PV Weight Room Training

[Hawkeye]

I think vaulters are good gymnasts with great speed. Have you ever seen a week gymnast? Work on your speed and your gymanstic strength and you will see big improvements. What good is weightroom strength without coordination? Don't get me wrong the weightroom has its place, I just don't think it should be the focus for a vaulter. Plyos, olympic lifts, and gymnastics were my favorites.

[PV4Free]

A question for the upcoming summer off-season. How should a pole vaulter lift weights to best increase strength without making huge gains in bulk? How many sets and reps of each exercise? What percentage of your max? How much rest between sets? And do nutritional supplements have a place in the pole vaulter's strength training routine

[vault3rb0y]

[quote="Lax PV"]
Tendons and tendon strength gets to be a little more interesting. I would advise you to be sure that you are going through the full range of motion when completing exercises (there is no problem, I repeat, no problem with going lower than 90 degrees squating).
quote] I agree, but everyone should be careful as first, because when you start going lower than 90 degrees it puts a lot more pressure on your knees. This is the best thing you can do for tendon strength, but when you first start out treat it like the first day of squating, and start with something you can do 10 times and do 3 sets of 10 easy. Tendons and ligaments take a little longer to recover because there is less blood flow to these than to our quads, say, and theres a lot more chance or injury. Just make sure you dont do it more than once every 2 days, thats how i developed some pretty serious problems in tendons under my knee.

[skivaulter]

A question for the upcoming summer off-season. How should a pole vaulter lift weights to best increase strength without making huge gains in bulk?

If you've never lifted before you're going to gain bulk. If you have lifted before you wont gain as much bulk, possibly none. One of the keys to keeping bulk gain to a minimum is cardio. I went from a squat max of 250lbs-300lbs and a bench of 165lbs-180lbs with absolutely no weight gain.

[Lax PV]

Tendons and tendon strength gets to be a little more interesting. I would advise you to be sure that you are going through the full range of motion when completing exercises (there is no problem, I repeat, no problem with going lower than 90 degrees squating).
quote] I agree, but everyone should be careful as first, because when you start going lower than 90 degrees it puts a lot more pressure on your knees. This is the best thing you can do for tendon strength, but when you first start out treat it like the first day of squating, and start with something you can do 10 times and do 3 sets of 10 easy. Tendons and ligaments take a little longer to recover because there is less blood flow to these than to our quads, say, and theres a lot more chance or injury. Just make sure you dont do it more than once every 2 days, thats how i developed some pretty serious problems in tendons under my knee.

It's actually quite the contrary. Biomechanically, the most stress on you quads occurs at 90 degrees, which pulls on your knees the most. Whether or not you are flexible enough to drop any lower, might be a different story. Take for example a 2 year old kid. Still flexible, aging has not had a significant effect on him or her just yet. They can sit in a full squat position for hours without even knowing they are doing it. Does this mean that they are just that strong to maintain this position? The answer is obviously no. It is simply gravity holding there body in place, with no real strain on the body at all. After all, if it were uncomfortable, a 2 year old would be the last person to sit still.

As far as getting strong without gaining weight--there are two types of getting strong (medically termed 'hypertrophy'). There is one where you balloon up and get really big--this is your body retaining a lot of water--this is not good for a pole vaulter. The other kind actually increases the cross sectional area of the individual fibers. This will increase weight a little (as any significant strength gain will) however not nearly as drastic.

While doing 3 sets of 10 may be safer, and less intense on the body, try doing 5 sets of 3. The first time a coach and I talked about this (a very credible source by anyone's standards I would assume) he told me this, "Would you rather jump 13' 100 times in practice, or 17' maybe 8 times?" And that is very similar to the weight training. Some high rep stuff is good for a little while to build a base, but once an athlete is in shape, quick and short is MUCH more specific to the vault in my opinion.

[lysergicvaulter]

I stumbled on an article relateing to this exactly, but from a gymnastic point of view. They also need maxium strength gain with minimum mass and weight gain. If anyone takes the time to read all of the article you will learn alot about what everyone is talking about in the last few post, with all the evidence that supports it.


""It is a common idea in training that fatigue develops strength. This idea is particularly popular among athletes who train for muscle size, for example bodybuilders, football players, and throwers in the field events (Brunner and Tabachnik, 1990; Bührle and Werner, 1984). A rapid exhaustion of ATP stores has been associated with the "burning" feeling in the muscle. This painful feeling often accompanies strength training sets with heavy loads (70%) and many repetitions (8-15). This kind of strength training tends to be very fatiguing and is also the kind of training that make the muscles increase in size, or hypertrophy. If the load is less, but the speed of movement is very fast, the effect may be the same: muscle growth (Table 2; Bührle and Werner, 1984). ""


The article is on this website http://www.usa-gymnastics.org/publications/technique/1996/8/strength-training.html

[ipolevault]

That's incorrect in 2 ways.

1)The burning feeling in your muscles is not ATP, its lactic acid, a waste product forming in your muscles.

2)Speed is not relative to strength in terms of muscle growth, using heavier loads is condusive to quicker muscle growth under a proper wieght training program. Speed will develop more lean muscle, whereas strength willa llow your muscles to develop more, with less elanness than speed lifting.

[ADTF Academy]

That's incorrect in 2 ways.

1)The burning feeling in your muscles is not ATP, its lactic acid, a waste product forming in your muscles.

Before you tell someone they are flat out wrong get your information straight.

