A pair of pole vaulters master the technical, physical, thrilling sport

Viviana Rodriguez, a junior at Osbourn Park, had a similar reaction. Even as a former gymnast, she couldn’t imagine accomplishing a feat of such technical perfection—until she tried. “It just always seemed super cool — people running with giant poles and then getting blown up,” Rodriguez said.

Basically, pole vaulting is a very technical sport that requires a balance of speed, power, agility and body awareness. While most sports build on basic movements like running or throwing a ball, pole vaulting requires athletes to retrain their minds and muscles to adapt to movements they’ve likely never attempted.

It also combines skills that are often mutually exclusive. It’s not enough to have the core and shoulder strength needed to turn around in the air and leap forward. You must also be able to run like a sprinter. Tumbler experience is great, but can you do it while carrying a 14ft pole?

DeWolfe and Rodriguez are part of the newest group of high caliber vaulters to emerge from Northern Virginia. You have what many coaches say are the greatest keys to success in the sport: speed (because strength and technique can be developed over time) and determination (because vaulting takes an emotional toll).

They have their sights set on titles at the Virginia Indoor Championships this weekend.

Beginning vaulters begin with a rudimentary set of drills before ever setting foot near the crossbar. They must first learn how to hold the bar, with their dominant hand near the top. Then they undergo speed and core strength workouts designed to generate enough momentum to get off the ground.

Once they’re ready to approach the pit, it’s time to measure the length and rhythm of each step so there’s no hesitation in the jump.

A popular exercise known as “One-Two-Three, Plant-Two-Three” breaks down the final six steps of a vault into a carefully choreographed routine of inserting the pole into the box and timing the start.

DeWolfe, who started pole vaulting a little over a year ago, came to the track as a multi-athlete looking for a way to stay in shape between fall football season and spring lacrosse season.

“When I started, it was a completely foreign concept,” he said. “So the first day is just getting used to being on a pole off the ground. You’re not going into the pit at all. You just build confidence with the bar and you start to understand how the movement works.”

Coming from lacrosse and football, where he’s a wide receiver and linebacker, DeWolfe doesn’t have a typical pole vault build. At 6 feet and 170 pounds, he is stronger and heavier than most vaulters. He’s learned to use this to his advantage to quickly progress to longer sticks with higher weight limits, often making it easier to get more spring out of the stick and reach new heights.

DeWolfe considers himself a work in progress, but he placed second at last year’s VHSL indoor meet and jumped 13 feet after just a few months in the sport.

“The most challenging aspect was the fact that in practice you’re much more focused on your job, but as soon as it comes to the competition your head should be blank,” DeWolfe said. “It should go straight to muscle memory.”

During the summer, DeWolfe attended a pole vault boot camp with Prince William County Pole Vaulters, a club made up of a network of high school coaches throughout Northern Virginia. Now he jumps 14½ feet and is aiming for a personal record of 15 feet in States.

For at least the past decade, teams from Northern Virginia have been a dominant force in pole vaulting, thanks in large part to programs developed by Prince William County Pole Vaulters. For a sport built on complex mechanics, coaching expertise goes a long way in developing new talent, and athletes from counties Prince William to Spotsylvania have joined the summer program looking to learn the sport or take it to the next level .

“We train kids from everywhere,” said program director Jerry McEvoy. “In fact, there are times when we’re at a track meeting and a kid comes up to us and says, ‘I don’t have a coach; can you help me?’ And we never turn down a child.”

McEvoy also trains at Osbourn Park, where Rodriguez is one of his top students. McEvoy likens his job to building a Lego set – finding the right pieces of her tech to build on and getting rid of the unnecessary ones to take her to the next level.

Rodriguez’s success comes from being almost always “on the same wavelength” as her coach, but both agree that she has benefited greatly from being able to hear multiple opinions on her technique.

“Sometimes when [McEvoy] Explaining things, I just tell him, ‘I know what I need to do, but I’m not processing it the way it’s working for me,'” Rodriguez said. “Then another coach came along and explained it differently and then suddenly the technique got so much better.”

For Rodriguez, pole vaulting is all about the mindset. It’s a sport that can produce incredible highs when you set a personal record, or deep lows when you keep hitting the bar.

A cheerleader and former gymnast, Rodriguez began pole vaulting in the spring of her freshman year, and she thrived immediately. But after a few months of training, her progress stalled, forcing her to change her technique and redefine her mentality.

“There were times when I cried at all meetings,” she said. “Your body is unfamiliar with pole vaulting. … You’re not used to doing that. But to get better faster, you have to get over it.”

Rodriguez was diagnosed with autism early in her freshman year and says understanding how her brain works has helped her develop a healthier approach to sports.

She excelled at it, winning the state title last indoor season and finishing second at the outdoor championships last spring. She still breaks down each jump into a series of techniques to improve (running, installation, inversion, landing) rather than aiming for a specific height. Her personal best is 12 feet.

“Things are organized and there’s a step-by-step process for how everything gets done,” Rodriguez said. “There are many sports that are unpredictable, but in pole vault, because it’s so technical and so predictable, you can encapsulate certain variables of the high jump very easily.”

It also helps to have a coach who knows how to handle the ups and downs of the sport. McEvoy, who was named high school and club coach of the year at last month’s National Pole Vault Summit, knows how to motivate and challenge athletes. After a series of difficult jumps, he’s famous for asking, “Another one?” – and then repeating the question at least five more times until his athlete can finish the training with a good jump.

“I always talk over the edge with kids and say, ‘Trust me; it gets better. Let’s just stick to the plan,'” McEvoy said. “If someone’s having a bad day and then they’re having a really good day, they’re having a really, really bad day, they’re like, ‘I hate this sport, but I love this sport.’

“And all the coaches kind of look at each other and say, ‘Well, that’s pole vault.’ ”