Follow me on my journey to 16'

[pursuit16]

Hi i am a senior in high school, with a current personal best of 13' 6". I have made the decision to pursuit a height of 16' by the end of my high school career and i am inviting YOU to help me get there.

First off: why 16 feet?
There is simply no reason other than that being, in my mind, an achievable goal. I will certainly work to get better if i achieve this and plan on improving on this throughout my college career.

What am I looking for?
Anything. If i can get any input along the way it will be greatly appreciated. I know i can do this, but i will need help. I have pretty good strength and speed coachs, but they are always open for some input, so anything from how im training to how im vaulting can be worked on.

I will be posting on here every day explaining my workout, how im jumping, how im progressing, and current goals. I will not make any long term goals in this process, because i need to look at making day to day improvements, and ignore the big picture. 16 feet is not a set in stone goal, but is a guideline. right now im focused on the next PR, the next meet, and the next pole. I will try to post videos of my jumps as well.

[rainbowgirl28]

Tell us about yourself... height, weight, what poles you've used, do you have access to a club? a coach? bigger poles? are you vaulting indoors? etc!

[pursuit16]

So far:
I have been training hard since the beginning of september and have had one competition so far. I jumped a disappointing 13' 6" to tie my PR from last year.
Right now, the current poles i jump on from each run are:
4L 13' 6" 160
5L 14' 150 (havent jumped 5L since summer)
7L 14' 160

I weigh about 145-150lbs. My typical vault practice looks something like this:
jog/dynamic warm up
4-5 4L vaults
7L vaults until tired

I usually take a few jumps on a 14' 155 and then move onto a 14' 160. THis pole has been giving me a lot of trouble but i have gained more and more confidence on it and recently cleared my first couple bars on it.

Right now i am trying to focus on getting my take-off around 11'. I currently take off around 10' to 10' 2" which is under (13' 7" grip). Hopefully, in doing this, i will be able to start working onto 15' poles. I hope to either get onto a 14' 165 and then onto a 15' 145 (depending on how the 15' will feel) or right to the 15' 145 it feels just as soft as the 160 so if i can get that take off out, I should have no problems with it. My next vault practice is this wednesday, so i will fill you guys in on how that goes.

[pursuit16]

I just covered the poles that I have been jumping on.
about me:
5' 10"
145lbs
12s 100m time (approx. because i havent run an official 100m)
I vault with a club year round (indoors for dec, jan, feb, outdoors for the rest)
I have access to basically any 14' or 15' pole id need.
I compete for both the indoor and outdoor seasons and have anywhere from 7-10 meets left this indoor season depending if i can hit some qualifying marks.

[pursuit16]

i had my first practice since starting this post today. things went pretty well. I was intending to try to get a workout in today but my coaches decided that it will be tomorrow (which ill make up on thursday because i have vault practice w/ another coach). All we did today was an easy 20 minute run, 12 minute abs, and an pretty light weight room workout. Any day that I have to go on longer runs is pretty disappointing to me (unless its recovery from a tough workout the day before). I feel like i really dont get anything out of them.

On the other hand, the abs went pretty well. It was definately the toughest ab workout of the season and i pushed through it with out slowing down.

Lifting was pretty light, but that was by my own descretion. The coaches just said to get 3 upper body and 3 lower body lifts in. Usually ill do more than they say and sometimes ill break it up and do uppers one day and lowers the next day so i can get more in. I have vault practice tomorrow and didnt want to be too sore so i did the following:

2 x 15 squats (135lb)
2 x 15 bench (115lbs)
2 x 15 hamstring curls (70lbs)
2 x 30 quick feet on a 6" box
2 x 15 sitting shoulder press (65lbs)
2 x 10 pull ups

I understand these numbers are all very small, but i took it pretty easy to feel fresh for vaulting tomorrow. Ill try to post my lifts sometime after i actually hit the weightroom pretty hard so you can have some sort of idea of where im at.

Next meet is this saturday and im really looking forward to vaulting tomorrow so i can work on moving the takeoff out. It seems like whenever im trying to make changes to my vault i get even more excited about it than usual

[pursuit16]

so vaulting yesterday didnt go as well as planned, but thats ok. I still managed to start pushing my step back to around 10' 4" from 4L (13' 1" grip). I took a little too long to move back to 7L and couldnt really get in a rhythm. I think it was mostly because i was a little slow cause it had been a little while since i got a quality speed workout in. the run was a little inconsistant too, but thats mostly due to the fact that i was tryin to make up for a lack off speed. Only jumped on the 14' 155, which its the first practice in a while that i didnt at least make an attempt to move up to the 160. Pretty disappointed but at least i took some stuff away from it. I got some good work with my take off from 4L and came to the realization that i need to make sure im getting more speed work in. All in all, i feel ready for my next meet this saturday and will hopefully produce some good results.

