Vault Frequency & Volume

At the beginning of each season, many athletes are ready to jump right into their specific event training. I get it. Pole vaulting is awesome. We need to be able to look long-term to determine the proper amount of vaulting to be performed in a training period. Many things go into this equation including the length of your season, training age, drill proficiency, facility availability, etc. For the sake of this article, we will assume you have regular access to a vault pit and the season is approximately 6 months (winter & spring combined).

Early in the season, regardless of training age, vaulting should be kept at a minimum. This time of year is for developing work capacity and reintroducing the basics to your body. Working on running mechanics and full body explosive movements in a high volume program is the focus. The week should include approach runs and circuit training. Depending on your specific training system, this is also a great time for some longer sprint intervals or non-specific strength training. Time in the pit should be focused on basic mechanics. Short run vaulting can be incorporated 1-2 times per week. The biggest thing to remember is that jumping everyday is not a good thing. While it is fun, you are not progressing for the long term outcome of your season. Vaulting high is usually more fun than vaulting always!

After the initial 4-6 weeks this can be increased to also include a vault drill day, which would focus only on vaulting mechanics without attempting to perform a full vault. Some of the drills I like to include in training are single-arm vaulting, rockback, 1/2-drill, 3/4-drill, and straight pole vaulting for depth. The drills are low-impact but provide the basic skills necessary to complete a full vault efficiently. As a vaulter progresses many of these basic drills are incorporated into their standard warm-up, allowing them to eliminate a stand-alone session to focus on the drills.

In the Extreme Performance Athletics training program, we monitor total volume based on approach run ground contacts (GC). If we schedule a short run day in week 3 of training with 2 athletes that have training ages of 0 (newbie) and 5 years, along with personal bests of 7'0" and 13'6" we need to have a plan that works for both. The beginner will have a total volume of 60 GC and the experienced vaulter will have a total volume of 100 GC. We typically begin the early season practices with the same run progression for all athletes: 1-left, 3-left, 4-left, 6-left. The 6-left approach is only considered short run for proficient athletes with a run of 8-lefts or longer. Both athletes begin on a 1-left and will progress back based on coaching feedback and demonstrated proficiency only. Perhaps the beginner will complete 25x 1-left vaults and 2x 3-left vaults to give him a total of 27 jumps and 62 GC's. The experienced vaulter completes 5x 1-left vaults and 15x 3-left vaults to give him a total of 20 jumps and 100 GC's. This may seem like a high volume training session, but the total stress to the body is minimized by the short run intensity. The beginner was able to get in more jumps and focus on technique at a slower run speed, while the experienced vaulter had less jumps and really spend sometime working on his vault with some speed.

As the season progresses, the GC volume will increase slowly as the approach run is lengthened for some training sessions. During the late season I like to incorporate a long approach session once every 1-2 weeks. The long approach would be anything 1-left less than full run and longer. If an athlete is on a 7-left approach this would include 6-left and up. If the volume is at 100 GC the vaulter would have 8-9 vaults. This will coincide with competition volume for most vaulters, as they typically have 8-12 full jumps before fatigue impacts technique and pole speed. The total jump volume will differ between athletes, but this is a good base range until you have enough data to understand your own jump volume.

When planning your training, here are a few things we do that may help:

• Jump Days Progression
  • 1-2 days per week @ Short Run
  • 1-2 days per week @ Short Run / 1 day per week @ Technical Drills
  • 1 day per week @ Short Run / 1 day per week @ Long Run / 1 day per week @ Technical Drills
• Approach Run Progression
  • Short Run: 1-Left, 3-Left, 4-Left, 6-Left (only for 8-Left or longer vaulters)
  • Long Run: 1-Left less than full run and longer
• Total Volume
  • Ground Contacts increase based on training age and fitness level of each individual athlete. We usually begin at 60 GC/week for a beginner.
  • GC = foot contact with the ground (1-Left approach = 2 GC)
  • Figure out your total volume for the season, break down into weeks, then into each jump day.