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KB mentioned in another post that strength to weight ratio is the key factor, not just strength itself. I have also seen in other articles mention the strength to weight ratio as being the key element in developing speed. I recently gained about 10 pounds over the summer (went from 170 to 180) and am about 6' tall. I'm not the fastest kid in the world, and I feel like a lot of my strength is not applied explosively (in the running, jumping, and in general). I'm running at around 6% body fat, and probably can't lose tons of weight, but I'm wondering if anyone (particularly KB) knows how to lean out a bit, while increasing the explosiveness of the muscle I have now (particularly in the legs). I know that doing more aerobic exercise would lean me out some, but if I'm not mistaken, that develop my muscles in the wrong manner (slow twitch). Thoughts?

Also, if losing weight is not the way to go, what can I do to become more quick and explosive without gaining additional weight.

Current leg workouts:
Monday: Squats and Lunges
Tuesday: Cleans and Dead Lifts; Plyos and abs
Thursday: Squats and Lunges; Plyos and abs
Friday: Cleans and Dead Lifts

IAmTheWalrus wrote:KB mentioned in another post that strength to weight ratio is the key factor, not just strength itself. ... I recently gained about 10 pounds over the summer (went from 170 to 180) and am about 6' tall ... probably can't lose tons of weight, but I'm wondering if anyone (particularly KB) knows how to lean out a bit, while increasing the explosiveness of the muscle I have now (particularly in the legs). I know that doing more aerobic exercise would lean me out some, but if I'm not mistaken, that develop my muscles in the wrong manner (slow twitch). Thoughts?

Also, if losing weight is not the way to go, what can I do to become more quick and explosive without gaining additional weight.

Wally, for you, at your age, I think losing weight IS the way to go. I'm assuming you're not still growing taller. If you gained 10 lbs in the last year, figure out how you gained it, where on your body it went, and get rid of it! Reverse the process! "Probably can't lose tons of weight"? You should be able to lose those 10 lbs, for sure! It's definitely going to hurt your vaulting!

Take a look at the body types of elite vaulters and gymnasts. It's no coincidence that they're all strong and LEAN!

I don't consider myself a diet specialist or a weight-lifting specialist. I can tell you, tho, that at 6-0 173 lbs my build was heavier than most elite vaulters.

High reps and low weights is a general recommendation. Or if you have a body type that bulks up no matter what you do in the weight room, then stay off the weights altogether. It's not THAT critical to vault high.

Stay away from deserts and second helpings. Whenever I was faced with a temptation to take in more calories than I knew I needed, I always thought about how much sweat I'd need to shed to burn the calories up. In one sense, I purposely kept my calorie intake down, but I made sure I ate a balanced diet to support my heavy training. I also joined the wrestling team in the sauna quite often (they were VERY weight concious, as they had to pass their weigh-ins), just to shed some extra sweat. Again, it was so much easier to reduce my intake than to waste time in a sauna, so I was motivated to keep trim.

In terms of your weight program, I'm wondering why you're even lifting at all? Why not just stick to gymnastics?

I know these comments are all a little too general to help you much. I hope someone more knowledgeable in this area can help you.

Kirk

I know that UMBC has a pool. Swimming is excellent cross training. Start to do some 50m freestyle and butterfly (maybe 3 times a week, 4-5 repetitions of each on ALTERNATE days, 15 minutes of rest in between each repetition). You'll burn the fat pretty fast and gain lean muscle!

And good old fashioned sit ups don't really hurt either. (Well, they can if you do enough, but you know what I mean!) Plus, the chicks dig nice abs.

Do a little Fartlek running every once in a while. Go do a 1 or 2k through the woods (street works too I guess) once or twice a week. It will help you build a little endurance for competitions and practice, but is not serious enough to cause your stride to be ruined or develop your muscles into a marathon runner's. Bubka did plenty of Fartlek running. (He also used the sauna!)

Ok, thanks guys. I have been trying to lose weight (in fact every season since I started college I've dropped at least 5 pounds between Christmas and February), mainly through caloric restriction and attempting to control insulin release in my body, in addition to working out really hard at practice. Unfortunately, I can't drop the lifting routine, as it is mandated for practice, but I think my coach has a good head on his shoulders, and I don't think he plans on making me a bodybuilder. I do really like the swimming idea, and will definitely do that. Also, I haven't found a place to do high bar drills yet, but we DO have a rope. Do you guys think that will work well enough as a substitute? Thanks for the help guys!

