Bench Press

[mstctrack]

Does anyone know of some bench press marks that elite vaulters have done? I have heard of guys benching 225lb 18 times and have heard that Scott Huffman has benched over 400lbs. Any truth to this or all rumors? Please include females in the topic as well.

[PV2020]

Most guys are pretty good. People will argue it does not 'directly correlate" with pole vault, but it is good reference of overall upper body strength.

Most of your elites that are the "big guys", that is 6+ 180 or more and jump 19' can bench close to 300 pounds or more. I could believe some much more. I have even seen some 18' guys that do not even look that big that can bench over 300 so a stocky guy like Huffman i could believe was close to 400 if he trained it. Trey Hardee was at like 365 before his elbow surgery (yes he is a decathlete).

Then there are other exceptions like Renaud who are only around 225 bench but he is a pretty small guy.

When you run full speed with a 5.00m 10cm flex pole you are transferring a lot of energy from your run, through your arms, and into the pole. If they are weak they are not going to be able to transfer all that energy.

In my opinion a small guy like Renaud is only able to do this because he locks his left elbow so much where most the other guys do not. He is also not on as stiff of poles as they are, he is just really light.

[KirkB]

My bench press PR was 415. I was known for my brute strength, and my strength-to-weight ratio. I weighed 173, and am 6-0.

Keep in mind that this was NOT a "strict" bench press where you lower the bar all the way down to your chest which is laying flat on the bench. Instead, it's a "cheater" bench press, where we pad the chest with towels and a couple inches of heavy foam, and then we arch our back. So the actual motion of executing the bench press is really just taking the weight of the bar from the 2 spotters, bending the elbows and lowering it to your arched chest (onto the pads and towels on your chest), and then raising it up again to a controlled position with both elbows straight.

When you run full speed with a 5.00m 10cm flex pole you are transferring a lot of energy from your run, through your arms, and into the pole. If they are weak they are not going to be able to transfer all that energy.

This is exactly the reason we did "cheater" bench presses, rather than strict bench presses. We did NOT want to bulk up and look like body builders. We ONLY wanted to strengthen the muscles around the shoulder area so that they could absorb the hit of the pole against the back of the box, and efficiently transfer our run-up energy into swinging energy without too much energy leakage. So we didn't need strong biceps (like ring men), we only needed wiry biceps (like highbar men). And most importantly, we needed strong SHOULDERS - not strong ARMS.

Kirk