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the trainers said that i probably just pulled a muscle, and i hope theyre right, but it really hurts and i can barley more it, and i have a huge limp.

this is the first time ive ever really been hurt enough where i couldnt vault. ill tell the story, and hopefully someone can help me.

im a college freshman male. since we cant practice pole vaulting during indoor, and since i always barrow a new pole every meet, and since our school is always late, i always come in at the lowest height so i can get some easy runs in for practice. well it started at 7 feet, i was feeling great, i got a 12'4 165 pole. 30 lbs over my weight, but it felt great! another school's coach said i was a good 5-6 feet over the 7' bar. but on 7'6 and 8' my quadricept started hurting. on 8'6 i barely made it down the runway, it hurt so bad. and on 9'0 i didnt make it to the box, because of the pain. so i told the ref that i was passing untill 12 feet. i figured i could ice it up, stretch it out and try one more jump. well i ran through the pain, but i couldnt run full speed and i missed. i had 2 more attempts, but i had to quit.

now im just wondering what happend. how did i pull my quad? before i jumped, i did a bunch of stretches by myself, then the team jogged 3 laps, then we stretched together, and then i went right to the pole vault event. why did this happen? how can i prevent this from happening again? how long will it take for the pain to go away? should i be doing more than just icing it?

thanks everybody!
-miller

You need to do dynamic stretches like sprint drills and leg swings before you vault.

but ive polevaulted alittle in 11th grade, and my whole senior year, and never ever had any problems except for shin splints. and i do the same stretches now than i did back then, probably more. im wondering how/why it happend. what if this happens at every meet.

MillerTime wrote:but ive polevaulted alittle in 11th grade, and my whole senior year, and never ever had any problems except for shin splints. and i do the same stretches now than i did back then, probably more. im wondering how/why it happend. what if this happens at every meet.

So what you're telling me is you've been doing it wrong for the past couple years, got lucky and did not get hurt until now

i guess but why that day though. ive done 30 vaults in a practice before with no probs. and saturday, my leg started hurting on my 3rd vault. it dont make no sense!

Hhey, this is like me: No problems until Last (er, 2 saturdays) ago, where on my third jump my hamdstring barely above my knee just started to hurt. I managed to get like 9'3", but still, it was disappointing.

Today, I ran on it in like the first time since then (aside from a pool workout and some weight room stuff) and it started to hurt again...