am i doing enough?

[sulli818]

This is my second year pole vaulting, as a junior, but really this is my first year taking it seriously (in the previous year i was a distance runner as well). recently i have started increasing my protein and calorie intake. I have also started to lift weights every other day with sprints on the days in between. I pole vault, work on my core, and do plyos daily, plus the lifting or sprinting (also i dont know if this matters, but i swim in the mornings for my school team everyday Monday through Friday).

my sprint workouts usually consist of:
10M dashes
20M dashes
30M dashes
40M dashes
Sleds

(i usually only do sleds 1 time a week because i have limited access to them)

The lifts i have been doing are:
Deadlift (Romanian and stiff leg)
bench
squat
bent over row
military press
pull-ups

The core Workouts:
power wheel
crunches
side crunches
planks
bubkas

plyos:
standing long jumps
vertical leaps
depth jumps
ice skaters
triple jumps

(keep in mind i don't do all of these exercises, everyday, this is just a comprehensive list of all of my exercises)

i try to eat at least 220 grams of protein daily. At 6'4 and 168 pounds i think that this is right around the correct amount of protein, considering i should be eating 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight daily. I make sure to take a protein shake when i wake up and before i go to bed, as well as before and after a workout. However basically what id like to ask is am i doing enough, or maybe enough isn't the right word. Am i doing the right exercises? Also, am i eating enough protein or should i try and bump it up to the full 1.5 grams which would be 252g protein per day?

[VaultPurple]

Usually I am a big fan of the weight room for anyone over the age of 16. But in your case, being 6'4 with a pr of 9', strength training is your last concern. Right now you just need to find time to pole vault and figure out what you are doing.

But seeing as you will probably still do some weights, that all sounds pretty good.

[sulli818]

that pr is old its now about 10' thank you though

[altius]

"Right now you just need to find time to pole vault." The most accurate understatement ever posted on this site. I do not want to be rude to the young person concerned because clearly they do not have access to a coach, but it is difficult to believe that this level of ignorance about training for the pole vault still exists.

[sulli818]

"Right now you just need to find time to pole vault."

True, however time when I CANT pole vault can be put to better use lifting and sprinting. This wouldn't change however high i'm vaulting. Also, you seem to think i lift and sprint just for pole vault, but i would do this either way, just to look better and be healthier.


“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
-Mark Twain

[Andy_C]

"Right now you just need to find time to pole vault."

True, however time when I CANT pole vault can be put to better use lifting and sprinting. This wouldn't change however high i'm vaulting. Also, you seem to think i lift and sprint just for pole vault, but i would do this either way, just to look better and be healthier.


“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
-Mark Twain

It's great to see enthusiasm but please always have it in the back of your mind that sadly, in this event catastrophic accidents do happen. I don't think Mark Twain ever pole vaulted because ignorance coupled with confidence roughly translates to, "I want to get hurt" in pole vault literature.

As for your question, when you absolutely cannot pole vault your time is best spent on doing anything technically relevant especially at your level. Go do gymnastics, long jump or run/plant with the pole - there's a million things posted on this site. Sprinting is good but it only improves raw speed. And raw speed only has marginal improvements if your technique does not improve as well. Additionally, a pure focus on raw speed (and strength and power for that matter) can be detrimental on the pole vault technique. For instance, too much weight training can make the muscle tone rigid/inflexible, put the body tension balance out of whack and subsequently degrade the posture and mobility. Without getting overly technical, it will "decondition" you from the ideal balance of posture, tension, mobility and strength. Yes it will make you stronger, but your body will not be able to move the way it needs to if you overdo it. Add to that the very real possibility that you can get hurt if you do too much! An extensive weight training program for pole vault should be done by or under the direction of a person with a lot of experience in the subject. Also, too much sprinting can also disrupt a proper pole vault run. Keep in mind, your body will remember what you repeat often. If you're going to sprint all the time then you're going to run like that all the time. Consider that the run up in the pole vault is much much more like the long jump as opposed to a sprint. The dynamics of the PV run up is different from a pure sprint, so don't treat the two like the same thing. The best coaches that I know will isolate two aspects of speed training as "raw speed" and "runway speed." It's a balancing act of getting the athlete to be faster while making that speed effective on the runway. For beginners, it should be a focus on runway speed - being able to do the run up in a technically effective manner which will lead to consistency, confidence and eventually aggression and verve. This will build a foundation that can sustain you as you get faster with more raw speed in the future. Unfortunately, I think you are trying to build a pyramid backwards.

