My Story
Here’s a quick summary of my vaulting career and why I’m not vaulting my freshman year in college. I picked up vaulting when I was a freshman in High school and I loved it instantly, you could not get me off the pit. I jumped something like 8' 6'' by the end of that season but that didn’t put me off. I had a great next season and had a huge meet my sophomore year at regional’s jumping something like 11' or 11' 6''. My vaulting really started improving that summer. I think i jumped 12' my first meet back junior year. It was also at the start of that season that my shoulder started to bother me, Id come off the pit rubbing it a little and I would ice it when I got home. I had a pretty good season jumping an official PR of 13'' 3'. That summer was really good too, I jumped some big short stride PRs and jumped 14' over a bar in Arkansas. I also talked to the Track Coach from Syracuse, and was pretty much guaranteed a spot as long as I jumped 14 feet which I was really excited about. The only problem, my shoulder was really starting to hurt now, I sometimes couldn’t finish a full practice because of it. I remember a night about a month before school started, I was doing a workout in my basement, just basic stuff. I had given my shoulder a good few days rest, and was frustrated that I couldn’t bench press my normal amount. So i put 140 on, which was about 40lbs less than I was doing a few months ago, expecting to blow through it. I hit the second set of ten and going up for the 4th rep, I can barely get the bar up. My left hand is pretty much fully extended but its my right hand that’s only half way up, I give it one more push, and my shoulder just gives out. I end up pinned under the bar, of course I didn’t have a spotter (shakes head). Pretty much from that day on things got pretty bad vaulting wise. I couldn’t do practically any weight lifting and knew something was wrong. I talked to a doctor, he did some X-rays, and we start Physical Therapy probably around September. I spend the next 10 months in PT watching all my friends PR, get recruited for college and doing my best to coach our vaulting team. After a while we start to realize that there’s something else going on after 10months of PT and no progress at all. I go back to my doctor and he sends me to a shoulder specialist. After a few MRIs and X-rays he figures it out. He diagnoses me with a sub-corticoid impingement, where a bone spur is growing into my muscle and we schedule surgery a week later. There goes my spot on the team in Syracuse. I go into surgery, expecting a 30min surgery and 1 week in a sling. The surgery ends up taking 3 1/2 hrs and I have to spend 4 weeks in a sling. Apparently the bone spur had ripped up a lot of other muscle and he had to attach a muscle back to the bone. So I go through 4 weeks in the sling, and start rehab again. all during the summer. I'm constantly training even when I was in a sling, lifting my legs etc. I’ve kept training through my first year here, and I feel a lot faster and stronger. I was cleared to lift with my shoulder again around January 4th, and have made a whole lot of progress these last few months. So that brings us about to where I am now. 21 months since my last vault, I have until August to be vaulting again and clear 14 feet. I’m using this journal to keep track of my workouts and keep focused.
---Stronger Faster Higher
-Stephen
Update
So I left to drive to Georgia on the 12th. My shoulder was still feeling sorta rough but the drive should be a good time for it to rest. Im also going to try to give my hamstring a real good rest the whole break. All i did on the 12th was some stretching.
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