The need for a cardiovascular base

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby rainbowgirl28 » Thu Apr 15, 2010 12:38 am

I firmly believe that running cross country my senior year helped my pole vaulting quite a bit. BUT, you have to look at the big picture...

- I had never been involved in any sport other than gymnastics until the spring of my junior year, so I had very little cardiovascular base.
- When I started track, I would get asthma trying to do our 4 lap warmup (it was skipping and carioca and such, not just running)
- My cross country workouts were pretty low mileage. My coaches knew that I was not a stud distance runner, I was more like a warm body that helped us have a team.
- My running form sucked. We did a lot of sprint drills during the track season, but I think running cross country, even though it was a different kind of running than sprinting, helped me run better than I had before. Obviously continuing to work on sprint mechanics during the track season my senior year helped as well, but I came into the season running better than I had at the end of the previous season.

The number #1 thing that helped my pole vaulting was going to a club and learning how to pole vault. I would never suggest someone do cross country if it meant they would be giving up club pole vaulting, unless they really enjoyed cross country and weren't that serious about pole vaulting. But for me, my cardiovascular fitness was certainly a weak point. Improving it helped me to get through the sprint workouts better during the season which helped my pole vaulting.


Not all high school vaulters have access to year-round coaching. Many just sit on their butts in the fall and do nothing. And for MANY kids, pole vault is not their number #1 priority. The advice on this board tends to be given as though all of the kids are aspiring to be the next Olympian, and without knowing very much about the big picture of the kid's life.

Running cross country is FUN for a lot of kids. For most HS kids who are of average athletic ability, running cross country is better than doing nothing. Most kids are not focused or knowledgeable enough to direct themselves through a fall conditioning program. They need someone else to direct them and they need the social factor that comes with a team sport.

I am not saying cross country is the right choice for everyone, but I hate seeing it demonized on here. For many HS kids, particularly those of average (or worse) physical abilities, and who are not currently doing a fall sport, it is a good option, one that beats doing nothing.

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Re: !

Unread postby golfdane » Thu Apr 15, 2010 7:09 am

KirkB wrote:
EIUvltr wrote: ... YOU DON'T NEED A CARDIOVASCULAR BASE! ... The pole vault lasts 8 seconds in which your muscles contract too hard to allow blood flow anyway ...

I'm really surprised at your opinion here, EIU. I was thinking that maybe you're not a vaulter, so you just don't know. But reading on, I see that you ARE a vaulter ... so you should know that a practice or a meet lasts a helluva lot more than 8 seconds!

You need the stamina and endurance to last out the REALLY BIG meets ... when there's more than a dozen competitors. It just so happens that these BIG meets are the most important ones ... so ya gotta be ready for it ... it's gonna last several hours.

Practice is similar. You should be good for at least a dozen jumps per practice. If you tire after only 6, you're just not getting in enough reps in to improve your technique.

Not that you should normally take 12 jumps in a meet ... but it could happen. You need to be prepared. I think Hooker took about that in the Beijing Olympics.

Even if you only take 6 jumps in a meet, you still need to stay WARM and psyched thru the entire competition. That's a lot of striding, and a lot of stretching. You can't let yourself get stone cold and then warm up all over again. It doesn't work that way. Once you warm up, you have to STAY warm. If you don't have the endurance to last thru a 3-hour meet, then you haven't fully prepared yourself.

Just my opinion.

Kirk


I totally agree. You need to be fit, but I think EIU is defining cardiovascular base as the ability to run for a long period of time by doing lots of distance running (or using distance running as the only way to maintain the CV base in off-season), which is rather unnecessary for a vaulter. IMHO, off-season training should include up to 2 mile runs as warm up, but it is never the main part of your training. It does improve strength of tendons and the attachment to the bone, and improves your ability to recover from any kind of training. The MAIN part of your CV training should however be HIIT. IMHO sufficient fittness is required (and EIU probably agrees). It's just a matter of how you get it.

We sometimes do Cooper tests (once or twice a year), but it's only a yardstick to gauge the fitness of the athlete (though we often have a pretty good take on the athlete, based on their ability to maintain their technique during training).

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby Lax PV » Thu Apr 15, 2010 10:36 am

rainbowgirl28 wrote:And for MANY kids, pole vault is not their number #1 priority. The advice on this board tends to be given as though all of the kids are aspiring to be the next Olympian, and without knowing very much about the big picture of the kid's life.


