New to Pole Vaulting

[TreyAA]

I run indoor and next year i want to start PV. Since i won't be able to actually do it until next year, what are the best exercises i can do so i can be in really good shape.

Thanks
TreyAA

[Carolina21]

It really depends on your age and where you are at athletically and by age I am referring more to training age (how long have you been training for athletics? What have you done leading up to now, distance, sprints, other field events? Have you lifted weights hard, lightly, never at all? Be careful when people simply tell you to just go run this or lift that, it may be an awesome workout, but only if you are at a certain level. I think for most beginners in vault one thing that is critical is gymnastics or more directly body awareness. To be good in the vault I think having good body awareness is a huge advantage. Gymnastics is probably one of the best ways to gain or improve your body awareness, gymnastics puts you in many positions, rotations, flips, turns, etc. that are out of your comfort zone, and then expects you to make all these crazy things you are doing look effortless. Try to find a gym and take some lessons. If you can't find one find a high bar and rings and swing, swing, swing. Just playing around on highbar and rings will teach you a lot of things about swinging without you ever knowing it and will be helpful in the vault. Another great thing with gymnastics is you will strengthen your upper body and core almost without realizing it. I still believe my abs have never been as strong as when I was 12-13 doing gymnastics and could do like 20-30 circles on the pommel horse. I tried to to it the other day and lets just say the 13 year old me would have put the me of now to shame, big time.

Other than that, remember speed is king. So again, workouts that tend to increase your speed/explosiveness would be most beneficial on the track.
Become the best athlete you can, strength, speed, conditioning, flexibilty, body control. I think some highschool coaches (none on this board of course, everyone here is obsessed with the vault sometimes it is frightening.....) will send the kids who can't do well at the other events to pole vault when in reality they should be sending their very best athletes to vault because to do it you have to excel in many area's not just one, like many of the other events. So take pride you are going to be a vaulter, only the best athletes on the track can do it.

[thaone600]

i would mainly focus on some easy but effective speed work like a couple sets of 40m's 30m's and 20m's to improve your pole vault run. Also abdominal work is one of the keys to pole vaulting so you can do a curcit but those really kill so id just do like 100 sit ups a night or something like that. Also push ups can really help too. Just try to get stronger in every aspect that you can think you need to pole vault

[S.Parkin]

Well during conditioning we do a lot of endurance, which seems to help. We also focus on abs and arms. (Crunches, push ups.)
Good luck- Im new too, so I know how you feel.

[AKell]

lift a lot in upper body (shoulders, lats, tris, bis, back muscles, and abs) as well as the rest of your workout. Do plyometrics for explosiveness in takeoff. And if you can, get a pole and get a coach to teach you to plant. then practice it. a lot. more than you think you need. because you need it. badly. every vaulter ive ever met, including myself, had problems their first year b/c they were afraid to plant and push the pole, thinking it would keep them out of the box. well, poles are made to bend, and if you can get comfortable quickly, you'll have a head start.

[osjb44]

Whats plyometrics?

[nikegirl07]

its a bunch of jumping exercises, for example, like jumping on one leg in a square and then switch. its used to improve ur explosion at the take off and it also helps you jump higher

[osjb44]

would frog jumps apply, when i got in trouble one of my coaches made me do those till i couldn't walk

[SweetPVJumps]

my coach emphasizes core work a lot. yeah you need strong upperbody, but not as much as you need strong core. (bending the pole is more about speed and good takeoff, not using massive body builder arms to crush the pole) so if you need to do strengthening, do v-ups, crunches, medicine ball throws where you keep your arms straight, and if you have a bar and gravity boots, inverted v-ups. just throughout the year try to do maybe two days a week of just total core work to get it strong and ready for vaulting. thats all i got for now.

[osjb44]

I'd rather do stuff like that then go to the gym and lift weights

[sphs_pole_vaulter]

you really have to be in shape to pv. as you know its not gonna be easy there are many different skills that you have to aquire that will help you over the bar. You really have to be flexible and you have to be FAST! with out speed you wont get anywhere. i just recently started this year and it took me awhile to get the hang of it but now im getting better. thee two MAJOR things you need are speed and upper body strength. If you want to get a head start go to a local gym, lift some wights and then run work on your endurance because it will help you out alot.
Good Luck!

[vault3rb0y]

You are going to want to make sure you have good body coordination and awareness before you start vaulting. That will build your confidence and speed your progress like nothing else. So go have fun on a skateboard, trampoline, high bar, any gymnastics manuevers this summer. To start vaulting you want to be fast, strong, coordinated, confident, and pretty much insane!