HOW EASY IS IT TO START POLE VAULTING?
A good age to start is 12 or 13 because you are beginning to develop the upper body strength required to get yourself upside down on the pole. There is no maximum age but no real minimum. I’ve even seen kids as young as four or five pole vaulting. Olympic champ Tim Mack flying in Athens If kids do it as part of a game, then they can start at any age. No matter how old you are, you won’t go straight into the big jumps when you start. In the first year I will teach a beginner to jump with a stick or a pole that doesn’t bend. Beginners learn bad habits jumping with a soft pole as they end up shortening it. The poles come in different lengths and stiffness and we would get a pole of suitable length – about 10 or 11 feet long. Initial jumps would be made in a sand pit and they would spend at least a month in there. A game we do with kids and beginners is to draw a river in a sandpit and get them to jump over that. Distance is the key, not height. And over time, it will soon be on to the big
