GVSU Holiday open uggh and a little update from practice

Competed at Grand Valley State University in Allendale Michigan on Friday.  I can say I wasnt too pleased with how it turned out, but I instantly learned what I needed to fix and was able to do so today in practice so all in all it was successful.  I decided to jump from 7 lefts at the meet and can say that most of the things I had been working on all went down the drain.  I was not getting my foot down at the takeoff and therefore was hugging with my left which led to not catching the pole and only jumping 5.15m/16'11".

So after watching videos for a couple of days I went in to practice today working on those two things.  I am still wanting to drift into the takeoff rather than being quick and putting my foot down.  I was able to do that towards the end of practice and it made a lot of difference.  Next was the hugging, after looking at the videos of the meet I saw that since my grip was as wide as it was I was never really able to get any chest penetration in the jump and this led to me hugging the left arm in to swing upside down.  That has never really been taught to me it seems that it just started to happen in the last couple of years and has been something Ive really been trying to change.  Today I thought I would try to narrow my grip, which ended up being just the change I needed, rather than the left being almost in front of my face at takeoff now its up and over my head, allowing the chest to come through and create space in the pole.  I was very happy with a few of the jumps where I was able to do both, foot down at takeoff and chest drive through.  This led to poles being too small, and finishing  my jumps.

While the meet was not so good, I did just want I wanted to and found the things that needed to be fixed and luckily how to work on them and fix them.  Now the challenge is doing it on longer poles from a longer run.  I hope to do this on wednesday which will be my last practice before heading to Amanda's parents house in western New York for the holiday.  



Always Pursuing -Mark-

Stay Warm Sale! Hoodies Only $27

In my part of the world, Northern Indiana, its started to get cold, I know a lot of you are lucky enough to live where its not cold and will never be cold, I envy you.  But for the rest of us, why not don a warm hoody that  shows your support for an Olympic hopeful.  I have a limited number of hoodies and because Im in a Christmas, giving mood Ive reduced the price to 27 dollars!!!






Always Pursuing -Mark-

Demo at GM

About a month and a half ago I talked with my gymnastics coach Andy Poe at Gymnastics Michiana about doing a demo into the foam pit at the gym.  I kind of forgot about it and last week Andy reminded me that the meet was coming up this weekend and wondered if I was still down for doing a demo.  I of course was as Gymnastics Michiana has helped me out a ton and thought it would be a good chance to get my name out in the community a bit more.  We ended up making a box out of about 4 2x4's, the "box" was flush with the ground so I ended up putting a mat down to jump off of that gave me about 3 inches off the ground which helped things a bit.  I grabbed a 14' 160lb pole from Notre Dame to use from 2 lefts which ended up being almost too small as you can see in the video as I nearly clear the pit!  Hope you enjoy, I sure did.

Always Pursuing -Mark-

It's been too long since my last post so figured I better jump on here and give a little update on how things have going. First of all I will tell you that the fundraiser was a great success! We ended up raising over 1200 dollars at the silent auction and t-shirt sales. I had a great time with the kids that came out, they went through a series of activities to teach a healthy lifestyle. They did a bit of yoga/stretching, jump rope, and basketball drills. I awarded the kids with gold medals and everyone seemed to have a great time. I have to give a big thank you to the Montessori school of Elkhart and my wife Amanda for organizing the entire thing.

Since then I've been focused on training hard and preparing myself for the season to come.  Workouts have been going well, Im feeling fit and strong.  Vaulting has been going well also, my main focus right now is the last 6 steps of my approach, keeping those legs rolling over quickly keeps me in the best possible position at takeoff.

Sometime soon Im going to try to put a video together, a day in the life kind of thing, so that you guys can follow me through my workouts, vault and lifting sessions, and gymnastics.  Im going to try to work on that in the next couple of weeks so make sure to check back for that.  Today I will leave you with a rundown of my day yesterday.

10 a.m.  Head to Notre Dame, full warmup, 600m jog, skip, karaoke, backwards skip, hamstring flicks, side skip.  Stretch, hamstring, IT bands, groin, quads, calves, glutes.  2x50m stride at 60%. 2x straight leg bound, high knees, butt kick, karaoke, backwards sprint.  2x50m stride at 75%  prone and supine star rolls, inverted scissors, plow exchange, hurdle seat exchange, leg swings.  A skips 2x30m B skips 2x30m, powe skips for distance.  2x60m stride 80%  A run, B run, 50m sprint 95%

6x 40m pole runs with small hurdles last 6 steps starting 13'8" 2.05m in between each hurdle.  3x Overhead Back throws between each run.

1:00pm  Gymnastics, 2x10 parrallel bar swing dips, swing up dip, swing back dip.

10x hang from high bar, hold knees at 90degrees for 2 sec, roll hips upward, extend legs into a pike straight/ bubka.
2:00 pm Lifting at Notre Dame, 4x3 hang clean 250lbs, 4x3 box squat 385lbs, 4x6 incline DB press, 65lbs, 4x8 Lat pulldown 165lbs.

Got back home around 4pm, I love days like this, i always feel like ive accomplished a lot.  Oh and once I got home I roll out with a foam roller, go through my rehab exercises and ice.  Much easier day today, little bit of General Strength, and vault tomorrow.


Always Pursuing -Mark-