Everything Track and Field Discussion Forums

My son is struggling on a 15' 180 pole. He runs through alot. Jumps a 14' 6" pole then grabs the big stick, run through, can't do it. I know this is not good. It gets worse. He may run through 5-6 times straight. Tried a sports sociologist. Got him to jump 3 times on the big stick in one evening at 15'6" bungee. Cleared it. He felt great. Next night, nothing. Hasn't been there since. Jumps 13' maybe. If he does jump, it's a 14'6" 170-175 4-5 stride, sometimes its there but most of the time no. Its like he lost his stomack to jump. He's never been hurt or spit out. He just has a mental block we can't get rid of. I know thier is no magic word but if you have a way to clear this up I'm all ears.

I landed in the box in high school and was out for three months due to injuries. Wouldn't jump other than a short run pop-up or training pole after. Wanted to vault from full run but would baulk. Did this for over a week, then went to a hypnotist. It worked, fearless after that and still don't baulk 30 years later.
Different story for my son. He vaulted over 14' as a sophomore, then started baulking and quit. He didn't want to see a hypnotist or work with me, and he is still not vaulting his senior year.
I would recommend full runs to a slide box to be comfortable with the approach. Also, there is a big jump between a 14-6/175 and 15/180. If you had a 14-6/180 or 15/175 to fill the gap, it would be an easier transition. Blowing in from a full run on a smaller pole makes it easy (and safe) to move up.

Hi, (disclaimer: I am not doctor of any kind.  My profession is a mechanic, I fix things with wrenches)  Vaulting is very mental and emotional.  It is unatural to be calm about hanging upside down and get thrown into the air.  But we love it??? go figure.  I have a few observations about the triggers preventing execution of the vault.  1; My dad loved baseball.  I didn't trust pitchers throwing the ball at me as hard as they could.  I didn't want to disappoint my dad.  What a relief when I asked not to have to play.  He became my vaulting coach.  Make sure this is not going on.  A vaulter must love the sport themself to power through the tough times.  If someone can walk away from polevaulting and feel relief not having to jump anymore, then let them move forward.  Life goes on.  2;  3Ds Desire, Devotion, and Determination (I learned these in 1970 from my 5th grade teacher Mr. Pier)  One must have the desire to jump. An athlete must be content with performance but never satisfied.  Once some predetermined performance level has been met the 3Ds no longer drives behaviour, game over.  Move forward.  3;  Focus replacement:  another term for competing priorities.  Not to be confused with distractions, an athlete needs to learn to focus on performance when it is time and the other things of life in their time.  So it becomes a management skill to follow a schedule and let others know they are still important in their time. 4;  Spatial Awareness:  I am amazed how accuratly a vaulter can judge distance from the box based on surroundings like the front buns of the landing system.  When a vaulter goes beyond a certain tolorance distance the issue starts "bugging" them during the approach.  I can see when one of my athletes turns the stop switch on at about the third stride from takeoff.  They don't really know why, they just abort.  I approach this issue by reinforcing a "no penalty" clause.  They can run through as much as they want.  Then they need to not penalize themself.  This mental reference difuses the negativeness of aborting the vault.  Now set the mind that "nothing" is preventing the vault.  Don't let "nothing" keep you from vaulting.  Go down a little in weight of length untill a vault happens, then they beat "nothing"  focus on the success, not the abort.  Remember the victories, forget the defeats.  There is more but I need to study for Sunday School.