Best Short Run Practice... Ever?!

Tonight I jumped with Ryan and Kevin (Ryan's younger brother and a senior on the KU team). Kevin only did some straight pole stuff since he's starting college practice with the rest of the team next week and they're on a slightly different schedule than Ryan and I will be on. So Ryan and I were figuring some things out tonight and every time I landed, I wanted to go back and do it again. I haven't been this excited to pole vault in a while and the last week for me has been exceptionally exciting. Perhaps it's the World Championships and seeing that a 22 year old won with 5.90m/19' 4.25"... Maybe it's because I'm back on course with figuring things out about my own technique and forgetting about Kentucky finally. But I've come to a conclusion that it's a little bit of both. Ok, a LOT of both. I watched the whole meet in Daegu and then watched some other videos of the guys that were there that I really liked. I love Lazaro Borges vault. From his take-off to his push-off, I love it. So I've been analyzing some videos and comparing them to mine, particularly my jumps at Texas Relays in 2010 when I set my PR. My attempt at 5.91m/19' 4.5" was quite close. For only having one attempt at it and already jumping a double PR that day, it was amazing at the thought of me being so close to getting over that bar. It's been eating away at me for the last year about what I was doing then differently than now. I'm faster and stronger but just not getting the vaults I know I can put up there. Coach has been trying to teach me about the "chord" of the pole and how it relates to the vault. I drew a picture below to illustrate what I'm talking about. The chord is the invisible line you can draw between both ends of the pole during the vault. It's the green dashed line in this illustration:

As you can see, the chord is always a straight line and it moves to vertical. The key is staying behind the chord until... well I don't know exactly when because I'm not a coach and I'm afraid I'll say something wrong if someone's trying to learn something from this. I do have to say that I don't advise anyone to take my advice to heart or try to mimic things I put on this site. I'm simply trying to keep you up to date on my progress and hopefully give you a better understanding of the vault and everything that goes into it. Although I would love to be able to help people with this, but that's simply not smart nor safe to attempt over the internet. I feel like I don't need to explain that further SO, moving on... I have always, and I mean always have let my hips swing through the take off and get "sucked under." Even the times where I "feel" like I've successfully driven my chest through the take-off, the hips always go with it. Watch any of my videos and you'll see that. Today was the day I was going to change that. I went to practice with one goal, and that was to get a powerful take-off by driving my chest, while keeping my hips from being sucked under (staying behind the chord). And guess what... I did just that. EVERY. SINGLE. JUMP. I was thrilled and pissed at the same time! Are you telling me that I've had such a bad habit for the last 8+ years and can change it with just one practice?! Shut the front door. Now obviously I know it can't be fixed over night and there will come a time, most likely many times, where I revert back to my old ways. But this was a breakthrough - a HUGE one if you ask me. I have five of my vaults from practice below. They are the only ones that were recorded so I'm showing you everything that I got. And just for ease and to emphasize the fact, I put these pictures together for you. The picture on the left is a freeze frame of a vault from Friday night's practice. It's exactly 2 frames after my foot leaves the ground from take-off. I froze the other picture at the exact same frame and combined them to show the difference. If you don't know, it's a complete night and day difference in the vault world.

And here's the video from practice. It's going to look like I was on a very small pole, which I was... but it was still the 16' 17.0 pole that I got on for the first time from that short run a couple weeks ago! With this new breakthrough, I could be blowing through sticks left and right! I'm very excited for this weekend in Colorado. I can't wait to add speed to the equation and see if I can get some better results! I'll have to tell you more about the upcoming trip soon, but this'll do for now. Oh, and don't forget to look for the chord! Try to pause the video and see the difference between Friday's practice and today's!