P.S. I miss double stuff oreos

Some guys just gain muscle mass easier than others. I had a teammate about your build and I coached another guy that was a similar size.

You do not want to be doing high reps low weight in the weight room, that's not going to help you vault higher. It sounds like you don't have a gymnastics room either. The rope can be very good. Can you climb it upside down? If not, work on it!

Talk to your coach and see what he thinks. Maybe you can substitute med ball and dumbbell exercises for some of the heavier lifts (try doing squats while holding a 45lb plate above your head with straight arms, for example). Maybe you can cut back to 2-3 days a week of leg strength.

The biggest thing you can do is go lighter on the weight, keep the reps the same, and really work on explosiveness and speed on each exercise. If you can't keep perfect form and explosiveness on each exercise, drop the weight even more.

And again, communicate with your coach about all of this. Tell him you do not think that your raw strength is the problem, and that you don't want to get any heavier, but that you want to get more explosive and a stronger strength to body weight ratio. Hopefully he will understand that every athlete is different.

And yeah, you will have to be like a girl and watch what you eat. Don't restrict the calories too much, but make sure you are putting good stuff in. Keep the empty calories (soda, junk food, etc) away and add lots of veggies to your diet. Make sure you are getting plenty of lean proteins, healthy fats, and complex carbs. If you start running out of energy a lot, you probably need to eat more (or sleep more, or both).

Body Weight in Pole Vaulting.

Some years ago I devised a weight “ratio” per inch of body height. The first formula was for boys and men. It was based off of the top male vaulters in the US and world.

I did this because I though it was very important for safety reasons alone. Fiber glass was allowing athletes that didn’t have the speed, “strength to body mass” and basic athletic abilities to be in the sport and participate at a "ok" beginning level. Without some athletic ability and a weight to strength ratio it becomes a very unsafe sport.

One of the reasons I think “steel” pole vaulting was as safe and as good as it was, was because of the pole. I was 5-7 and 130 lbs as a 14 year old ninth grader. I jumped 9’3” on a 14 or 16 foot “BIG RED” aluminum pole. The only reason I could do that was that it simply took “something”, natural strength and athletic ability to just carry the pole down the runway. i considered myself lucky..

So many times in my career I have seen high school coaches have their first "team meeting" with the whole team gathered at his feet... and say…

“All the sprinters, (usually black) go with Coach “G” (don’t take this as racist because I am not) and some of you sprinter guys, if you are taller may want to try hurdles. All the jumpers (usually black) go with Coach Derek. You big fat guys go with Mr. Pib's our shop teach, he will coach the shot and discus. You guys (skinny white boys) go with Coach Taylor for distance running! Now... still sitting there in front of the coach is a group of boys... many shorter, all maybe a little over weight, none black!

“Hey guys, you know what? We could use some points in the pole vault.. why don’t you go down to the pit and see if you can learn to pole vault! (no coach with them of course)

So my first formula for guys/boys was 2.00 to 2.25 pounds to each inch of physical height.

This is for High school age.

For a male athlete that is 5’8” tall it is…….2.00 X 68 = 136 pounds
............................................Or 2.25 X 68 = 153 pounds max

When girls started vaulting 5’8” tall……..1.75 X 68 = 119 pounds
..................................................2.00 X 68 = 136 pounds max
...................................5’0” tall……..1.75 X 60 = 105 pounds
...................................5’0” tall……..2.00 X 60 = 120 pounds max

I think I published this in the California CIF/LA Olympic Coaches Book years ago but I don’t think the USATF safety committee has included anything of this nature in their safety information….

check my math... and give your own thoughts... ask any top vaulter you know for their height and weight when they started.. it would be nice to up date my data base.......

dj

Since we're on the subject, can someone tell me if this lifting routine is beneficial? I got this mainly from Rick Bagget's plan...

