Jumping Again

At the 17 day mark since my little left hammy ding I was able to easily clear 10' (3.05m) from 4 steps (23'/6.5m) without feeling anything. I would never use those three poles from 4 steps because they work well from 2 steps but I didn't want to push my run. I'll move it up a little and jump from 6 steps on Wednesday on small poles. After that my Sunday should feel normal again. I have a small meet three weeks from yesterday so I should be fine for my smaller 14' 1" (4.30m) poles.

We do a lot of short run jumps and progress to longer run jumps after three misses. At some point a vaulter feels like he/she is gripping too high, or the pole is too big or they have little room for error to get enough height to make a bar. I would rather get over that feeling from 2, 4 and 6 steps than back at a longer run where there is true danger. We call it "facing our demons". Because what we do wrong at a low level is what we do wrong from a high level. If you put yourself in that position right away, you have a lot of jumps in you to get past these sticking points and really make progress. Most vaulters get too tired and quit right about the time they face these issues so they take much longer to work through.

I was told that Alex Parnov (Russia/Australia) has his kids stay at 4 and 6 steps for 2-3 months at a time. Anything to strip away speed. As Bubka's coach Vitaly Petrov says, "all vaulters are strong and fast so I must take this away from them". Maybe that's why Steve Hooker jumped 18' 6 1/2" (5.65m) last year from 8 steps and then almost became the second man in history to jump 20'. More jumps, more fun, more learning FASTER!! Have a great day and thanks for being here. Bubba