Across a number of sports, competitions are beginning to start again. We talked with Team Canada Olympic Track & Field Pole Vaulter, Alysha Newman on her sport, prepping for next year's Summer Games and Zenni Optical X ESPN's The World's Greatest USA Track & Field sanctioned event this month.
ATHLEISURE MAG: What brought you to being in Track & Field as an overall sport and specifically, the pole vault?
ALYSHA NEWMAN: Track was my second love and gymnastics was my first. I felt that gymnastics would take me to the Olympics. But when I turned 10 or 11 years old, I had a huge growth spurt and went from 5’4” to 5’8” in a couple of years! It just got hard and I fractured my L5 vertebrae and my body couldn’t keep up with it. I was forced into retirement at the age of 13. I mean, as a 13 year old, training 32 hours a week, in a gymnastics gym, going to school half days – I was having so much fun and it never felt like a job to me.
I took a year off from all athletics to heal myself, but my mom knew that I still wanted to be an athlete. She wanted to put me in diving and in swimming and in more track and field. I ended up dropping the water sports and focused on track and field. In elementary school in Canada, you do Pentathlons, so I did a number of different events. I ended up loving hurdles - the start, the finish and the training. But going from 32 hours to 8 hours a week, I was going crazy at home and wanted to be at the track more.
My manager at the London Legion club, said I should do 2 events which would give me 16 hours on the track. He felt that since I was a gymnast, pole vault would be a good idea. Within 6 months, I started competing. The very first competition that I did, I jumped 3.15m and it was the league record. From that day on, I fell in love with the sport, forgot about gymnastics and found my new passion. first competition that I did, I jumped 3.15m and it was the league record. From that day on, I fell in love with the sport, forgot about gymnastics and found my new passion.
AM: How does the sport of pole vault work in terms of the rules and how you know you have won?
AN: Every bar you get 3 attempts at each bar. Every athlete can pick at what height they want to go in. The meet usually schedules the height of the increments and after that, it’s whoever is jumping the longest. Once everyone is done, you can then pick heights that you are going for for a personal best or a national record. You can pick once everyone is done. You win by being the last man standing.
AM: How do you train for something like this? What workouts are you doing that optimize you to flow through this sport?
AN: You never want to do too much of one thing. With pole vault, it is fully head to toe – which means 90% mental, 10% physical. We’re definitely doing a lot of running, sprint workouts, plyometrics etc. Then we have the technical side which is 2-3 times a week and you are trying to get better, faster and stronger. One thing about pole vault is that it is a development. You’re not going to go in jumping on the highest pole and the stiffest pole right away! You've got to slowly get better, year after year. That’s why they say that it is important that you put in those 10,000 hours of pole vault training. This way, you’re body can get the experience and you learn mostly from your failures. If you talk to any pole vaulter, they will tell you that we end in failure every single time. That is what is so mental about it. You go to the track feeling like you can jump to the sky and because of “x” factors, it might not happen that day. It’s not because you were off your game that you couldn’t win, it could have been that your poles didn’t show up or anything. It’s one of those things that’s very mental. If you can be mentally tough in this event, you will do pole vault for a very long time.
AM: With the Summer Games in Tokyo being postponed to next summer, how are you focusing in terms of making sure that you are on track for your fitness goals and what you want to achieve to compete next year?
AN: Initially, I was really hurt. I mean every athlete waits 4 years to show the best of the best and be around the best of the best. I think what was really positive was that I had to switch it as fast as I could and to not take it as a negative. Usually, you don’t have time to work on anything you know? You put those 10,000 hours in, you go pro, and then you go to meet after meet. I competed 40 times last year and I only had 4 weeks off. You don’t have as much time to work on or change things which then may effect something else.
We have worked on my speed, listening and feeling the pole out. Doing those repetitions over and over makes me feel even better than I did 6 months ago. That’s at I'm bringing to the meet in Greenville, South Carolina.
AM: That meet is on July 15th, Zenni Optical and ESPN are presenting The World’s Greatest Live which is the first USA sanctioned Track & Field event this year with attendees that will be socially distanced, You can watch it on ESPN’s YouTube channel. Can you tell us more about the event hosted by Team USA Pole Vault Medalist, Sandi Morris who is hosting it on her custom built runway?
AN: It’s going to be a really awesome event. Zenni is providing all the athletes with eyewear. When all the girls are together with that positive adrenaline, that is when we're at our best for these meets.
Sandi has always been the leader in Women’s Pole Vaulting and has been someone that keeps pushing the bar very high. She’s a firecracker, she’s always on and always putting out high heights to keep us motivated.
AM: What’s your routine prior to a meet?
AN: I eat really healthy leading up to the meet. It’s something that I always do. The day before, I’m on the phone calling my coaches for an hour or two just to have a game plan. I will always have a glass of wine with my agent the night before I compete. I’m at my best when I’m having the most fun, relaxed and have a good sleep. In the morning, I call one of my coaches before I go out to let them know about the height increments and what we are going to do. I put my makeup and lipstick on which is like my war paint – when that goes on, there’s no looking back.
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDIT | Oscar Muñoz Badilla
Read the July Issue of Athleisure Mag #55 and see Raise the Bar with Alysha Newman in mag.
Hear Team Canada Pole Vaulter, Alysha Newman on our show, Bungalow SK - which is a part of Athleisure Studio, our multi-media podcast network! Make sure to subscribe to find out when the episode drops. You can hear it on iHeartRadio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and wherever you enjoy listening to your favorite podcast.
