More Stuff

When my topic is "Stuff" it usually means I have a few little topics without much really to say. First, I'm getting ready to post on www.polevaultpower.com that the National Senior Games Track & Field part will be June 17-24 at the University of Houston. They have three or four ways to vault but only one with a really good wind and it's on the track straight so no chance of that. It's highly possible that they can have three pits going, ALL with either head or crosswinds. Everyone has to jump in it but you may have some people pass it up since worlds are three weeks later. Well Sacramento is not a great place to jump either so Houston will be a good warm up.

Lifting continues to feel good. Today I added straight leg deadlifts as well as bench step ups to reinforce that back/hip issue that causes the nerve pain. Sakina will check my form on Ashley's exercises this morning and then I'm set.

I had mentioned before that this feels like getting ready for football training camp. Train, train, train but come in totally healthy to begin vaulting. I start jump four weeks from Thursday and 10 of those will be total rest because of the cruise. Of course I'll do some stretching and a few other exercises but I won't "train" while on the cruise. At this point I am starting to feel like I will really be ready.

The only adjustment I possibly see is that I may jump from two and four steps in August and not just two. Texas Senior Games are at the end of October and I at least need to be to eight steps by then. My PR from eight steps in 13' 1/4" (3.97m). I'm not in a hurry to jump high as much as I am to jump well and improve my technical efficiency by going up the pole better. That takes lots of jumps at heights just out of your reach so the rule will be to get hip height twice and then move up.

I noticed both yesterday and today that my abs and "core" have gotten so strong that I can get vertical with straight arms on P-Bars from a seated "L" position without using my arms to press forward. When you first learn this it feels like ALL arms and now I can just do it with my abs/core. Never had that before. Even on my rollbacks from the high P-Bars today I tried to completely abandon my arms and was still able to raise to vertical from a dead hang with no pre-swing. NICE!!

Yesterday my garage stereo died so I had to use my MP3 and headphones - HASSLE. Today I set up the little stereo that Nancy had in her office at school and connected both sets of speakers instead of the one I did have. PERFECT!!

Have a great day off and thanks for being here! Bubba