Right now you should be exhausting every avenue trying to get to vault on a regular basis. If there is no reasonable means of pole vaulting then again anything technically relevant is good. Running and plant pole drills should be priority: borrow a pole or buy a cheapo pole or buy something else and bring it to the track. There's a truckload of things you can do for the run and plant posted all over this forum. Sand vaulting is also a viable alternative if you have access to a pole but no pit. Then gymnastics would come next and there's another truckload of stuff you can sink your teeth into there. Long jump would be after that and it should be accessible everywhere. It's a big, long list before you hit weight training and sprinting down at the bottom for you!

And for looking better and being healthier, regular training will do great things for you. By the way, how old are you? If you're in high school there is plenty of time to bulk up if that's something that you want to do. However if you do not build a solid foundation in your technique now, it will be extremely difficult later on to improve.

All the best.

-Andrew

P.S. While sprinting and weight lifting may give you the physique of a human Andronis, it's going to look quite silly if the symbol of masculinity gets shown up by a little 5'4" gymnast girl who jumps 13ft+!
If you're very concerned about image I think at some point you may come to a cross-road where you will either stick with the pole vault or become a bodybuilder/cross trainer/physique trainer/whatever. It may look like a bit of a glamor sport but the pole vault is a very technical event. I'm not sure if that's exactly what you are looking for. If you're fine with your current course then of course you can keep going (just stay safe). Vaulting is fun, it's good exercise and it makes for an interesting hobby. But if you want dramatically huge results I think you need a change of direction. It all depends on what you really want but just always keep in mind that you can't always have everything.

[sulli818]

I'm 16, and I don't plan on vaulting in college or beyond that. i have a coach that i could get to 3 times a week, at most. But realistically i might be able to get there once a week, just because of money and time. He thinks i could get to 14ft by next season, if i keep up with his program, but i cant. So i'm trying to do the best with what i can. plus there are so many things id like to do its hard to just drop everything and pole vault, i love to run cross country, i'm a martial artist, i still would like to run distance in track, i swim competitively, and if i had the time i would play volleyball as well. And thats just sports.

[Polevaulter2012]

distance and pole vault dont go together. Why dont you want to continue to vault in College?

[sulli818]

its not that i wouldn't want to so much as, i probably wouldn't get high enough to vault in college and make the team.

[rainbowgirl28]

You sound like a really well-balanced kid. As everyone else said, your strength and speed are clearly not the issue with your pole vaulting. The only thing that is going to make you pole vault higher is by practicing pole vaulting, sand vaulting, pole runs, and other pole vault specific things.

There's nothing wrong with doing a lot of different sports and not wanting to vault in college. Pole vault doesn't have to be your whole life. It is a really important thing for most people here, so the advice you're going to get is going to assume that your number one goal in life at the moment is to vault as high as possible.

Enjoy being young. When you get older it's hard to find the time and energy to do as many activities as you are now. Accept that you probably won't vault as high as if you focused 100% of your attention on it, but that's OK, there's nothing wrong with that. You can still study the event and continue to improve

If you want to run cross country and run distance that's fine. You won't be able to maximize your speed in the pole vault if you do, but currently your speed is not what's holding you back, it's your technique, so there's no reason to have to choose between two things you like.

[sulli818]

i have already dropped long distance track, for polevault...i dont want to stop XC too because, it would look bad on a college app to run 3 years then quit my senior year.

[VaultPurple]

i have already dropped long distance track, for polevault...i dont want to stop XC too because, it would look bad on a college app to run 3 years then quit my senior year.

Do cross country if you wanna do cross country. But don't use college applications as an excuse to keep doing it. All they see is a kid that spent 4 years doing a lot of sports. The majority of schools look no farther than the GPA and SAT unless those are low. But if you apply with a 4.5 and 2000 they just click accepted and don't read anything else.