PoleVaultPower.com

pretty cool look at one of steve's weightroom sessions before he won gold in china...

http://www.flotrack.org/videos/coverage ... er-workout

Cool stuff

I am surprised the posters that think that the arms especially the bottom arm do nothing or very little in a jump have not pounced in here and commented, that by posting this video the Olympic Champion/record holder is ruining the vault by doing specific strength exercises to help him row/press/lever/pull (whatever you want to call it) both arms better in his vault. I think it is a very Interesting exercise.
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vaultwest wrote: I am surprised the posters that think that the arms especially the bottom arm do nothing or very little in a jump have not pounced in here and commented ...

OK, I'll bite, since I'm one of the posters that claims that the bottom arm should be used just for balance DIRECTLY AFTER TAKEOFF - not for bending the pole.

First, please realize that what I just wrote is quite a bit different than you saying

vaultwest wrote: ... the bottom arm do nothing or very little in a jump ...

I hope you can keep these 2 ideas separate. I talk about directly after takeoff ONLY, whereas you talk about "in a jump". But also, I don't think you need to row VERY HARD or VERY OFTEN if you swing properly. And Hooker DOES swing properly! (Not sure about his lead leg dropping tho, but that's a different thread.)

Read on.

I watched all of Hooker's televised jumps in Beijing, so I'm basing my comments on that, as well as on my personal experience. Hooker has a very good "natural swing". He doesn't "muscle-up" much - if at all. At least not in the Olympics, he didn't. That doesn't mean that he doesn't need to be strong, tho. Just not super-strong.

You need a STRONG (but not super-strong) bottom arm (and top arm) to vault at the elilte level. I will conjecture that the biggest difference between male and female vaulters is strength. Some speed differences too, but mostly strength. (Not much difference in gymnastic coordination - the gals are very good compared to guys).

I will talk about 2 distinct issues here: (a) strength IS important at the elite level; and (b) Hooker wasn't lifting much weight - they were very light bars.

To be honest, I was surprised how LIGHT the weights were that he was lifting, but now I can see how he keeps his trim physique.

In the vid, the only 2 lifts that he did that relate to the arms were behind-the-neck presses (needed for a good, powerful plant- BEFORE/DURING takeoff - BEFORE the pole hits the box), and hanging rows (a very nice excercise to simulate your arm action during inversion).

Vaultwest, you must be referring to the hanging rows, but really, they were such low weights that you could hardly say that he was trying to gain super-strength here. Really, it was just general strength/conditioning that he was doing, albeit focussed on a vault part. How could you conclude anything else by watching the vid?

Now on to why being strong is GOOD for elite vaulters (as long as they don't bulk up like Tarzan - Don Bragg) ...

What do you need to use the bottom arm for AFTER the pole starts bending by the force of JUST the top arm? Well ...

1. ... to swing from the "backwards C" to the "forwards C" (so-to-speak) as quickly as possible - during the whip. This takes gymnastic skill, yes, but the QUICKER you can do it, the more potential energy you add to the pole. To be quicker in this vault part, you need to be stronger.

2. ... NOT to finish your upswing to an inverted "I" position. If you swing PROPERLY, you don't really need much strength here.

3. ... to guide yourself into an inverted position when your vault is off a bit (nobody vaults with their perfect, intended form on every vault). EVERY elite vaulter does this - perhaps even the majority of their jumps. i.e. less than half their jumps are "perfect". Far less than half, actually.

Vaultwest, you call it "row/press/lever/pull (whatever you want to call it)", and I'm not going to try to describe this vault part any better than that right now, other than to say that on MOST vaults, you only need to do a bit of this (i.e. your swing - like Hooker's in the Olympics) is USUALLY close enough to your INTENDED technique that only MINOR "adjustments" to steer you to the ideal inverted I position are necessary.

This is NOT the same as saying that you need to use a LOT of muscle-power to row (or otherwise muscle your way to an invert) as a regular part of almost EVERY one of your jumps.

I hope you can understand what I'm getting at. Your intent should NOT be to use a lot of muscle-power, but when you're under or late or whatever, you need to make immediate, STRONG steering adjustments to get you back into the groove (to a correct invert).

Also, did you notice Hooker when he was walking on the track after his victory, into the arms of Parnov? I was quite impressed with his physique. This was quite easy to see, as his jersey was soaked and skin tight. But his lats, pecs and abs were LEAN!!! Not much bulk at all!!! Now THAT'S what you need for a great strength to weight ratio!

We just saw his weight program, so we now know why he doesn't bulk up. Light reps only! He's NOT power-lifting!

His last words on the vid (he was referring to how hard his weight workout felt) ... "I'm not really pushing myself much ..."

Kirk

a word of caution here,parnov is a very secretive guy and he will only allow a camera to see what he wants much like petrov.these guys are very good at displaying variations of technique and not showing true excersises.parnov knew that camera was rolling so he will show everything but the good stuff.the russian coaches are known to show incorrect technical variations to drills and exercises in order to throw off our technical pursuit.my guess is that the weight was so light that he does not even do this at all or differently.my daughter could have used that weight.hooker is very,very strong.also it was technically wrong anyways but it looks like you guys have figured that out and are on the right path.trust me parnov is not going to show you what gives him an edge!good for you guys who see through these garbage drills.

