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Does anyone have a good three day a week workout for a college pole vaulter? The one for my track team doesn't include much upper body so I'm looking for one specific for vaulters.

You don't need much upper body strength to pole vault. Spend more time on your snatch, squat, and core.

You don't need much upper body strength to experience a taste of pole vaulting, but you DO need as much upper body strength as possible to jump high and be competitive. Barto is right about the core, which by the way, is UPPER body. Your weight training should be determined by the time of year it is. Build your base strength in the off season then taper to a power based work-out as the season unfolds. You can ask your coach or strength trainer about some personalized work-outs since most will shun outside advice. Just keep in mind that tendon and ligament strength has got to be improved before you try to power up with any balistic movements.

How do you increase tendon strength? That's one of my problems, I have tendonitis in the elbow. If I could strengthen that it'd be great.

OK, think about it like this. I like to keep it simple. If you can hang from a high bar/rope/rings and support your own body weight, you obviously have some tendon strength as well as muscle strength. But....You have to think about the amount of force you put on those tendons, ligaments and muscles when you're actually hanging on a pole and swinging through to inversion. Are your joints ready for that?
Some lucky people, genetically, have the joint strength to support a tremendous weight load and move that load through various speeds. The rest of us have to overload those joints through strength training. You DO NOT have to be huge to be extremely strong, you just have to have some strong attachments.
If your joints are to be strengthened, you have to subject them to some weights they have never experienced before, through several ranges of motion. You WILL need a partner to assist you, as you probably already have on your team during weight sessions.
Think about the muscles and joints involved in vaulting.....Ankles, Knees, Hips, Vertibrae, Shoulders. What are the most sport-specific exercises you could do to build those load bearing joints? As for the elbow, what ranges of motion can you go through without pain, or at least, extreme pain? Load through those motions.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I have a 3-day a week weight workout that includes; cleans, push press, bench, squats, front squats etc. It’s a program I use with my vaulters and weight class. It's planned out for January to June with a lot of variation in its percentages and types of lifts. I don’t know how to post it here but I could e-mail it to you!

That sounds like a lot of the basics that you wanna hit. Squats, power cleans, snatch, all that kind of stuff. As pole vault is a whole body event, you do indeed want to train your whole body. What Barto is saying, I think, is that you don't need to load up on the bicep curls to be a good pole vaulter. One should however, be able to do a lot of pull ups, windshield wipers, body curls, that kind of stuff. The stonger your 'posterior chain' can be (hamstrings, clutes, erector spinae, and traps) the more power you will be able to produce.

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). It is more beneficial especially for us because we have such a wide variety of positions that we put ourselves in.

Hopefully this helps, if you want some specific idea about weight training, or numbers that you should be lifting, send me an email at sodyvaults@hotmail.com and I will help you out more.

work shoulders, back, chest and tris...good gains in strength here will definately help come time to vault.

At the stage most pole vaulters are at both in vaulting and athletically overall, I saw work on the core is by far the most benificial. You'll become faster and stronger throughout and will be a better athlete in general. Faster runway = high heights.

I stick with clean/squat/bench if I'm at the bare minimum.

I have to agree that the core should be a number one factor in the weight room, it is easy to neglect but possibly the most important. I agree also that a huge amount of upper body strength is not neccessary to accomplish a vault, but only if your technique is near perfect. I also know that NOBODY out there hits a perfect vault everytime and often times the difference between a make and a miss coming off a less than perfect plant or run is determined by whether you are strong enough to realign yourself and give yourself a shot at the bar. I know I have had some key clearances when I did some horrible things at the plant and takeoff but still managed to 'muscle' my way over the bar. The strength comes in handy when everything isn't perfect off the ground. I can't ever recall a coach saying, "man, now that guy would be a great pole vaulter if only he weren't so strong!!" I say get your technique as near perfect as possible and get yourself as strong as possible for those jumps when your technique, well, sucks.

the only thing i do is the lift that where you have a piece of wood with a rope tied to the middle, and on the end of the rope is a 10lb weight, i hold it straight out and spin the wood around so the rope spins around it lifting the weight through my amazing spinage, i build gy-normous popeye arms... man, if ya can't grip the pole, whatduhyagot??