As for today, sprints on the track and a little bit of weightroom.
10 x 100m accelerating up to about 95% over the first 40m. jog 100m inbetween.

weightroom:
2 x 15 bench (115, 125)
2 x 15 deadlift (115, 125)
2 x 15 incline bench (45lb dumbells)
2 x 15 squats (135, 145)
2 x 15 bent rows (25lb db, 35lb db)

weights are still ehhh but it was pretty high reps so im not too upset.

tomorrows gonna be a nice 20 min recovery run with a real good stretch at the end and then saturdays the meet. My only real goal for saturday is just to make sure i take good attempts at each height and if i do that, the heights will come.

[pursuit16]

Meet was cancelled due to weather, so i wasnt able to compete yesterday. i ended up taking the day off. I had vault practice today which went really well. I started off blowing through my usual 4L pole. After maybe 3 jump i went back to 7L, took all of one jump on the 14' 155 and moved up to the 160. 5 or 6 more jumps on that and i figured id give the 15' 145 a try. I had my coach give me a tap on the first two and got in pretty well. Third time was without a tap and i kinda stalled out but it wasnt bad. I tried to swing through but it jusyt wasnt feeling right. I felt like the take off was flat so i moved back down to the 160 to try to work on getting vertical. Next meet is on thursday and im feeling really confident about my pole selection. I had my hips right up around 14' 6" on a couple jumps. Not really sure what was different from last time, I tried to get on the long run earlier so id have move good jumps. I also tried to be more patient with my cadence, other than that, just more confidence.

[achtungpv]

You should work to get back to at least 16 steps. Preferably 18 if you want a realistic shot at 16'.

[pursuit16]

I tried 16 steps a couple weeks ago for a few practices and felt like i wasnt generating any more speed but lost some consistancy. Im planning on staying at 14 for at least a couple weeks to give myself time do some speed work and work on my run up. I'll definately be back to 16 by the outdoor competition season, but i certainly could move back earlier. I was thinking that as soon as i can get comfortable with the 15' poles id move back. Thoughts?

As for practice today:
16 x 100m w/ 50m(ish) acceleration to full speed.
Squats (8,6,4,4)- 185,215,225,225
step ups onto box (3x10)- 50lb dumbells

Trying to get more repititions for my sprints to hopefully build up some endurance so i can take more jumps without getting fatigued. Everything felt good and the accelerations really seemed like theyll help cause itll teach me to be more patient with my run up when vaulting.

[vquestpvc]

Love the idea of you posting your progress to 16'. Having read these postings, I will look for more info before commenting. Maybe you'd be able to include a couple of recorded vaults? Good luck in your journey. Just don't complicate it too much.

[altius]

"As for practice today:
16 x 100m w/ 50m(ish) acceleration to full speed.
Squats (8,6,4,4)- 185,215,225,225
step ups onto box (3x10)- 50lb dumbells

Trying to get more repititions for my sprints to hopefully build up some endurance so i can take more jumps without getting fatigued. Everything felt good and the accelerations really seemed like theyll help cause itll teach me to be more patient with my run up when vaulting.[/quote]"plantig

Sorry old son but this is not the way to train if you want to be better pole vaulter. You must do far more drills - six step plant drills - walking/trotting/running/sprinting/sprinting to plant and jump - all on the track. Then 2/4/6/step take offs in the sand pit/ then at least one session 15 pole runs/planting into a towel from 16 steps.










"As for practice today:
16 x 100m w/ 50m(ish) acceleration to full speed.
Squats (8,6,4,4)- 185,215,225,225
step ups onto box (3x10)- 50lb dumbells

Trying to get more repititions for my sprints to hopefully build up some endurance so i can take more jumps without getting fatigued. Everything felt good and the accelerations really seemed like theyll help cause itll teach me to be more patient with my run up when vaulting.[/quote]"plantig

Sorry old son but this is not the way to train if you want to be better pole vaulter. You must do far more drills - six step plant drills - walking/trotting/running/sprinting/sprinting to plant and jump - all on the track. Then 2/4/6/step take offs in the sand pit/ then at least one session 15 pole runs/planting into a towel from 16 steps.

[altius]

Sorry about the repetition -but perhaps it is merited!!