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Showing posts from October, 2017

Practice with Kaela

Michaela Kaliniak, known to her friends and family simply as Kaela, started her pole vault practice with a dynamic warm-up followed by the selection of poles she will need. Once on the runway she kicked things off with some  one-arm drills . She then moved to her full approach for several more drills to help her turn and the top end of her vault. She stopped to help some of the younger, high school vaulters while Coach Jerry Sessions was preoccupied with a visitor. About halfway through practice Kaliniak took a break to recharge by eating some honey. Back to full energy she practiced several more drills before completing here final vaults of the night at a bungee set to about 10 feet. Kaliniak's practice is capped with more drills, this time using a cart to simulate the turn of a vault and a  sliding box to simulate the approach and take off.   "It wasn't a great practice... but you've gotta have something to keep working on," said Kaliniak of ...

Practice with Kaela Preview

Michaela Kaliniak  is a Senior pole vaulter for Olivet College. However, being a small, NCAA Division 3 school with limited athletic funds Olivet does not have a pole vault coach. Kaliniak received approval when she started competing for Olivet to continue practicing with her longtime club Landon Athletics and Coach Jerry Sessions. She now travels the 30 minutes from Olivet Michigan to Sessions' practice facilities in Nashville Michigan 3 times a week to keep a strict training schedule. The time and energy required to make the trek are proving worth it as Kaliniak holds the  school record at Olivet with a jump of 3.20 meters.