High School Coach’s Blueprint for Success: Pole Vault

Coach Reilly outlines the realities of coaching an 11 week high school season and the challenges this poses for successfully coaching the pole vault event. He touches on recruiting the best possible athletes for the event, having a system in place to simultaneously work with experienced and beginning vaulters, and coaching with safety at the forefront of every aspect of the event.

Reilly breaks his classroom discussion into six segments:

• An 8-phase Safety Protocol – This information is at the heart of the pole vault coach’s certification program Reilly was instrumental in developing in Washington.
• Metronome Principal – A clear and easy way to understand the physics of the pole vault.
• Four Foundations of Success – An invaluable narrated film analysis of the four fundamentals for success in the pole vault–approach, plant, take-off and follow through.
• Team Training – Learn essential strategies for daily team training including managing rainy days, injury days and windy days.
• Meet Preparation – Includes a quiz to help athletes with pole selection and pole management at meets.
• Common Bad Habits – Learn to correct four of the most common “bad habits” for vaulters.
• Practice Schedule – Reilly breaks down the 11-week season into a four cycle flow. With each cycle, he presents an example of a complete week of lesson plans for his practice routine. Reilly also includes how he peaks his athletes for the championship phase of the season.

On the track, Reilly demonstrates more than 75 drills and variations for teaching and coaching the pole vault. These drills are broken into the following sections:

• Approach Drills (18 drills). Progress from simple walking single leg drills and sequencing through a progression that ends with a complete approach with the pole drop into a sliding box plant.
• Plant Drills and Plant Sequence Drills (10). Plant drills begin at the most elementary level in the sand and progress to a 3-step with 1/4 swing. The plant sequence drills include a 4-drill teaching sequence.
• Take-Off Drills (8). These drills are designed to give the pole vaulter the feeling of a long jump style take-off and focus on getting the athlete to transition the horizontal approach velocity to a vertical take-off impulse.
• Follow Through Drills (6). This drill progression is designed to assist the vaulter in building the sensation of a stretched out and firm body position when transitioning from the take off into the pre-swing position.
• Swing Drills (7). This drill progression begins on the hi-bar and rings before progressing into the swing and turn on a straight, then bending pole.
• Strength Development Drills (27). Reilly’s pole vault specific strength development is designed to be carried out predominately on the track rather spending a great deal of time in the weight room.

Tim Reilly has coached thousands of pole vaulters in his career. Now you can benefit from Reilly’s rich history and success in coaching the pole vault.