16-Apr-2021      By Travis Geopfert

Pole Vault: 12 Step Take Off

This is a 12 step pole vault take off without a swing. Many of the beginning and intermediate level athletes will use this 12 step as their full approach. As your athletes progress and get older and their strength levels and maturity gets better, they can move back from here to possibly a 14 or even 16 step approach. We're going to focus on the pole drop. You can see that the athlete on their third to last up with their left foot as that foot begins to come off the ground, the pole is going to be parallel at that point. From there the athlete needs to have quick hands and make sure that they push the right hand directly above the right ear extending it as far as possible. Notice the left hand also pushing up, a very common problem is the athletes want to push that left-hand forward. They want to take both hands and extend them up as high as possible on take off.

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