Off Week :P

Sad day... the club team went to a camp up in Prescott, and I'm back here until they get back. No vaults this week, but Coach Fraizer sent me some lifts that I'll be starting on. Increased the cardio again, and I'm down five pounds from the beginning of the summer! I haven't missed a day at the gym yet. About to head down there in a few minutes to get my lift on and see how hard Tyler's lifts are.

Ring Vaults

Ok, so i'll admit it... I LOVE ring vaulting! It's gotta be one of the best inventions for a pole vault drill ever! For everyone that doesn't know what this is, you get on some scaffolding, grab onto a ring (like one of the ones they use in the Olympics for gymnastics), you jump off the scaffolding, assume a pole vault position, and work on the vault technique in this way. It's great! Not only do I find it highly entertaining, but I get to work on a few things that I could not otherwise isolate.

Today, I cleared about 11 feet which isn't too bad seeing as I haven't done it in about a year. I need to get better though. Coach Guy had me working mainly on shooting my heels up to keep me moving upward rather than shooting out at the crossbar (as I have a tendency to do). I found it very worthwhile and feel that I am doing much, much better- though there is room for improvement- at this now. Other than this, I've been keeping up with my workouts. I've added a high cardio element since I last posted which I feel is trimming me up quite a bit.

Summer Workouts

So I started summer vaulting with Coach Guy out in Desert Vista. The man is a genius! This last week we've only been doing short vaults. Tuesday we were out on the track with the vaults, but the Desert Vista track is getting resurfaced, so we moved the pit under the bleachers (that's what the picture is of haha). We only have like a 40-foot runway, so I'm kinda being forced into the short run stuff. I hate short run work, but in all honesty, it's what I need to do. Tuesday was just the basics as some of the kids in the camp have never vaulted before. Thursday we split it up a bit, and I worked on getting my left leg back on the take off in order to bring more power into the swing. It really is helping, and I'm glad that Coach Guy has a lot of patience when working with me because I'm sure he knows how little I like short drills. I'm really hoping that this camp gets my technique farther along than I am currently.

Other than vaulting, I've been to the gym everyday this week, alternating upper body and lower body workouts each day and sub-setting each work out with core exercises. I've all ready dropped about six pounds according to the scale at LA Fitness (but who knows how accurate that is). I had about a thirty minute run yesterday and did sprints two others days of the week. With this, I hope to get stronger, build more agility and stamina, and complement my vault work.