One of the better things said on this forum in a long time.(IMHO)

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby EIUvltr » Fri Apr 16, 2010 12:29 am

kcvault wrote:I would also say to say you don't need cardiovascular fitness in the vault is a bit Naive. It is true that for activities lasting less then 6 to 8 seconds that you are using your anaerobic system. However the vault does not take 8 seconds it takes hours. I have warmed up before then came in 2 hours later and jumped for another hour or so after that. One of my biggest meets last year I was in a jump off with one person for over an hour with out aerobic conditioning that would have been impossible. Not to mention the vault does not usually happen at full speed since your anaerobic system takes a really long time to recover you run full speed on a couple of jumps and you have pretty much screwed yourself for the rest of the competition. Also if you understand periodization you know you can't run full speed all year, your body quits adapting every 21 to 28 days, that's why you alter the volume to make you run different percentages of your max speed at different times of your training cycles.

---Kasey


1. I didn't say you don't need cardiovascular fitness. I said you don't need a cardiovascular base. Indicating that at no point in your training plan should you ever focus on developing your aerobic capacity. The cardiovascular portion of your training will/should come as a byproduct of your conditioning. Also fitness is an arbitrary term. A pole vaulter needs to be as cardiovascularly fit as a pole vaulter needs to be (forgive the Petito Principii). A pole vaulter is not cardiovascularly fit enough to run a marathon, nor should s/he be. There is no threshold where you suddenly become "fit." I apologize if I was too vague earlier.

2. Aerobic conditioning? I'm pretty sure this term doesn't exist. Conditioning implies one thing, "aerobics" implies another. If you are referring to long distance running, then I will say you are wrong and should be "avoided like the plague" as H.Gray puts it. If you are referring to conditioning in the sense of short burst activity followed by partial rest (sound familiar?) such as running intervals, or doing circuits then I'd have to agree with you. I'm pretty sure I said this in a few of my posts in this thread. Also, your ability to take all those jumps is not due to your cardiovascular system. It's due to the recovery ability of your body when faced with repeated bouts of anaerobic activity. Ignoring the neuromuscular component, this comes in the form of the ability of your body to resist the build-up of lactic acid, the ability of your body to operate at a high level in an acidic state, and the ability of you body to remove lactic acid and restore nutrients. Your stroke volume is pretty insignificant here.

3. Also do you really want to focus your training on the freak meets where you have to vault for over an hour? Perhaps if you trained a bit differently, you'd be a bit faster and would have cleared a higher height an hour earlier and never had to have a vault-off in the first place. Just saying.

4.
"Also if you understand periodization you know you can't run full speed all year, your body quits adapting every 21 to 28 days, that's why you alter the volume to make you run different percentages of your max speed at different times of your training cycles."

a. Where'd you hear this?
b. What stops adapting after 21-28 days? The neuromuscular system in response to shock training and/or strength training? The glycolytic system? The aerobic system? Beta oxidation? Hypertrophy? motor patterns? anaerobic alactic? anaerobic lactic?
c. Who are you talking about? Does a 12 year old 100 lbs. kid need a fancy periodization training plan with undulating intensities and volumes? Does a 12 year old's body respond to training in this same rigid 21-28 day framework as a high level genetically endowed athlete?
d. Where did I say you had to run at full speed all year?
e. Which interpretation of periodization? Leonid Matveyev's? Yuri Verkhoshansky? Tudor Bompa? Some guy who writes for Human Kinetics? Most texts/articles on periodization are based off of some guy's interpretation of some other guy's translation of some OTHER guy's research.
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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby EIUvltr » Fri Apr 16, 2010 12:31 am

Lax PV wrote:
rainbowgirl28 wrote:And for MANY kids, pole vault is not their number #1 priority. The advice on this board tends to be given as though all of the kids are aspiring to be the next Olympian, and without knowing very much about the big picture of the kid's life.


One of the better things said on this forum in a long time.(IMHO)


I understand this, but I feel the best advice I can give on a pole vault forum is how to best get in shape for the pole vault. If they understand what is needed to excel in the vault, then they should be able to alter their training to allow for other sports or athletic endeavors.
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Re: !

