Strength vs. Technique

[cormanac]

I am very curious as to what other coaches say about Strength vs. Technique in the pole vault.

As we all know, the pole vault takes a lot of strength, proper technique, and a strong mental attitude. At which point does the technical training need to be lessen so that overall strength can occur so the vaultor may perform the technical skills with more ease? Or, more bluntly, how high above the hold should a vaultor vault before they should focus on strength increases?

Dilemas - high school versus college programs, age of athletes, experience level of athletes, gender(?), yearly programs, seasonal programs, and many more!

Ideally, I believe in the off season and pre-season of collegiate programs are great times to work on building strength, but strength is also developed throughout the year by vaulting and as the athlete gets older.

I am very curious as to what other coaches have to say about their programs, successes, and beliefs. Thank you in advance.

[souleman]

This may or may not help, but..............I am 54 years old and those that have seen me jump say that I'm strong enough to do it right. Trouble is, I can't....(or haven't figured out yet) how to do it right. I would concentrate on technique by all means during jumping season, however long that might be. For me it starts in January with the indoor season and competitively it will end about the beginning of September. I will keep jumping somewhat till the snow flys. There are times during the year that strength building should be the focus of all of your athlete's efforts. I basically look at it as two seasons. "weight room season" and "vaulting season". During weight room season the focus is on strength. During that time the athletes should do (as fun stuff and over and above the grunt work of lifting weights) pool vaulting, trampoline work, rope work, etc. During vaulting season, the athlete's focus is activities with a pole in his or her hands and focus on the technique of the event with a maintenance schedule in the weight room. I hope you understand what I'm saying here. If you don't I'd be happy to discuss further in a PM. Later...........Mike

[cormanac]

Thank you!
This does help a little. After I posted this last night, thought I would provide a little more depth to my question. The reason I am asking this is that I work with both High School age athletes and College age athletes in my area. I tend to have a lot more success with college athletes than I do with my high school athletes. I am wondering why.
Granted I have my college athletes on a yearly cycle of strength, speed, power, and technical improvement and only see the high school athletes during indoor and outdoor seasons. These HS athletes are involved in a multitude of other sports during the year though. I also tend to think that the technical components I am asking the HS athletes maybe too difficult for them due to general strength and body control. Therefore, I feel as if I am doing something wrong as I do not see them reaching their potential and just need some help.
How have other coaches been able to help their athletes out when they have gotten to this point?

[ADTF Academy]

For me this depends on the training age of the athlete your talking about.


Very early in their training age. (notice I said training age and not actual age. How long have they been working with the vault). My opinion is you will benefit their overall vaulting career by focusing on technique and general strength. THE CORE. Most young vaulters/football players. Want to simply spend their time in the weight room.

As a college coach myself and talking with numerous colleagues. In the US the majority of the time once in college the main focus is on getting stronger and faster and less time is spent on technique. (why this is well it just depends on the coach). The main reason for this in my opinion is that college coaches are not stupid they realize that if you can run faster you can create my kinetic energy and can potential hold and jump higher. Is this right or wrong thats another topic for another day.

When I look at young vaulters whom I am recruiting I look more for the basics and their ability to perform them then in how high they can go. As many of us coaches know you can do a lot of things wrong and still jump high.

As an athlete as they mature in actual age and training age they will naturally get stronger and faster. If they improve these two to earlier in my opinion to quickly they might not be able to handle the force and energy they are creating their vault will suffer more than it will improve.

The more energy you can put into the pole the more the dynamics of the vault change.


To cut this short. Look at your athletes training age. If they are in the first lets say 1-2 years of training with the vault focus on technique. 2-4 blend the two and then once 5+ the focus will switch to more speed and strength.


Though all the areas should be hit along the way. Having a 9th grader in his first year ever vault doing power squats @90% max wouldn't be a great idea. Not enough coaches that I have been around or observed spend enough time doing general strength work with the young vaulters.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

I've coached high school kids for about 20 years off and on and now coach D1 ladies. There is a hugh difference between high shcol kids and just a year or so later when they become collegiate athletes in body development, strength, and mental attitude. For the high school athletes especially girls I have not been very successful in getting them into a weight room with a serious attitude. But the act of vaulting builds strength to a significant degree. So we jump more jumps in high school than we do as collegians. Additionally, the (at least at UT) folks in the weight room have a SERIOUS weight training program. It seems that they are increasing weight all throughout the year up until the championship season arrives, then they move to a "maintenance" program to just keep them where they are. I have modified my vault practices to accomodate the weight schedule. For example they do heavy legs and full body stuff on Tue. We jump on Tue. So on Tue we work primarily on technique. Some times we have to move to small poles to get down the runway. So rule of thumb is when tired and sore do techniques/mechanics. On Sunday and sometimes on Thur we go for height/technique/mechanics.....and as the year progresses we limit our jumps to a small number of quality jumps..hope this is helpful.