Vaulting in the Big Leagues

Alright guys, I guess I didn’t introduce myself in my first post. I did it in my profile so here’s what I wrote:

“I’m Forrest the coolest mentor at PatriotPV. I’m going to Washington University in St Louis. I’m majoring in biology with maybe a double in something called Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology. It’s cool. All I do is vault. And maybe play some frisbee with my floor once in awhile. I expect this year to be very informative.”

For pole vault, Coach Lane started me out on 1 Left, and I moved back to 2 and now finally 3 lefts. Here’s the stats for that:

1 Left- runway mark: 13’6″; pole: 11’130; grip: 10? ish

2 Lefts- runway mark: 26’6″; pole: 13’145; grip: 11’11″ PR with bar: 11′

3 Lefts- runway mark: 38’3″; pole: 13’160; grip: 12’2″

Ok. So now I’m gonna try to explain one of the key things I’ve learned since I started vaulting, and that’s how to drive the chest. I’m kinda tentative to tell you without being there to show you because it is a weird thing. The way I was planting before, with the arm up right next to the ear, does not actually allow the shoulder joint to be loose enough to drive the chest. Try pushing your arm back from that plant position, it moves a little but then stops. Now, instead pretend to plant so that your arm is at a 30 degree angle with the side of your head. Now the shoulder opens up and the arm can be pushed back. This allows the chest to drive. Ok, but you can’t plant off to the side right? This part is tricky. While keeping the arm in this relative position, you need to move it to a higher position instead of to the side. To do this, basically you stretch the right side of the abs and lats, and really reach up (but do not move your arm from the shoulder joint). Left hand does not do too much at the plant, I dont think.  This should be similar to if you hang from a rope by your top hand, COMPLETELY relaxing everything except your hand.  Your hand needs to grab the rope so dont relax it.  Then just put your left hand on where it would normally be, but it should be relaxed.  If you are only hanging by your top hand, you should be in a similar position to what I just described.  You should notice that the right shoulder is much higher than the left shoulder. In the same way, at the plant you should feel all of the pressure through your top hand. If you hit takeoff right, you will naturally drive the chest. Right now, I’m working on trying to get on top of a pole while it is still bent, and trying to extend from there. I’ll be back at thanksgiving to show you if you don’t get it.

Hello everyone, my name is Brian and I am a freshman on the Northeastern track team. I graduating from St. John’s Shrewsbury and intend on majoring in either athletic training or physical therapy. Here at NU i am primarily a pole vaulter and long jumper, however i might do some sprinting events, but in training i am considered a pole vaulter because vaulters are clearly the best athletes. Training so far has been pretty intense. The coaches keep telling us that because it is preseason, the way we work now will set the tone for the year and everything works on building a strong base. This means we have hard days (hills, stadium runs with prisoner squats, plyos.. etc) monday and thursday. On tuesdays and fridays we have long runs to get the junk out of our legs from the days prior, and wednesday is normally an easy day just to work on things like form. We lift Monday, Wednesday and friday, and lifting is a lot of olympic style lifts and other creative excersises working key muscles (hamstrings especially). Going along with lifting though, coach says you need to be religious about it as a pole vaulter because your base must be the best it can be for the year before event specific work starts up. This means that when the team isn’t in the wieght room, you are. What i do in the wieght room is essentially work on things that i felt were weak in the workouts and so far this has been benefitial. Apart from track, for me, college is much more  fun the high school. I find that there is less stress because you have time to do things and you dont have all your classes every day. This leaves time for meeting people, studying, and most importantly napping. One final thing that i have picked up quickly is good diet. Because they work us so hard your body uses everything it has so if you don eat properly you actually feel it through out the day and especially in the workout.

