Thanks!
haha..."fisher-price hands"...definitely describes mine...you should see my hands in comparison to some of my friends [I know at least 3 people who are 6'3", one who's 6'1"-6'2", and am related to people who are 6'4" and 6'8"...and my friend's dad is 6'8"...man I am TINY in comparison to them, especially my hands....hehe]
I know the grip strength will definitely help, unfortunately, it's making it hard to do drills and such in the meantime. VERY hard in some cases, because for one we swing [similar to this:
http://www.polevaultpower.com/media/...s/leglifts.mov but we swing a little with our arms {starting so that our elbow are in front of us, then pulling out, kinda, if that makes sense} to get some momentum.] and if you get too much momentum and your hands can barely hold on as is...its pretty hard.
I forgot to mention: While I know someone who had the "muscle" problem when he was a freshman in highschool {wouldn't even let him vault!} and over came it {he later won states 3 times and is in the top 25 in his college division now, as a sophomore...ranked nationally close to that as a freshman in college}, he was tall. I'm not too terribly tall...I'm closer in heigh to Svetlana Feofanova, though I'm actually one inch shorter than her. {The shorter you are, the more your technique has to be on the dot.}
And yes, I know there aren't REALLY "lower abs" but that's the region I want to work MOST. I can't invert, or get close to it, without better lower abs.