KirkB wrote:I will talk about 2 distinct issues here: (a) strength IS important at the elite level; and (b) Hooker wasn't lifting much weight - they were very light bars.

To be honest, I was surprised how LIGHT the weights were that he was lifting, but now I can see how he keeps his trim physique.

You have to take it in the context of what time of year it was and how it fit into his weekly routine. I don't think too many people are doing heavy weights in the middle of competition season.

And from the context of this was going into the olympic games.


it was a maintenance phase of lifting not a building phase.

This is like that workout you did hundreds of times in the fall it can be used as a easy day in the spring because your body adapted to the load.


Like many of us have stated take what you see with a grand of salt it must match and work into the program your doing. To much of anything leads to break down and injury. Majority of the program that was actually shown is very basic things done under correct supervision and loading.

I am more curious about the ankle straps. Anyone have any idea where you can find those or anything like that. I have looked and can only find the boots that come with the apparatus for 500 bucks or so.

I appreciate that Hooker does lighter weights just before the Olympics than off-season.

However, there's no evidence that he uses heavy weights on the hanging weight drill at any time of the year.

In fact, when asked about the drill, he commented that he just does that one for fun - because it gives him a "rush" when his blood flows to his head.

Of course he might have been joking, but if he took that drill seriously - and used heavier weights off-season - wouldn't that have been an opportune time to say so?

Unless you take the sinister view that realitycheck took. (I'm not buying it.)

My original comments were directed specifically towards Vaultwest suggesting that he was ...

... doing specific strength exercises to help him row/press/lever/pull ...

Vaultwest's inference was that we should jump all over this, because rowing is supposedly a bad technique. Vaultwest, were you also referring to "press" as if pressing is supposedly bad?

BTW, the "pull" part is GOOD! I forgot to mention this in my original post above, but the stronger your arms are during the pull/pushoff part of the vault, the better.

Kirk

Hello,

I would just like to put in some insight from my perspective. I occasionally do exercises like this one. Mind you, I'm not at the level of Steve Hooker and most of the exercises I do focus more on the basic aspects of the vault like the take-off. This 'pull-down' excercise is specially focused on one particular aspect of the jump.

The purpose of this exercise is to develop specialized strength in the upper body that will assist in the swing to inversion. This can very easily be misinterpreted as 'rowing' but the action is very different. Notice how he brings his hands from above his head to his hips, always keeping them in front of himself and never bending his elbows. The nature as well as the timing of this motion is drastically different from rowing. This is a motion associated with the portion of the swing to inversion when one passes the chord of the pole and transitions to the inverted position. This is one strength building exercise that helps the vaulter to bring their hips up.

I know many of your are aware the swing consists of an array of complex forces in order to execute. One of these forces is that exerted by the arms and this excercise is specifically done in order to strengthen that force. Another difference this motion has with 'rowing' is that in rowing; the arms provide the majority of impetus in order to bring the vaulter up. The 'pull-down' motion in this exercise is intended to act as a supplementary force in conjunction with the others involved during the swing. The leg-swing inertia, breaking at the hips, driving the hips up and dropping the shoulders back are some of the other major forces involved. There are particular exercises developed to target and enhance these forces and this pull-down exercise is just one of them. Enhancing strength in these target areas will help the vaulter bring their hips up while eliminating the need to tuck. This is just a guess but upon seeing many confused responses from a lot of Nothern Americans (not just here in PVP), I would assume that this exercise for pole vault is of Eastern European origin. Which would make a lot of sense because my coach, who taught me something similar, is of an Eastern European background.

That's just my explanation for this excercise. I seldomly do excercises like this because I have a lot of other things I need to focus on that are more important for beginners. My coach does tend to show me some more advanced things every now and then just so I'm aware of them. At his level though, Hooker will utilize a lot of these highly specialized and in some cases, uncommon exercises in order to optimize his jump.

-Andrew

I really like the weights used. I have seen some videos of people working out in the weight room, and I have talked with strength coaches of some very quality athletes, and really, when it comes down to it, the weight isn't a huge deal. You can always move the bar faster, generating more force. I've watched 45 second quarter milers work out, and the most weight they use on a back squat is ~80K (about 175lbs). The weight room helps, don't get me wrong--but if you are a freak athlete (like Hooker), you're a freak athlete. Just my thoughts-

p.s. I like the upside down lift, although I would not imagine it to be a cornerstone of his training... much like all the cooky ab drills everyone else does

Kirk
I wasn't pointing my comments directly at you. My poorly made point is this. I think swinging with a big whipping trail leg is super important, but it can be done incorrectly. I think almost as important is using both arms ( keeping them active) in adding energy to the vault and thus maximizing the swing but here also it can be done incorrectly. I don't like trying to debate which is more important, I think to vault to the best of ones ability both are needed if performed correctly to get the best swing and thus jump high. I also think that since you had to vault on the pre-hoop strength type poles ( sky pole and catapole) you as well as all the vaulters of that time knew that if you did add the extra energy of the arms that the pole would not respond well and so just a great trail leg swing would do the job. But I think with he advent of poles with more hoop strength the athlete has now been given the opportunity to add more energy into the system with the proper action of the arms . This has enabled vaulters to hold even higher using stiffer poles and thus jump higher.
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