Unread postby EIUvltr » Fri Apr 16, 2010 12:36 am

golfdane wrote:We sometimes do Cooper tests (once or twice a year), but it's only a yardstick to gauge the fitness of the athlete (though we often have a pretty good take on the athlete, based on their ability to maintain their technique during training).


Boooooo Cooper :P Kenneth Cooper's name should be a swear word. He single-handedly set back American sports 30 years.
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Re: !

Unread postby golfdane » Fri Apr 16, 2010 1:20 am

EIUvltr wrote:
golfdane wrote:We sometimes do Cooper tests (once or twice a year), but it's only a yardstick to gauge the fitness of the athlete (though we often have a pretty good take on the athlete, based on their ability to maintain their technique during training).


Boooooo Cooper :P Kenneth Cooper's name should be a swear word. He single-handedly set back American sports 30 years.


I have several athletes that agree. They hate it like the plague. Then again, if you can't run something like 3k in 12 mins (male seniors), then do I feel that your fitness isn't sufficient to withstand the rigors of an elite training regime.

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby KirkB » Fri Apr 16, 2010 2:14 am

EIUvltr wrote: 3. Also do you really want to focus your training on the freak meets where you have to vault for over an hour? Perhaps if you trained a bit differently, you'd be a bit faster and would have cleared a higher height an hour earlier and never had to have a vault-off in the first place. Just saying.
...

As a matter of fact ... yes ... these are the BIG meets! They can last over TWO hours ... even WITHOUT a jump-off!

I certainly wouldn't call any BIG CHAMPIONSHIP meets "freak meets". :no:

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby golfdane » Fri Apr 16, 2010 2:33 am

EIUvltr wrote:1. I didn't say you don't need cardiovascular fitness. I said you don't need a cardiovascular base. Indicating that at no point in your training plan should you ever focus on developing your aerobic capacity. The cardiovascular portion of your training will/should come as a byproduct of your conditioning. Also fitness is an arbitrary term. A pole vaulter needs to be as cardiovascularly fit as a pole vaulter needs to be (forgive the Petito Principii). A pole vaulter is not cardiovascularly fit enough to run a marathon, nor should s/he be. There is no threshold where you suddenly become "fit." I apologize if I was too vague earlier.


I think we agree (except on definitions: IMHO is "cardiovascular base" your "fitness" level at any point). I'm not saying, that aerobic training is a purpose of any vaulters regime. Sure, we do train aerobic sometimes, but the purpose might be something different (conditioning of joints and ligaments), and the increase in aerobic capacity is the byproduct (as it is when your heart rate is increased over a period of time).

In fact, our preparation phase is not much different from this (page 11-15), but at a lower volume:
http://www.stabhoch.com/epvc/petrov_plan.pdf

So when I say that a vaulter needs a cardiovascular base, do I mean that a sufficient fitness level is desired. Both in terms of cardiovascular fitness as well as physical fitness.

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby golfdane » Fri Apr 16, 2010 2:40 am

KirkB wrote:
EIUvltr wrote: 3. Also do you really want to focus your training on the freak meets where you have to vault for over an hour? Perhaps if you trained a bit differently, you'd be a bit faster and would have cleared a higher height an hour earlier and never had to have a vault-off in the first place. Just saying.
...

As a matter of fact ... yes ... these are the BIG meets! They can last over TWO hours ... even WITHOUT a jump-off!

I certainly wouldn't call any BIG CHAMPIONSHIP meets "freak meets". :no:

Kirk


Seen it here in Denmark even with young athletes. At some meets are some age groups jumping at the same time, meaning that 12 year olds jumps together with 17 year olds.
So the 16-17 year old vaulter needs to complete his warm up and his trials, and then wait for the bar to go to his opening height. Could easily last 1:30-2:00 hours. During that time, will he need to keep himself physically ready for jumping (fast and limber). When the vaulter then enters the competition, can you probably add 0:30-1:00 hour.
So, 1 hour warm up and trials, 1:30 hour with drills to keep warm and limber, 30 minutes of actual competition. You definately need to be fit, if the last jump is going to be a personal record...

