Blog

RISE Instructional Tip: This is an advanced drill and not for everyone. Only after all subsequent drills have been mastered is the corkscrew a feasible drill.  However, I will go through how to teach it and why to teach it.  First I will address the why.  The reason that the Corkscrew is so important in the RISE level system, is…

Insights I’ve been coaching pole vaulting for longer than I can remember. I’ve coached very young children through Elite level vaulters. If there is one thing I could point at that needs to be eliminated in the vault it would be the running through. In all my years of coaching and teaching the vault, I can unequivocally say that I’ve…

The 1⁄2 drill is the first pole vaulting drills that we teach at RISE that is 100% an “off the ground” drill. The main point is to teach an athlete, through this drill, how to drop the head and shoulders simultaneously when having the top hand in the proper position at the time of the head and shoulder drop. This…

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes at RISE?  Like, what do the coaches group chat or talk about after-hours?  Well, here is a sneak peak into the RISE coaches group chat.  The coaches at RISE are on a constant quest to improve our methods in order to give each and every athlete the best instruction and…

My dad, Tim Winder, had a rule at his pole vaulting camp that he ran at North Central College for 25 years.  It was actually the number one rule, and to him the most important rule of them all.  That rule was “No Talking on the Pit”.  It was developed after an unruly teenager, that later became my high school…

How fun is it pole vaulting during the spring time in Northern Illinois?!  I hope you can sense the sarcasm.  I can only speak to this time of the year in Illinois, but I’m sure that this blog post will resonate with many pole vaulters from different regions across the country.  Before you dive into this blog, please understand, as…

If you don’t know by now, pole vaulting is a slightly expensive sport!  With the crazy supply chain bottlenecks and inflation exploding in 2022, pole vaulting poles prices are taking off and sending some pole vault poles price over $1,000 per pole (plus $150-$200 shipping)!!!!  Although it is expensive, we love to pole vault, and pole vaulting poles bring us…

If you have read the blog, 8 Reasons to Keep a Pole Vaulting Journal,  you are probably wondering, “What should I keep track of in my Pole Vault Journal?”.  That is a great question since we want to make sure that we are keeping track of workout data that is measurable and can be reliably counted on to keep you…

When interviewing American record holder Sam Kendricks on episode twelve of the One More Jump Podcast, Sam talks about the importance of keeping a pole vaulting journal of his workouts and meets as a pole vault equipment for him to reflect on and track his improvement.  I can also testify that logging or journaling my workouts helped produce my best…

So after a long hiatus from pole vaulting, 6 years to be exact, I have chosen to start doing some vaulting again. For the last 5 years or so, I got into ultra running and it all culminated in me finishing a 100 mile race in 29 hours and 22 minutes.  It was very hard and it hurt very bad.…

Do you know what is better than pole vaulting in high school?  college pole vaulting!!!  A lot of people think that only the most elite high school pole vaulters can pole vault in college, but that just isn’t true.  There are so many schools out there and they each have unique requirements and serve athletes of many different ability levels.…

I had to come to complete acceptance of where I was at.  I remember coming to that point and thinking to myself, “well Jake, you are much worse than you were in high school.  You are very far from where you once were, and you are in a hole that will take a while to get out of”.  It hurt for a second to admit that, but when I admitted it to myself, then accepted my current state as my new base line, I was able to start comparing my progress to that baseline and seeing that I was slowly getting better compared to where I was CURRENTLY at.