes more consistent. He should be able to get over 15

coincidentally, the top jump in our section is currently 15’2.25 set by a kid who jumps for the aforementioned extremely good local coach. When we set the bar to 15’2.5 it was to beat our school record, rather than to take the section lead by a quarter inch. I honestly didn’t know he was that close.

having a blast with this.

What did the other coach point out? (I coached vault for about 8 years and had similar heights to your earlier athletes.) I once had an athlete make a breakthrough during a championship meet, and he proceeded to blow through every pole we had access to. :(

ya, you've gotta make friends with everybody and trade poles.

does he have the standards all the way in, or is he too inconsistent with his depth to make that kind of move?

it's so difficult to get everything just right, moving that fast with a giant stick.

your guy run any other events? so difficult finding time to work on other stuff for a vaulter, and it really does beat up on the body. My 15'3 guy loved the team aspect of it so much though, he found time for 4x1, 4x4 and 110 hurdles.

I spent some time learning the pole vault.
I bought a bunch of videos, and even went to camp twice but never had any vaulters other than a decathlon athlete.

I did have a 13'6'' two 12'6 and others when I first started coaching and didn't know anything under a 5K

It is important to have a coach specifically for pole vaulters for supervision alone.

I remember learning jumping with a high arm lift. Usually moving the standards back towards the mats.

You need a good stockpile of poles.

Not only for kids of different weights but height as well. A 150 pound kid jumping 10 feet or 15 feet will need two different poles. Traveling with poles is always exciting as well.

$500 - $1000 or more per pole.

Lots of things going on with his progression. As mentioned, pole selection is a major factor. At the beginning of the season, I borrowed poles from three different local programs (Gotta remember to give those things back at the end of the season). He had been blowing through what we had but the bigger poles allowed the first 14 foot jump. We've since bought 3 more poles

Plant consistency is definitely the main issue. He is our top hudler and runs on our 4x1 as well. He's been dealing with a calf issue on and off all season which has limited the amount of take offs he can do in practice (calf issue is on plant leg). So pit penetration has been inconsistent. His no height a couple of weeks ago was actually due to some GREAT planting, but then his plant regressed but he still cleared 14 and almost 14'3 2 weeks ago.

Yesterday, I wasn't even on the infield (it was our inviational and I was helping run the meet). Another local coach suggested that he move up poles, so he grabbed one of our new poles out of the shed, taped it up and went for it. That is what led to his clearance at 14'6 and 14'9. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have had him do that if I'd been down there, but it worked out. When he went to the bigger pole, he ended up bringing his standards all the way up to the legal limit of 45cm. I usually won't let them bring em any closer than 60 or maybe 55

His clearance at 14'9 was on the 3rd attempt and I actually was able to come over to the runway. After his first two jumps were way over, but came down on the bar, I had him move down a half a grip and that allowed enough penetration to clear the bar. At 15'2.5" his plants were pretty inconsistent, but jump #3 was REALLY good and he totally blew through the bar, so I know he can hit good takeoffs.

He's holding with his index finger right at 14', so considering the box is 9 inches deep, he's pushing 1.5 feet over his top hand right now, so his up top mechanics are really good for a high school kid.

RANDOM COACH

The issue that I wouldn't have noticed is that at take off, his top hand is actually sinking. Coach Hernandez pointed this out to me when I sent her video of his miss at 14'3 from 2 weeks ago. She actually made a photo series of the jump and you could see his hand sink in relation to the roofline of a building in the background. This is due to him just not jumping the pole off the ground. His step has been on and he has his hands up nice and early, but he was kind of letting the pole do all the work. In my mind, I couldn't figure out why he was getting ripped onto his back so early in the jump and not penetrating. So big thanks to Coach Hernandez for helping us out. Coincidentally, it's her son who is the top jumper in our section currently. It would be super cool if her kid and my guy went 1-2 at our section meet. I won't specify what order I'd prefer ;-)

He was still getting ripped onto his back yesterday, but just on a bigger pole, so I guess things are moving in the right direction. Especially since his final vault was such a good miss.

top notch coaching and tremendous sportsmanship. Really cool

Pretty good day yesterday after a bad week last week.

15'6" to take second (on misses) at our section championship meet. This qualifies him for state with a jump that is tied with 8 other guys for the #3 qualifying mark in CA.

Last week, he needed a little luck just to advance past our section's divisional round. Plus, my 14' sophomore no heighted and my girl got eliminated (although she still jumped within 3 inches of her PR.

He has been improving his take off tremendously over the last few weeks, but big takeoff improvements means the timing for the rest of the vault changes. Both this week and last week, he had a lot of clearances on his third attempt just because sometimes he was getting a great plant and blowing through the crossbar and other times his plant was not great and he would come down on the crossbar.

We will continue to clean up his plant and takeoff this week and hopefully find the consistency we need to keep be able to set the standards with confidence next week. I have a photo of his clearance at 15'3 and he is at least a foot over the bar, so I think with consistency at take off, he'll be able to clear higher bars this week. Top seed is 16'6 and #2 is 16'0.5". So, fingers crossed.

Fun fact, this is actually what happend. They both PR'ed to clear 15'6, but the other guy had less misses.

15-6 is awesome, with more potential! great job

Always feels like a good vault program is worth like 20 pts at our districts. Only like 1/3rd of the teams even try.

Yeah, pretty much. With our boys, we got 27 at our league meet and 15 at our section meet.

Is "exciting" the new shorthand for "pain in the ass"? Mad respect for vaulters, who are usually the best athletes on the team, but the poles are just such a pain.

I coached vault, mostly for combined-eventers, for years. Great event, with many ways that the athletes can improve (which is fun for them and for the coach), but dealing with the poles--we only travel by van, no buses--was so annoying. I didn't mind handing over the job to others.

This year our (college) head coach has recruited a decent vaulter, so it looks like I may be back to coaching the event again. We'll have to get the guy at least three poles, so from our very limited budget we'll be dropping a quick couple thousand bucks right there.

But just doing those things is huge! We only have a couple of coaches to cover 20 events, so all of our athletes have to take responsibility for checking each other's steps/takeoff mark and for checking the standards' placement (before every jump, even if they're the only vaulter remaining in the competition).

Give yourself a little more credit! It seems like you're not screwing the vaulters up, and in PV that by itself is huge.

One tidbit that I almost never see anyone do......have a kid move down a handgrip. I see so many kids who are "over poled". At our Masters meet last weekend, everyone was on a 15' - or 15'6" pole but there were really only two kids who could get upside down and push over their hand grip. Guess who got the top two places....

Moving down a grip gives kids a little more pole speed and swing speed, helps them get upside down and consreve momentum through their entire vault.