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby Lax PV » Fri Apr 16, 2010 10:56 am

golfdane wrote:
KirkB wrote:
EIUvltr wrote: 3. Also do you really want to focus your training on the freak meets where you have to vault for over an hour? Perhaps if you trained a bit differently, you'd be a bit faster and would have cleared a higher height an hour earlier and never had to have a vault-off in the first place. Just saying.
...

As a matter of fact ... yes ... these are the BIG meets! They can last over TWO hours ... even WITHOUT a jump-off!

I certainly wouldn't call any BIG CHAMPIONSHIP meets "freak meets". :no:

Kirk


Seen it here in Denmark even with young athletes. At some meets are some age groups jumping at the same time, meaning that 12 year olds jumps together with 17 year olds.
So the 16-17 year old vaulter needs to complete his warm up and his trials, and then wait for the bar to go to his opening height. Could easily last 1:30-2:00 hours. During that time, will he need to keep himself physically ready for jumping (fast and limber). When the vaulter then enters the competition, can you probably add 0:30-1:00 hour.
So, 1 hour warm up and trials, 1:30 hour with drills to keep warm and limber, 30 minutes of actual competition. You definately need to be fit, if the last jump is going to be a personal record...


A little off topic, but when I was in college there was a specific meet that we went to that often times had more than 35 contestants. They would open the meet at about 10 feet. They would then proceed to move the bar in 6" increments all the way to where a winner was declared (~17-17'6" depending on the year). The competition would start at about 3, and was not completed until well after 7pm usually. Obviously a long meet, but the facility was really good, so we went.

One little work around that we started doing was waiting on our warm ups. As you can imagine, at regional meets, you often know a lot of the guys that are competing at your level. So we would get together before the meet, find out when everyone was coming in at, and would work together to get 'the most new entrants into the meet at the same bar.' i.e. everyone would come in at 15' or 16' rather than splitting and having some at 15'6" etc. (in college, the time allotted for warm ups is based on the contestants entering, something like 2min. per athlete). When the bar was put to the height before entrance we would start moving around, we would do pole runs in lane 1 to get our steps on, and by the time the bar was going up everyone was fully warmed up, and ready to roll. So we would get 5 guys to come in, we'd have 10 minutes and we would rep through pretty quick. Everybody got their 3 (or 4 if needed) trips down the runway. Seemed to work pretty well for us, we had many good performances come out of that meet.

I am not saying that this works for everyone, it takes a certain level of consistency and confidence in ones jumping, but it did work well enough that we began to do it for almost all of our meets (many college meets start lower than one might think--unless you are at a championship of some kind..)

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Re: The need for a cardiovascular base

Unread postby kcvault » Sun Apr 18, 2010 8:43 pm

. Where'd you hear this?b. What stops adapting after 21-28 days?


I heard this from my theory of Track and Field and Physiology of exercise classes. Your body quits adapting to a stimulus every 21-28 days. That's why you would not go into the weight room every day and lift 4x10 reps. Because you would plateau very quickly. However if you were to go 4x10 one month, then 4x8, then 5x5, then 4x3. When you came back to 4x10 you would be able to start a little higher in intensity that time around and therefor peak a little higher. With periodization you would want to go from high volume low intensity to low volume high intensity. For example a 9 month cycle might look like this. The first 3 month mesocycle would be base these would be your long intervals. Say your first one month micro cycle might be 300s, then second month 250s, and third month 200s. Then your next 3 month mesocycle would be your transition period this is the hardest mesocyle because it is where your volume and intensity are both moderately high. The microcycles might be as follows first 150m intervals, second 120m intervals and third 90m intervals. Your third three month mesocycle would be your peak. It might look something like this first 60m intervals, second flying 30s, and third overspeed. This is over simplified of course it would only be one day of the week for each microcycle. You would also need to consider lifting, vault days, sled pulls, hurdle drills est. With the three summer months every year I would recommend a 20 min run 3 or 4 days a week. Not fast nothing that is going to develop slow twitch muscle, just allowing your body to recover and preparing it a little for you next years macro cycle.

3. Also do you really want to focus your training on the freak meets where you have to vault for over an hour? Perhaps if you trained a bit differently, you'd be a bit faster and would have cleared a higher height an hour earlier and never had to have a vault-off in the first place. Just saying.


Maby it is because I live in California and a lot of people vault here but in ten years of pole vaulting I can think of only two competitions I have been in that lasted less then an hour.

---Kasey


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