I’m a D1 college pole vaulter from Rutgers U. in nj. I’m planning on doing a 3ish lift per week O-lift program. I think Im pretty solid with the lifts I’ll be doing on the individual days, but was wondering if anyone had any input on what my rep/set scheme should be over the entire offseason. Any book recommendations would be cool too in regards to set/rep scheme for O-lifting. By the way the offseason is 14 weeks long.
Thanks
I think Jay Butler is the strength coach for football at Rutgers. From what I understand, he’s pretty good.
As far as long term planning goes, pick up one of Tudor Bompa’s books (although his approach will not be that popular on this forum). I would basically train like a weightlifter but with more supplementals.
If I were you I would focus a lot on speed…snatches, jerks, and high pulls. You should also spend a great deal of time with pull ups/chin ups and abs.
Isn’t Shawn Windle the strength coach for T&F? Isn’t he setting you up with an off-season program?! If not, ask Coach Mulqueen why not or just ask Shawn Windle himself. If you get no luck there, ask Coach Naclerio for a copy of the off-season throwers’ proram. Just be careful of the volume–it’s usually designed to put some beef on. Jay Butler will probably give you the football program, in which case you will definitely beef up–no 240lbs pole vaulters the last time I checked.
Just remember, whatever you do, as a pole vaulter you need high relative strength so unless your “low-man-on-the-totem-pole” and incredibly weak, you probably don’t want to put on much muscle, just optimize what you already have.
Also, focus on increasing your trunk flexion/rotation strength, your hip flexor strength (integrated with the aforementioned), posterior chain strength, and arm flexor strength. Therefore, o-lifts may not be the end-all-be-all/panacea that they are in many college programs.
Hope that helps.
Definitely, I am tight with the strength coaches and they would be glad to help me with a program but I was wondering what others thought. Besides that I need some help with the set/rep selection. I was planning on using cleans from the floor, high pulls, jerks and snatches, along with weighted dips/pullups and gymnastic training, eg. ring/handstand work. I never neglect the abdominals either. Offseason is a time to work some strength-speed. I have a long as hell inseason to work speed-strength.
But maybe I should be doing mostly speed work, who knows? Sometimes I think I should be letting up on the weights and switching over to mostly gymnastic movements. It seems that elite vaulters usually end up doing their own thing. Thanks a lot for the input guys.
-Poper