PoleVaultPower.com

Is that you ALWAYS need a solid core. Need to keep your abs tight. One day in practice we were doing simple drills into the sand pit and I could not for the life of me get my bottom arm to stay out *I've always've had a problem with collapsing early* and could not keep my shoulders open and solid.
so my coach was finally like *after a small bit of improvement* well... your form on the runway and plant is just fine, really good in fact, but there's just something about when you're in the air that is weird... let's do that again and just try keeping your abs tight cause i think it MIGHT be that your hips are coming forward when they really shouldn't be...

so the next few times i just kept my abs *and all other core muscles* tight, and the drills came out perfectly... then i used it on my actual vault for when i hit the plant and it's really helped me improve.

so now im wondering...
since everyone always says: BE STRONG AT THE PLANT/TAKE OFF
why dont they ever mention what muscles should be activated? cause i know what all the technical things SHOULD be, but if you dont keep a hard conection to your body, you really arent going to go any where!
seemed such a simple thing for one to over look, but it is over looked so often...

It is widely accepted that rigidity at take-off is important. All muscles should be tightened at the moment the pole hits the back of the box. Actually, many eliter vaulters have their top arm slightly bent at take-off, most likely due to tension. This way, more energy is usable. If you are loose at take-off/pole strike, then energy will be sucked up and wasted.

I have a feeling that yes strength is very important at take off however in my opinion, i feel like one needs to be strong but elastic at take off and within the whole vault.

At take off if one is just to hit the pole and hold it very 'rigidly' you might get stood up, or end up taking off flat. Although you are strong at take off the body/chest still needs to come in after the take off, to allow the pole to role over.

As the drive knee puts pressure into the pole and the athlete keeps his/her hips back waiting for the swing, the body is still moving and contorting slightly. There are some good examples of this on Derek Miles' web sight.

So in my opinion strength is extremely important, and is needed, however 'rigity' is not the word I would use to describe things, I would think of it more as 'Elastic'.

The more solid your core is, the better your vault will be, period. It not only helps you to invert, but helps to stabalize you during your approach. The top sprinters in the vault and in all events are usually also the guys with the strongest cores. Your abs are used along with your hip flexors to bring your knee up when you run, so if you think you can just do leg workouts to get faster, you're wrong.

But like Bel said, dont run or vault while rigid. You run faster when you relax and dont "clench", you hit your take off quicker, and you swing faster, all when you are elastic and not Rigid. You can't stretch your muscles without relaxing them. At the same time, dont just float through your take off. It requires strength and rigidity at the right times in the right places.

This is pretty intense for beginners. Nonetheless, here's my 2 cents.

powerplant42 wrote:It is widely accepted that rigidity at take-off is important. All muscles should be tightened at the moment the pole hits the back of the box. Actually, many eliter vaulters have their top arm slightly bent at take-off, most likely due to tension. This way, more energy is usable. If you are loose at take-off/pole strike, then energy will be sucked up and wasted.

I'm curious where you got this information from. Most elite vaulters have their top arm as extended as possible on take-off, and extend their shoulders as well to allow a noticable gap to form between their top arm and back of their head. Sure, the core is stabilizing to keep a solid body throughout the take-off, and is important to keep the drive knee up, but not quite rigid. In fact, the key to adding energy into each phase of the vault is to stay active. To keep it short, a strong core is good for transferring energy from the ground to your body and from your body to the pole with a powerful drive phase. A rigid core afterwards prevents the motion necessary to continually add energy.

Move this to (at least) intermediate technique.

kind of off a tangent, but I've heard that in gymnastics, weight lifting, etc. total body tension is key to using your max force. Would using total body tension after the takeoff--during the swing, pull, and push off--be beneficial?

Aerovault- It was just from a study I was reading somewhere. It's not really a noticable difference in straightness, but just a wierd fact I thought my be worth mentioning.

Powerplant, which way was the vaulters' elbow in the study? Was it pointing to the outside or in front of them? I can somewhat picture what you are describing as the arm may bend slightly to clear the vaulters head and get the hand to be directly above them. Just curious.

I'm not sure what way the author meant it might point, but most likely out to the side more than straight ahead. This might happen just because it's a little easier to keep your arm tense when it's not completely straight.

[quote=

so the next few times i just kept my abs *and all other core muscles* tight, and the drills came out perfectly... then i used it on my actual vault for when i hit the plant and it's really helped me improve.

[/quote]

huh ive never thought of that before. I have a problem with collapsing my front arm ill try that