well this week started out with a pretty rough workout. (or at-least i thought so) we had to do stadiums (aka run up and down all of the stairs in the football stadium for 5 minutes) times 4. our rest was sprinting up the bleachers 3 times. since it was a short week i only lifted 2 days which was nice. wednesday we did core stuff. lots of things with medicine balls and hurdles. thursday we did event work so i got to vault. my poles have been ordered and are on their way i even get a baby 100 lb 11’6” to play with!! friday was 300m times 6. i was initially not very thrilled with this workout but by the end i wasn’t as tired as i had been weeks before so i think all this working out is actually helping.

i have two tests early this week so i have been trying to get some studying in for them. i managed to get in enough study time and still have time to dance in the rain. (yah im that cool) i think my test that i had on tuesday went pretty well but i havent gotten the grade back yet.

 as for the logistics of “being on my own” it’s not that bad. i did help sean do his laundry for the first time this week which was pretty funny because we have been here two months.

well that’s about it. i hope everyone is doing well!

? erinn

PS i saw the HUGEST crawfish on the track on friday. it was a very strange thing to see on a track

Hey im erinn. and i dont use correct capitalization or punctuation or spelling as you will soon be able to tell. i went to nashoba regional highschool and now i go to Umass amherst. i am currently undeclared. and i do TRACK! ok well now that thats overwith i will give you a brief overview of my college experience thus far. as far as academics go i am doing pretty well at this point. i have a TON of reading to do because i am in more classes than they (who they are i dont know) suggest. but it is all manageable if i stay on top of it and dont get behind. my first exam is tomorrow in my nutrition class (i am taking a break from studying to write this!!) so i hope that that goes well. so far track is awesome. i dont really know how i would have gotten used to school without it. it instantly groups you with people that you will inevitably become friends with and provides you with a sort of community. and we get really cool stuff. (ex. new shoes, clothes, a nutritionist, trainer, academic councilors, free tutors, weight coach, the list gets longer by the day) on the other hand there are a few unexpected drawbacks (shortened winter vacation) the workouts pretty much go as follows: monday: some type of interesting run workout like hills or resistance running. tuesday: core workout, hurdle drills, jump rope, sprints in the grass with no shoes. wednesday: some type of sprint workout with a 20 min cooldown run. thursday: plyometrics. friday: repeat 350m or 400m sometimes in relay form. also i go to the gym monday wednesday friday. monday is legs (squats, step ups and more fun stuff) wednesday is arms, and friday is a mix. things that i have learned about track: you will never be as sore as you are the first week, eat more than an hour before you run, running barefoot is fun, get sleep!!! i have only vaulted 2 times since i have been here but they were both enjoyable experiences. mostly just progressing from 1-3 steps. this week we are officially in pre season and can start vaulting more! ok well i am pretty sure i should keep studying so bye! i will be more indepth later!!

I’ve been doing track workouts since September 10th.  Been keeping a journal of what I’ve been doing on my laptop; it’s very useful.  We started training over 100 days before meets start, which makes workouts a bit easier than I expected.  So far, Mondays are usually 200′s at around 36.5 seconds each with 2 minutes 23.5 seconds recovery (each cycle is 3 minutes total).  We started off running 8 and we’re at 11 now.  Tuesday is hills, each one is about 150 meters (about), and maybe 15% incline.  Wednesday 20 minute run.  Thursday I’m not quite sure, I have lab that day.  Friday is 100′s in about 13.5 seconds with each cycle being 1 minute (abou 46.5 seconds rest).  We have worked from 8 to 11 reps now.  I had my first vault session this Friday instead of the 100s.  My coach is Lane Lohr, who vaulted 18’8 before and is apparently good.  I have learned some new ways to think about the vault, but I want to make sure I’m right before I relay the knowledge.  So its coming.  Class is not bad, I took a hard schedule in high school, so it seems pretty much the same.  I only have 5 classes (1 is a lab), so there’s a lot of spare time I need to manage.  Had my first chemistry test, which I hear is a weed out class for pre-med people.  Average was 64 and I got 82.  It was cool, studied pretty hard for it.  Thats it I have more tests coming up.