\u201cThat third one is kind of, you either have it or you don\u2019t, although you can work on controlling it,\u201d Greg, just back from Paris, tells Fortune.<\/em> \u201cSome pole vaulters are a little bit too daring, and they go over the edge and hurt themselves doing risky activities \u2026 Mondo is not like that. But he\u2019s very, very fearless.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s also very strong without having bulky muscle, and lithe\u2014a body type that works well for pole vaulters, who must not only be lightning fast in the run-up, but powerful enough to absorb the extreme shock of the pole hitting what\u2019s called the box, for the launch, and the force of flying over the bar.<\/p>\n \u201cYour body has to be very strong,\u201d Greg says, \u201cthe whole core from top to bottom, to handle that without getting hurt\u2014from the hands, the wrists, the shoulders, the upper back, lower back, your legs, Achilles, everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Pole vaulting, though, was just one of 48 track and field events in this year\u2019s Olympics\u2014all requiring their own specific superpowers, workouts<\/a>, and, in some cases, body shapes and sizes.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s so awesome about track and field, is the different body types out there. There\u2019s an event for everybody,\u201d <\/strong>Tiffany Hogan, former Olympian, three-time national champion, and Brigham Young University track and field assistant coach tells Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n Below, coaches break down how the athletes prepare, skills needed, and body-type myths and realities.\u00a0<\/p>\n When American shot putter Chase Jackson<\/a> stepped into the ring for the Olympics<\/a> women\u2019s semifinals this week, she did so with the 8.8-pound metal shot and a wealth of training under her belt.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the big things I like to work on is the core,\u201d Jackson\u2019s trainer Paul Wilson tells Fortune<\/em> on the phone from Paris. \u201cSo the analogy I always use is, think of a tree. If the core is weak, the tree is going to fall over.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson, who coaches Jackson (who unexpectedly failed to qualify<\/a> for Friday\u2019s finals) and British Olympian shot putter Scott Lincoln<\/a>, and is a trainer in the other throwing sports\u2014discus, hammer throw, and javelin\u2014says that all require a mix of rhythmic coordination, \u201cexplosive power,\u201d and full-body strength.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all explosive,\u201d says Wilson of the throw sports, noting that the movement path is generally the same, using several turns to generate speed before the throw. (An exception is the javelin throw, with the light javelin and a sprint before the toss\u2014plus, it takes the genetic gift of what\u2019s called a \u201cfast twitch fiber\u201d muscle, something sprinters have, too.)<\/p>\n ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to the gym and lifting six times a week, doing bicep kills,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you want to be a bodybuilder, you work on the specific muscles, whereas we work the whole body.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to not build too much muscle mass, which leads to losing elasticity. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to become like the bodybuilder with the solid, rigid body \u2026 you need to be loose to get a long extension when you actually release the shot,\u201d Wilson says.<\/p>\n That\u2019s also important for pole vaulters, who tend to build strength primarily with body-weight exercises. \u201cLifting your body weight, pushing your body weight, because your body adapts to the activity that you\u2019re trying to do,\u201d Greg explains, \u201cand doesn\u2019t put on a tremendous amount of muscle.\u201d<\/p>\n With throwing sports, Wilson says, \u201ctrying to coordinate everything together with a rhythm is quite hard, because you\u2019re trying to go as fast as you can on the entry, and then at the front with explosive power while trying to hold your body back, working from the ground upwards.\u201d For a visual, he says to think of twisting an elastic band and then letting it go\u2014that\u2019s your upper body, facing one direction while your legs are still going the other, generating the force to release the shot or the discus.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of throwers, when they\u2019re starting off, want to try and just throw with their upper body. But you throw with your legs, not your arms \u2026 You walk on your legs all day, so your legs are stronger than your arms,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere is upper body [work], but most everything you do is generated from your legs,\u201d Hogan says, noting, \u201cyour arm is just an extension.\u201d It\u2019s why strength training is a huge part of multi-event training. When Hogan\u2019s athletes hit the weight room, the foundational movements they focus on are variations of squats, power cleans, and power snatches, including for the throwing events, she says.<\/p>\n Avoiding dizziness with the spinning of throw sports, notes Wilson, just takes practice. \u201cRepeat,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just reps after reps after reps. The first few times you do it, you do become dizzy, but you then become spatially aware. And it\u2019s like anything we see\u2014the gymnasts, how do they not get dizzy going upside down? Or the divers? The more you do something, the more your brain adjusts, and the more your body adjusts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Adjusting to spinning is just one particularly nuanced skill\u2014kind of like the controlled sprinting of pole vaulting, as opposed to the all-out sprinting of, well, sprinting.