Well I can't complain about much out here in Chula Vista. It's basically 70-85 degrees every day and a nice tail breeze every day which makes for stress-free vault sessions. That's why I decided to extend my stay to a full 90-days as opposed to the previous plan of just 5 weeks. I've been hearing nightmares about Midwest weather this summer so far, and I have to say I'm glad to be avoiding it.
Training here has been great. Competing, not so much. I'm really getting a hang of the changes that we've been making now, and I've just recently been able to apply these changes to my jump in a way that feels really natural and makes it feel really possible to jump really high. We've adjusted a lot of things in the run and takeoff that have made things feel a lot more fluid and easy, but made for much bigger energy systems within the jump.
Tomorrow we have a meet here at the center, which should be good. My good buddy Yoo Kim is coming down here from LA to jump, and is bringing some of his crew, and my long-time buddy Nick Frawley is making the trip in from Phoenix. All-in-all it's gonna be a good meet with lots of high jumps, and if you're in the area you should come out to the center around 4 or so to watch it go down.
Anyway, since it's been so long I'll leave with a video. This is from a recent practice and is a jump from 6 Lefts at a 5.40m bungee on a 4.90m 14.0.
Also, speaking of Nick Frawley and Yoo Kim, check out the pole coming through under the bar and just about ruining my day. Always use a capper, y'all!
Check it out. Training here at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista has been awesome so far. I'm training really hard and learning a ton. So far I have put in two really solid weeks, had five jump sessions, and made some strides forward.
Coach Ty Sevin has been awesome, and has taught me a TON in the jump sessions and run mechanics sessions that we've had. Within the jump we have just been trying to find more pressure to put into the pole to create more energy in the system, and theoretically jump much much higher on the same poles that I'm on.
Besides that my weight room numbers have also been awesome - a really easy triple at 80kg in the snatch, and a quad at 110kg in the clean. We've been working with a Tendo Unit a lot, looking at bar speeds and power outputs in various lifts. It's been really helpful.
Lastly I have to give a shout out to Agility Guard for fitting me (and several athletes from the OTC) for a custom mouthguard for athletic use. Just in the tests that we have done already I saw huge benefits in core stabilization and balance with the guard in. I'm really excited to get my custom fitted piece (right now we just have a temporary mold) and put it to work. Thanks a ton!
So my first meet is a week from Thursday at the Training Center. Hope for the best, and stay tuned.
So the meet in Minnesota was a success, even though I didn't jump high at all. I made three low bars (5.05m, 5.20m and 5.30m) easily, and had a bunch of fun jumping. If I wasn't an idiot I would have also made 5.40m, but I'm workin on that last part.
I really think I figured out the cues for me to start makin' big bars again. I've really been thinking about putting energy into the system during the jump straight down the middle. It's been pretty awesome for my timing and for lining up the blow. Speaking of the blow, the second cue I've been using is squaring up around the bar, which has FINALLY given me the hip and chest blow that I've been looking for to clear some decent bars.
My 5.30m jump is below. Super ugly jump but there's a reason! I was taking off way under (12'3''ish) all night, and this was my first jump where I took off outside 13', which is much better, but also feels much different. It actually felt so weird that I was totally going to bail in the middle of the jump, but Pauli's words from the car ride up echoed in my head "you are not bailing today, no matter what", so at the last minute I just chucked myself up at the bar and made it anyway somehow. The celebration was more me bein surprised by myself than being satisfied with the jump, ha!
Anyway, the point of this whole thing is that once I trust the 13'+ takeoffs enough to really slam the hands high down the middle and finish hard and square, I think I'll find myself wrapping around a 12.5 and waking up pretty high in the air. Thats the plan, y'all!
So tomorrow I'm headed to San Diego, which I'm pretty stoked on. I have a meet on Saturday at SDSU (which is a great place to jump if it lines up), and then I'll begin my training at the OTC the following week. I just got word this week that I've been cleared to live at the Center while I'm there, which is awesome, because I won't have to do the 30+ minute commute from my Mom's house every day.
The title of this blog post could refer to how long it's been since I've posted OR how long it's been since I jumped decently in a meet! Don't get me wrong, I feel better than I ever have before. I'm stronger, faster, healthier and a better pole vaulter than I have ever been before. I am just not competing. A few weeks ago I made 5.36m at Indiana on a big blowthrough on a 5m 13.3, and took shots at 5.51m on a 12.9 (first time I'd planted that). It was a decent day but nothing great, and qualified me for US indoors. I decided to scoot back to 18 steps from 16, and while I was bringing a lot more speed into the jump and hitting good positions, I was on the 12.9 in warmups and just couldn't quite time things up to make the opening bar of 5.20m. It was a frustrating meet, but I'm excited for the future. I really don't feel like I've really hit any great takeoffs from long approach yet this year like I have from 6, 8 and 12 steps, and I'm excited for what happens when I finally do.
