Read through these questions and answers. Maybe your question is already answered on here. I'll try to answer everyone's question as soon as I can. Do you have a question you would like to ask? Then go fill out the Question Form to submit your question.

Noah,

I assume that you have no real indoor season to speak of, so I'll do the best I can. If you play other sports such as football or basketball, then I wouldn't worry too much about training for the vault just yet. If track is all you do, then during the fall and winter, just concentrate on becoming stronger and faster. You can do drills and such during this time, but I wouldn't reccommend doing any vaulting until about a couple of months before your first meet. Training at anytime during the day is fine. Lifting in the morning, then jummping after school is a great way to mix up your workouts, plus it gives more time after school. I'd reccommend that if you could do it.

Shaun, Injuries are hard to bouce back from, and it makes it even more important to warm up properly each time you go to jump. Make sure that you jog a couple laps before doing anything. Then get in a good 10 -15 minutes of stretching. Stretching is key in keeping the legs loose and warmed up. After stretching, do some sprint drills, such as high knees, butt-kicks, skips, bounds, things like that. After that do some accelerations to get the blood moving in your legs and do a couple of sprints too. Then do your normal pre-vaullting drills, pole runs, swing ups, whatever. This whole warmup proccess should take oyou at least a half hour to complete. I can't stress enough how important it is to properly warm up fopr the vault. Just make sure that you are good and warm before stepping onto the runway.

Its no rumor. Katie is a Boilermaker now. I'm rounding up email addresses of everyone as we speak, so as soon as I get it, I'll post it here on the website for everyone who wants to get in contact with us.

Brian, Jeff has been a pleasure to train with ever since he arrived here at Purdue. You have taught him very well. We look forward to the things he can do within our program and hope he does well. We wish you and your Mt SAC boys luck and will see you in the spring.

Anna, Yes, Purdue currently has a women's vault program. They've been a little neglected on the site, but things are changing. We currently have 5 6 women's vaulters but are always looking to recruit more. If you would like, I can get you information about how to contact the coaching staff here.

Well Joe, it would probably take a 15' vault for any Division I school to even start considering giving you any $$. It all depends on how their vault program is. A lot of DII schools will look for guys in the 14' - 15' range. The best advice I can give you is to make sure that you have fun the whole time you vault and to ask as many questions as you can, especially to people who are better than you.

Vince, Jeff has not been overlooked. He just got in to town yesterday and will be added to the About Us section as soon as I get the chance. I need to dig up info on the new guys before I can lay down anything accurate about them. School is slated to start soon, so I'll have more time to work on it. I know the top 5 off the top of my head. The 2nd five will be a little trickier. Do you want of all time, or separate indoor and outdoor jumps?

We do a lot of weight training, sprint work, mental training, and of course vaulting. We usually spend between 2-3 hours a day practicing.

Throwing your head back is one of the worst things you can do in the vault. A soon as you pull your head back, you stop your swing to vertical and you flag out sideways at the crossbar. My suggestion is to look at your feet unitl you get vertical. Just don't throw your head back.

Gymnastics is a very important part of the vault. It teaches spatial awareness and body control. Pretty much anything you do in gymnastics is beneficial to the vault, especially the high bar and rings. Pretty much any swinging motion that emulates the swing in the vault.

George, I'm assuming that you have no access to any kind of pole vaulting equipment whatsoever, so I'm basing this answer from this assumption. I'd say the best thing to do would be continue with the speed training and the explosive wieght training. Explosion is a key factor in the vault. I'd say a general upper body routine in the weight room would be benficial since no muscle group dominates the vault. Although, having strong shoulders does help a little. What you'd probably need to work on the most would be the gymnastic aspect of the vault. Start walking on your hands as much as possible, try finding some gymnastic equipment or a rope swing and start working on the swinging motion to the vertical. I can't vouch for how mentally tough you are, but I'd do some things that would extend your comfort zone and make yourself more spatially aware of your body while its in the air, such as jumping off of bridges, cliffs, etc. into water, any kind of activity that you would normally look at and be scared shitless at the mere thought of. There is a fine line, however, between being daring and being stupid. Just find something to make yourself a mental adonis, and that should help greatly.