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to be outright fast, and you\u2019re working on outright speed. But the pole vault run has to be very precise, so it\u2019s precision speed running,\u201d says Greg. \u201cYou have to hit on a mark \u2026 within a pretty tight range. It\u2019s tighter than a long jumper even. So it has to be a very precise run.\u201d The goal, he explains, can be thought of as \u201ca maximum controlled speed.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson\u2019s approach to coaching, he says, is that \u201call throwers are athletes,\u201d meaning they\u2019ve got to be able to do everything, from bench presses and squats to running and jumping.\u00a0<\/p>\n Christian Petersen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Hogan, who trains women for the heptathlon\u2014concluding on Friday and consisting of 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meter run, long jump, javelin throw, and the 800 meter run\u2014and men for the decathlon (a series of 10 events), looks to couple together drills for events that share similar movements.<\/p>\n For example, \u201cthe long jump and the hurdles have some similarities as far as the rhythm of the take off,\u201d Hogan says, and during her practices, athletes will spend the first couple hours working on the mechanics, form, and power behind jumping (as they also do for throwing). That takes the form of plyometrics, which are exercises that involve a lot of jumping and bounding to build muscular power.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll do eccentric plyometrics, where we\u2019re up on a box and we drop to the ground and then try to rebound, jump as high as we can,\u201d Hogan says.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s also hopping, skipping, and running up stairs, which makes practices pretty fun\u2014especially when they work out in a diving pool, something done by decathletes to work on pole-vault technique, going through the motions completely underwater. It\u2019s the best way to slow down the movement and \u201cfeel what their body\u2019s supposed to do,\u201d Hogan says.<\/p>\n It\u2019s particularly helpful to work on swinging upside down\u2014what a pole vaulter must do just before propelling themselves over the bar. \u201cIt\u2019s a very foreign, strange type of move,\u201d Greg says. \u201cAnd a lot of people have problems with just kind of visualizing it. The water is a way to see what it feels like.\u201d But probably 50% of his training revolves around sprinting, mixed with strength training and then actual pole vaulting.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to get the strength that you need to pole vault without pole vaulting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Hogan, a two-time heptathlon Olympian, says the events show how a wide range of body types can be advantageous for different aspects of track and field. She says she could see the differences in her own performance as her body changed.<\/p>\n \u201cAt different body weights, I competed better in certain events over others,\u201d she tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cAs my body shifted to lighter, I did better in the jumps than I did in the throws. When I was heavier, I did better in my throws than my jumps.\u201d<\/p>\n Greg explains that, with pole vaulting, body type matters \u201ca good bit,\u201d explaining that \u201cthe longer, leaner type athletes are more suited for pole vaulting because you\u2019re propelling yourself through the air and flying, and so any weight added that\u2019s not helping is hurting.\u201d<\/p>\n Being tall also brings an advantage with angling the pole just right, he says\u2014as long as you\u2019re not too<\/em> tall, which can render you \u201cunable to have the full-body strength to both take the collision and do the gymnastics move.\u201d The \u201csweet spot\u201d for men, he says, is somewhere between 5\u201911\u201d and 6\u20192\u2033.<\/p>\n Discus throwing, meanwhile, calls for \u201clong levers,\u201d or long arms that have a \u201cbig wingspan,\u201d says Wilson. That\u2019s because the discus is lighter (2.2 pounds for women and 4.4 pounds for men) and bigger than a shot, requiring a wider spinning radius to go far.<\/p>\n But long arms aside\u2014and despite many throwers being bigger than, say, pole vaulters\u2014Wilson says that there is no true body ideal, and points to men\u2019s shot put as an example, pointing to the differences in build between American shot putters Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Age, though, can be important, specifically for throw sports, as mastering the many elements of competition takes time. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t happen overnight. It\u2019s something that happens over years,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s why throwers are probably a bit different than track athletes: they become their best when they are in their early to mid 30s.\u201d<\/p>\n For more on the 2024 Paris Olympics:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\nCore and strength training are fundamentals<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\n\u2018Throw with your legs\u2019 and other non-instinctual rules<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Specific drills, from skipping to underwater vaulting<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Body type can be crucial<\/strong><\/h2>\n