So speaking of the future, I guess I should tell you what's in store for mine. This weekend I'm going to jump at a meet at Notre Dame from 6 Lefts. The whole goal is to come in really really low and make a bunch of bars. Now I'd like to see myself taking jumps on my 5m 13.7 from there, but really I just want to make lots of bars on any pole. The week after that I'm gonna head to a meet at Fuzion Athletics in Minneapolis where I will compete from full approach and hope to really hit one. I'll be in Iowa some of the week leading up to that, and then some of the week after, and then I'll be headed to San Diego, and specifically Chula Vista, to train with Coach Ty Sevin for 6 weeks. I'm super excited for the opportunity to work at the Olympic Training Center for a while, and stoked to get a fresh set of eyes on my jump and make some strides. Coach Sevin and I talked this weekend about the plan while I'm there, and he wants to get me into every meet I can find, and just try to get me over 5.60m. So far the plan is to hit a SDSU meet as soon as I get there, and then a meet at Arizona State the second weekend of April, Mt SAC on April 16th, and possibly a meet at Stanford the week after that, along with any other meets that happen to be at SDSU, the Training Center, or UCSD. Super psyched.
So I'll leave you with a video from yesterday I suppose. Coach Sevin talked with me in Albuquerque this weekend about how I'm not putting any pressure into the system with my arms, and am just hitting the box and swinging underneath my top hand, instead of compressing the pole and catching the ride. Yesterday that was my soul focus, and from 3 Lefts I had a pretty nice jump at a 4.85m bungee. This was probably my best jump from that approach ever, and it felt really good to feel flat and still roll in big poles strictly on technical changes. I'm still missing a lot of the pressure that he is talking about, but I think this is a step in the right direction.
Alright, well sorry for the long delay between posts recently, and I promise to be better about it in the coming weeks!
I jumped Saturday at home in a competition and finally it went decently. Warmups actually weren't that good, and I was still stuck on the 13.7 for the first jump, and came in low at 5.05m and made it easily. After that I went straight up to the 13.3 and made 5.21m and 5.36m on first attempts. I was feeling pretty good so I went up to the 12.9 for my shots at 5.51m, and the pole rolled in surprisingly easy on the first jump, although I bailed. I really wish I would have turned this one up though, because it was my best takeoff of the day, and the pole rolled right to vertical. On the second one I got picked off the ground, but still turned it up but it was a miss, since I completely missed the middle part of the jump. Still, though, the pole rolled in fine. On the third I got too jacked up and ran myself (way) under and bailed. The good news though is that I am on the right poles to jump a big PR, and I finally felt really good and comfortable in a meet. Here's video of 5.36m:
Today (sunday) I woke up and drove to Iowa, and I'm here now staying with Jacob Pauli for a week before we hit up a meet at Iowa State this weekend with our good friend Jack Whitt. The runway is supposed to be good and I'm hoping for the best! We'll also be doing a LIVE STREAM again, so thanks to the people that watched this past weekend and I hope more of you guys tune in for the ISU meet Saturday. I'll post more details later.
So we are going to try something tomorrow that could be huge. Tomorrow during my meet I am going to conduct a live broadcast from my iPhone 4 courtesy of justin.tv. The broadcast will begin at 11:00am Eastern Time with warmups, and we will do some 1on1 stuff after warmups and then continue with the meet. The feed will be found at www.justin.tv/jcoover and will be narrated by my good friend John Jefferson. Most likely we will keep the feed going through the lower heights, and I'll start jumping in the competition sometime around 12:15pm EST. I think it's going to be a super fun thing, and I hope a lot of you guys will set your cell-phone alarms right now for 11:00am and watch the meet live. Tell your friends!!
Also, I encourage you all to tweet in to @jcoover, or send me a facebook message or just comment on this blog about a question or two you'd like answered or something tomorrow during the live cast. If nobody sends anything in, I'll just talk about random stuff! And hopefully I will be able to make some good bars as well. I did have the best shakeout of the year this morning!
Well some of you might have noticed by now that I'm struggling a little right now with meet results, but I want to let everyone know that I'm confident that the other end of this thing is going to be pretty big if I stick with it. I'm finally having some solid jumps in meets, and because of it I'm really unsure so far as to which poles I should be on! Also, at the end of last year I got a series of poles that fit inside of the series of IU's poles so I would have my own (almost) identical series. I have been committed to jumping on my own poles this year, and it has been a little different, especially since I am rolling through big poles from 16 steps (my full approach being 18 steps). In Reno I blew through my 5m 13.3 on my last attempt, and the next step is to be able to start on that pole on my first jump of the meet and work to the 12.9 after that. I'm feeling good about my speed and strength, and I know I will be able to make some big bars once I get the timing right on these poles. Last year from 18 steps at the USA outdoor championships with a tailwind I was on the 5m 13.3 with the standards on 70, and this year I've already blown through that pole from 16 steps. That is a good sign, but the next step is to actually make some decent bars. I'll be jumping at home tomorrow, and am hoping for the best. I'm going in there hell-bent on getting on my 13.3 for the first jump of the meet, and hope for the best.
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.
Just for viewing pleasure, although I didn't think I'd ever post a miss at 5.20m from full approach, here is my last miss from Reno on the 13.3... It's a pretty good run and takeoff, and just a blowthrough.