If you read correctly it said the rapid exhaustion of ATP stores has been associated with the Burning feeling in muscles. It did not say that the burning feeling you feel is ATP. ATP is a form of energy our muscles use to perform actions. The burning sensation is not lactic acid. Lactic acid has been found to be an energy source or fuel the body can use. It is not the evil the athletic community once thought.

What we feel (the burning sensation) is an excess amount of hydrogen ions in our muscles causing our legs to become acidic. Once your leg becomes overly acidic your body as a saftey mechanism basically shuts down so that you do not risk further damage to it.

Lactic acid and hydrogen are biproducts. But it is the excess hydrgon ions that cause the burning sensation not Lactic acid.

[lonestar]

That's incorrect in 2 ways.

1)The burning feeling in your muscles is not ATP, its lactic acid, a waste product forming in your muscles.

Before you tell someone they are flat out wrong get your information straight.

If you read correctly it said the rapid exhaustion of ATP stores has been associated with the Burning feeling in muscles. It did not say that the burning feeling you feel is ATP. ATP is a form of energy our muscles use to perform actions. The burning sensation is not lactic acid. Lactic acid has been found to be an energy source or fuel the body can use. It is not the evil the athletic community once thought.

What we feel (the burning sensation) is an excess amount of hydrogen ions in our muscles causing our legs to become acidic. Once your leg becomes overly acidic your body as a saftey mechanism basically shuts down so that you do not risk further damage to it.

Lactic acid and hydrogen are biproducts. But it is the excess hydrgon ions that cause the burning sensation not Lactic acid.

Interesting you mention that. I was talking to a coach who just recently completed Level II, and he was told that there's a way to manipulate your loading to recovery proportions in such a way that you intentionally store lactic acid to stimulate hormonal production for faster recovery and increased workload potential.

[Barto]

there's a way to manipulate your loading to recovery proportions in such a way that you intentionally store lactic acid to stimulate hormonal production for faster recovery and increased workload potential.

This true. The more efficient you become at buffering lactic the more gh your body produces during sleep.

[ADTF Academy]

Lonestart - Yes USATF coaching clinics are a great way to gain training knowledge. They give you the basics and more or less a shopping list of things you can use and why. Then it gives you more knowledge so that you can pick and chose your ingredients for the training regiment. Doing things because you did them once upon a time or because you read it in a magizine is a cope out. Learn your trait. (this is not a statement towards Lonestar, but to all young, old and knowledgable vault coaches that don't understand training theory and the energy systems our body uses)


Secondly right on barto.


This is why in any well designed training regiment rather it be for speed or strength you put workouts that produce lactic acid on your next day. Typically this is long slow runs of roughly 14 to 20 minutes at length. The problem is as pole vaulters or sprinters we don't like to run a long distance so we run it very slow. You need to be in the 70% range to produce lactic acid. This means if you can run a 6 min mile (which is pretty slow for a guy) you need to be averaging 7:30 a mile pace. This can be challenging for a sprinter to go out and do. On the other hand you can change your sprint workouts more or less. Take your 40's 60's, 100's, 150's and 300's as an example. By going less than 100% roughly 70 to 80% your max and by giving yourself less rest you can produce lactic acid. This can also be done with strength training for the arms or to produce lactic acid in your legs if you off days are vaulting days and therefore you can not do a running workout.

As an example your lifting max strength on Monday you can turn around and do lighter body building lifts (front raises, curls, lunges, step ups etc.) that are of a weight and high rep number to produce the burn but not heavy enough to produce bulk. Basically any weight roughly 55% or less with the goal of doing the exercise for an extended period of time.

As for running. After a speed workout you can do tempo work. Tempo work is basically a term for workouts that produce Lactic acid for simplistic terms. An example would be do 30m acceleration runs on Monday then you can turn around and do a tempo workout such as 2 x 3 x 100 at 70 to 80% effort with shorter rest roughly 30 seconds. By the second set your legs will feel like cement. Go for an easy run after that do your body building and endurance core circuits. You should also work out to this. Don't start out the first week with repeat 300's at 75%. Your body would hate you. A good start would be to do runs across a football field from sideline to the other and do a core exercise on each. Remember you need to run at 70 to 80% when you run so get up quick and get out. Then you can start to progress your workouts. The other importance of this is to build work capacity. These type of workouts will give your body the ability to handle work and recovery quicker between reps and workouts so that you can go longer and harder.

The objective of this is to put excess Lactic acid into your body so that as Barto puts it your body can use it for recovery.

The issue once again is that more is not always better. If you can handle 6 x 100's without basically trashing your body then do it. If you can't do less if you can do more. Once again the goal is to get lactic acid into your body but not to much that your body will shut down due to excess hydrogen ions and your muscles becoming acidic.

On vaulting days you can't do a workout as well most of the time. Another way to get this lactic acid in your legs is from doing low impact plyometrics such as lateral hops, frontal hops and numerous other low impact jumping or squating exercises at a good clip for an extended period of time. This will also produce the burn and is a great toning exercise as well.

Vaulting and technique is only half the equation the other half is your training regiment. How's yours.

[Vault Chick]

When my coach and I go to the gym, we do bench press, shoulder press, lat pulls, the bicep curling machine, curls/ skull crushers, and a whole bunch of other machines that work the shoulders, chest, back, and arms. Also, pull ups, bubkas, and rope climbing is good. Hope this helps!