The Freshmen Transition

[Erin_Shafer]

I just finished my freshmen year, I gained about 6-7lbs of muscle and got on poles that were 30-35lbs over my weight. I tell ya I didn't think it was going to be that big of a transition, but I was wrong. This year seemed like a down fall for me, I had some serious injuries:sprained my ankle, a rib injury, a small hamstring problem, and an old soccer injury that had a big impact on how I performed, I was 6" of my P.R. 12'6", but after making it through the first year, I am totally looking forward to next year. If you look at the out come of what you had before, and what you have now it should be a good thing. Also, after the first year, you should know what you should be doing to stay healthy, like get stronger, and faster, eating healthy ect. and if you want to get better you should know what to scrafice to get there. Getting better depends on how much YOU want to put in the effort to get better.

[vaultguru6]

The biggest problem for me with the transition this year is the training. All indoors and for most of outdoors my body was completely broken down from the much increased training for every jump session and meet. While the development of speed and strength are the two most critical factors for me right now, the training affected my jumping, in a physical but mostly mental way. I just never felt right on the runway. Luckily I salvaged the season by posting a 3 inch PR and 9 inch season best of 5.10 about a month ago. Hopefully i can change things around even more for the better in these next two weeks in Seattle and then at Junior Nationals. But I very much look forward to being a redshirt freshman outdoors next year when my body is more adapted to the rigorous training it needs so much!

[Cpvault]

I gained about 25 pounds between my senior year in high school to my freshman year in college. Actually, I barely lifted weights; just matured and was a little flabby. But, I went from 13'6" to 15'3" without training super hard. The reason for this was I concentrated that year on pole vault technique, and a more agressive attitude toward the vault. Remember, the event is Pole Vaulting- not weightlifting. Of course, training hard helps tremendously; but a lot of time people get so caught up into getting strong they forget to Pole Vault. The strength and speed will come; concentrate a lot of your time on your technique early on in your college career, it will definitely pay off. The next year I concentrated a little more on training and PR'd by another 2 feet. The technique work from my freshman year was the key.

[swtvault]

I had a real crappy first year and a half. My weight stayed about the same, I was 180 in HS and about 183 my first year, but the training killed me physically and mentally. I trained extremely hard and stupid which is part of the reason I have not been healthy for three years. I feel if you are going to train really hard, It has to be a slow gradual process. You start small, then build a little each year. Quanity is not nearly as important as quality. The reason so many of us have crappy freshmen years is because we get all gung-ho on the training and our bodies dont ever get ample recovery time. Just taking a day off on wednesday, and resting on the weekends is not enough. It may be once you have established your training base, but initially training hard four days a week will just beat you up. That is part of the reason it takes alot of people two years to really see the benefit of training; when you chronically damage your muslce tissue (which essentially is what training does) it can take a long time to be offset. And that is why people take steroids or growth hormone, so their bodies can regenerate quicker form hard physical training. The point of all this rambling I guess is to illustrate the point that hard training may not be all it is cracked up to be, and finally, drugs are bad.

[Robert schmitt]

Geoff made some awsome and extremly over looked points. I sucked it up not only my freshman year but soph, and junior years I barely ever had an out door b/c of stress fractures. I but on 40 lbs of muscle over my freshman year. It wasn't till we got a new pv coach that kicked me out of the wieght room and stopped having me do running work outs all the time that I really improved.

[TreyDECA]

Trey,
You don't count. You would have to been and idiot not to get you better!!!!! Not many people who run 10.63 sucked as bad as you did in high school, you are probably the next stud that no one really knows about yet. LB

who'd have thought that i'd be better at the deca??? all-american!!

me and our other deca might be coming up to jonesboro sometime in late july, after he and i get back into shape.

[lonestar]

I had a real crappy first year and a half. My weight stayed about the same, I was 180 in HS and about 183 my first year, but the training killed me physically and mentally. I trained extremely hard and stupid which is part of the reason I have not been healthy for three years. I feel if you are going to train really hard, It has to be a slow gradual process. You start small, then build a little each year. Quanity is not nearly as important as quality. The reason so many of us have crappy freshmen years is because we get all gung-ho on the training and our bodies dont ever get ample recovery time. Just taking a day off on wednesday, and resting on the weekends is not enough. It may be once you have established your training base, but initially training hard four days a week will just beat you up. That is part of the reason it takes alot of people two years to really see the benefit of training; when you chronically damage your muslce tissue (which essentially is what training does) it can take a long time to be offset. And that is why people take steroids or growth hormone, so their bodies can regenerate quicker form hard physical training. The point of all this rambling I guess is to illustrate the point that hard training may not be all it is cracked up to be, and finally, drugs are bad.

WELL SAID!