Pole Vaulting is as dangerous as the next sport. People get hurt and occasionaly someone will die, but that happens in every sport. People just think pole vaulting is dangerous because they don't understand enough about it. There are three main reasons people get hurt pole vaulting: Lack of coaching, lack of equipment and lack of common sense. Most people who get hurt do so from a lack of knowledge of the sport. With proper coaching and technique, the vault is graceful and electrifying.

A pole vaulter should be fairly fast, strong, and not be a pussy. A good vaulter also has body control and gymnastics skills. Mental toughness is key also.

As far as schools go, he should go to the best school that will let him jump. it all depends on how good he as to what schools will pursue him.

Well, I'm assuming that you are a left handed vaulter if you lead with your left knee. That means you take off of your right leg. If this is the case, then you should carry the pole on the left side of your body and your left hand should be the top hand. On the other hand you may be right handed and are just taking off of the wrong leg. If you have your right hand on top and carry the pole on your right side, then you should take off of your left leg and bring up the right knee. Some people have a tendency to take off of the wrong leg since its the one they normally jump with.

Sorry to say, but 13' isn't much of a jump at any level in the collegiate ranks. You could probably walk on somewhere with a jump like that, but most good freshmen coming into Division I schools have jumped at least very high 15's or 16'. It may however be a very good mark in your respective state at the high school level. Take Maine for instance, 13' would win the state championship there. In Indiana, 13' might get you to the State meet if you win your Regional competition. A 13' jump in the state of California is pretty much laughed at. You never know, your brother-in-law may improve a lot during his senior year.

Justin,
We do a lot of Olympic type lifts and a lot of power lifting to build explosive power and speed: Power Clean, Snatch, Clean and Jerk, etc. We also do all the basic core lifts, Squat, Bench, Deadlift. We also do a lot of auxilliary lifts to supplement the core lifts.

At the beginning of the year, we run distance, run a lot of hills and do a lot of hard cardiovascular workouts(Medicene Ball, Sprint Drills, Continuous Build-ups). The closer we get to indoor season, the more runnig oriented the workouts become, doing a lot of sprint work and strides. We dabble with the hurdles every now and then and do plyometrics also. I can get a copy of some of our old workouts and email them to you if you want. There is one thing to remember though, there is a big difference in the conditioning level between High School and College.

Kyle,
We're looking forward to you coming in the fall. I might be doing the Deca myself, so you'll have a lot of people to train with. See you in August.

All I can tell you is to keep jumping. Do you have a specific problem other than you just want to jump higher? Ask a lot of questions and watch guys who are better than you. You can find cheap poles at Vaultworld.

johnathan henley
johnathan henley <bobcatbo@msn.com>
orange , tx USA - Friday, July 10, 1998 at 00:21:25 (EST)

You sure can my friend. I'll contact my coach about it. We'd love to add you to the Purdue vaulting squad.

Well, I(Jeremy) started this page after I learned HTML, and since I'm a Computer Science major, I've learned how do this drunk, so we never had to cut back on the boozing. This site has been censored by the athletic department before, though. Whoever you are, I do know that you work at Eli Lilly, and I have a pretty good idea who you are. So speak up! We don't like anonymous entries.

Brian,

Thanks for visiting the page. Well, Randy won Big Tens, then hurt his shoulder the day before NCAA's and ended up 11th. Randy and Tony are done with their eligibility, and I have one year left. We brought in 2 vaulters, one from Oregon and one from Illinois. Randy ended up at 5.55m(18' 2-1/2"). I don't remember what Tony jumped.

There's nothing really technical that you can change now to make a big difference in technique. They obviously are jumping well already if they made the World Junior team. I would focus on staying consistant in practice and not try to make any drastic changes. A big change would only take them out of the good jumping groove they're in right now. Focus on being consistant and technically sound on every single jump they take. Big PR's come from being consistant on the runway and making every jump a good one. Confidence is key to making a big jump. Have fun in France and good luck!

Summer workouts are a lot different than in season workouts. We usually focus on technique and strength training during the summer. Here's what we do during the summer:

Lift weights MWF

Pole Vault Drils T

Short Vault Th

Sprint work T Th

Pacer carbons come through(unbend) a lot quicker than regular S-glass poles. You are probably not getting enough time to complete your full swing all the way to the vertical. You can either of three things: 1 - make your swing faster, 2 - keep pressure on your bottom arm a little longer while swinging, or 3 - you could find another pole that is regular fiberglass(like UCS/Spirit).

• Scripts created by Matt Wright and can be found at Matt's Script Archive