Monday
A - Squat
B- Lunges (w/ 45 lb. dumbbells)
B- One leg split squat (w/ 45 lb. dumbbells)
C- Hamstring curls


Wednesday
A- Clean
B - V-ups
C- Military press

Friday
B- Dumbbell snatch (w/ a 45 lb. dumbbell)
C- Incline press (w/ dumbbells, currently using 35 lb. dumbbells)
C- V-ups
C- Lateral Deltoid raises (face down on a bench with dumbbells, again building my way up in dumbbell weight)
C- Back extensions (face down)
C- Back extensions (face up)

A= 8x3 Heavy (70% body weight) 105lb
B= 5x8 Medium (60% body weight) 90lb
C= 3x10 Light (50% body weight) 75lb

Where is the peak strength to weight ratio? Obviously a 120 lb kid who can't squat his own weight would be below a 180 lb person who can squat 300lbs, but what about a 220 lb person who can squat 700 lbs, they have a better strength to weight ratio, but it is not likely that there strength is of the high velocity explosive nature needed in the vault. Does anyone know at what point gains in strength are counterproductive due to the gains in bulk and presumable loss of flexibility?

Lifting:
To get the peak and/or periodizations you need to look at the entire lifting schedule. Again these routines are Basic in the sense that there are many variables to be added to the concept. So add or delete as you want but continue to get heavier, lower the reps and do them faster... don't forget gymnastics, plio's, coordination, flexibility and rehab activities.

Rick Baggett

IAmTheWalrus wrote:Where is the peak strength to weight ratio?

I gave this some thought yesterday, in regards to which athlete body-types our dieting and weight-lifting advice would apply to.

I think the simplest, most obvious answer is that if you're ABOVE the norm (of sex-specific pole vaulters or gymnasts - whomever you're comparing yourself to), then you should watch your calories and be cautious about any training that might cause you to bulk up. The opposite advice, I think, would apply to anyone BELOW the norm. That is, you can and should bulk up to the norm without worrying about your weight.

For these "skinny" athletes, they're lacking strength, and are likely to have a low-strength/low-weight ratio, so should do more weight-training (or gymnastic movements) to increase their strength - and shouldn't worry about adding a few pounds.

Note that the "norm" doesn't apply to the norm of all gymnasts or all PVers. Rather, it applies to the norm of ELITE athletes to whom you aspire to emulate. They're the ones that have defined the "ideal strength-to-weight ratio".

What are these numbers? For male PVers, look no further than the weights and heights of vaulters in the 6-meter club here: http://polevaultpower.com/6mclub.php

This table doesn't actually show their STRENGTH to weight ratio, as STRENGTH is still unkown - it's not readily available from the table. So instead, we look at HEIGHT to weight ratio. IMHO, it's not as revealing of a ratio as strength-to-weight, but it's all that we have right now. It might be more desirable to compare the sum of their PRs of certain Olympic lifts, and maybe bench press as well. But that data's not available, so we just use height instead.

Keep in mind that height-to-weight ratio is only one attribute of an elite athlete. For example, it says nothing about speed down the runway or gymnastic coordination. And it's only CLOSELY (but not exactly) related to STRENGTH-to-weight. Explosive speed and flexibility are also related, important attributes - as you mentioned.



This line of thinking is based on "natural selection, or survival of the fittest" (Darwin, Spencer). These athletes may not have PERFECT strength to weight ratios, but it's highly likely that they have VERY GOOD S-W ratios! Enough to "survive" above "the competition".

You will notice that I've added our heights and weights to the table, for comparison. I think it's best to narrow the comparison down to elite vaulters of a similar height. In that comparison, we fare not too badly. Even this year, you're lighter (for your height) than Burgess. Last year, we were both lighter (for our height) than Bubka, Markov, and Galfione!

Again, don't read TOO MUCH into this. I think what it says is that you're not "out of range" in comparison to 6-meter club members! So there's hope for you in joining that club yet! Ha! Ha!

I would be interested to hear what y'all think of these metrics. To me, the range is surprisingly wide. It tells me that you can be anywhere within this range and still jump 6.00m. But it also tells me that if you're outside of this range, then you have some serious work ahead of you (either bulk up or trim down) if you ever hope to "join the club"!

Kirk

how much can you accualy lift ie. squat, bench, clean

Alot is strength to weight ratio, expecially for explosiveness.

Like if you have ever seen Allison Felix routein from high school she only ever did like 2 or 3 reps of as much weight as possiable, like 350lb and she was like 120lb. After a season of training like this she barely gained any weight but her maxes went up a lot.

Yes, I would like to contribute to this too.
Last year, I was unofficially 5'5" 121- But I squated 225.
Now I'm about 5'7" 131. However, I made little improvement with only a 245 squat.

I'm actually looking to drop around 125-128, but planning on throwing discus as well, so a little confused on whether the weight can be a good thing or not.