Let’s be honest: pole vault is one of the most athletic events in all of track and field. You’re sprinting at full speed, driving a pole into the ground, inverting your entire body overhead, and somehow clearing a bar without knocking it down. That’s not a skill you develop by casually jogging around the track.
It takes explosive power — and that’s exactly what plyometric training builds.
If you’ve been grinding through practice and feeling like your vault just isn’t popping off the ground the way you want, plyometrics might be the missing piece. This isn’t just about jumping around for fun (though, honestly, it kind of is). It’s about training your muscles and nervous system to produce force fast — which is the exact demand pole vaulting puts on your body every single rep.
Why Explosive Power Matters So Much in Pole Vault
Here’s something worth understanding early: the vault doesn’t start at the box. It starts at the beginning of your run.
As Karlie Place puts it in her beginner’s guide to pole vault, “The faster you are on the runway the higher you will jump.” That’s not just a motivational poster — it’s physics. The energy you carry into the plant is the foundation everything else is built on. More runway speed means more energy transferred into pole bend, more height off the ground, and ultimately more bar clearance.
But speed alone isn’t enough. You also need the ability to convert that horizontal speed into vertical lift — and that transition requires explosive leg power, a powerful takeoff step, and a body that knows how to produce force in a fraction of a second.
That’s the plyometric training sweet spot.
Plyometrics are exercises that train the stretch-shortening cycle — the ability to rapidly absorb force and then immediately explode back out of it. Think of your leg like a spring. Plyometric training makes that spring stiffer, faster, and more powerful. Applied to pole vault, that means a more aggressive takeoff step, better energy transfer into the pole, and the raw explosive ability to get your hips moving upward.
The Foundation: Build Before You Bounce
One critical thing to know before you dive headfirst into box jumps and bounding: plyometrics are high-demand exercises. They stress tendons, joints, and the neuromuscular system in ways that traditional lifting doesn’t. Jumping into high-volume plyometric work too fast is a shortcut to shin splints, patellar tendon issues, and a miserable season.
The right approach is to build a strength foundation first. Karlie Place’s guide to pole vault training emphasizes that lifting — real, consistent strength work — is essential for vaulters. If you’re newer to training, focus on getting a few months of solid gym time in before ramping up plyometric intensity.
Team Hoot’s training resources back this up: their structured training plans separate pre-season general preparation from in-season work specifically because the body needs to be built before it can be pushed. Plyometrics belong in a well-structured plan, not thrown in randomly as an afterthought.
Once you’ve got that strength base? Here’s where the fun starts.
Plyometric Exercises for Pole Vaulters
These are the categories of plyometric training most relevant to pole vault athletes. You don’t need to do all of them at once — start with the basics, be consistent, and add complexity as your body adapts.
Vertical Jumps and Box Jumps
Box jumps and standing vertical jumps are bread-and-butter plyometrics. The focus isn’t just getting high — it’s the quality of the takeoff. You’re training your body to transition from an athletic stance to maximum effort explosion as quickly as possible.
For pole vaulters, single-leg box jumps are particularly valuable because the takeoff step in vault is a single-leg action. Train it like one.
Bounding and Horizontal Plyometrics
Bounding (alternating single-leg jumps with exaggerated stride) develops horizontal power and stride length — directly transferring to runway speed and takeoff mechanics. It also trains the specific rhythm and ground contact pattern of fast sprinting.
Broad jumps and single-leg bounds for distance help bridge the gap between strength training and sprint performance. They’re also a good diagnostic tool: if one leg noticeably outperforms the other, that’s worth addressing before it becomes a vault-specific problem.
Depth Jumps
A depth jump involves stepping off a box, landing, and immediately jumping vertically as high as possible. This is one of the most effective tools for training the reactive strength needed in vault — but it’s also the most intense plyometric exercise on this list. Reserve depth jumps for athletes who already have a solid training history, and keep total volume low.
Medicine Ball Work
Medicine ball throws — overhead throws, chest passes, rotational throws — train upper body explosiveness and the core stiffness needed to transfer power through the vault. Core strength is something Karlie Place specifically calls out as essential for achieving the inverted position in vault. Explosive med ball work builds that core in a way that translates far better than crunches ever will.
Putting It Into Practice: The Key Principles
You don’t need a complex periodization scheme to start training smarter. Here are a few principles worth applying right away:
Quality over quantity. Plyometrics lose their training effect — and become injury risks — when done with poor form or in a fatigued state. Keep volumes manageable. A smaller number of crisp, explosive reps beats a long slog of half-hearted jumps every time.
Do them early in practice, not at the end. Plyometrics require a fresh nervous system to do their job. Put them before technique work and before heavy lifting, not after.
Match your training to your season. Pre-season is the time to build volume and introduce new exercises. In-season, shift toward lower volume and higher intensity — keeping the explosive quality sharp without accumulating unnecessary fatigue. Team Hoot’s in-season and pre-season training plan structure reflects exactly this logic.
Film yourself. This one comes straight from the vault coaching playbook — Karlie Place recommends filming your sprint form and comparing it to reference footage. The same principle applies to plyometrics. Watch your takeoff foot contact, your arm drive, your landing mechanics. You’ll catch things in video that you completely miss in real time.
What This Means for Your Pole Choice
There’s a satisfying connection between plyometric training and picking the right pole: as your physical output improves, your equipment needs to keep up.
If your speed and explosive power are growing and you’re still on the same pole you started with, you might be leaving height on the table — or worse, the pole isn’t bending enough to work the way it should.
Whether you’re a developing athlete working on your first real vault season or an experienced jumper pushing toward new heights, the poles we carry at TetonVault are matched to athletes at every level. The UST-ESSX ESSX Launch starts at $378 and is built for youth and beginning vaulters who are developing their technique and early physical base. The Gill Pacer One and PacerFXV from Gill Athletics cover beginner-to-elite athletes with a consistent, predictable series feel. And FiberSport’s carbon poles — designed by vaulter-engineer Bruce Caldwell — are engineered with Easy Bend technology to match athletes who are generating real power through a full approach.
As your training improves, your pole should too. Browse our full pole lineup at TetonVault to see what matches where you are right now — and where you’re going.
Your Next Step
Plyometric training isn’t a magic fix, and it won’t replace vault-specific technique work or consistent practice time. But for athletes who want to develop the kind of explosive speed and power that actually shows up on the runway, it’s one of the most direct investments you can make.
Start simple. Be consistent. Film your work so you can see progress over time. And if you have questions about training for vault or finding the right equipment to match where you are in your development, Coach Dopp and the TetonVault team are here for it.
You’re building something real. Keep going.