clinic update

[Sheaf daddy]

ok - I have 11 definites and 4 maybes and 3 no's

I need to hear from at least 9 more yes's.


Here is a recent post from Dave Brown on NASGA. Read it and you will see why I am so stoked for him to be coming here as well.


There have been several posts on training, specific to how different people have come along, pro's/con's... here's my two cents:

I've now been at this sport 16 years... essentially starting the sport with no track & field experience, no olympic lifting experience, and basically seeing it for a first time and thinking "hey, that looks like fun"... to then finding out in my first games that the weights are really hard to coordinate, much less do gracefully and have a point to add power from. Overall, there have been about eight stages of development in my throwing focus: 1) Coordination; 2) General weightlifting/Throwing; 3) Purposeful throwing; 4) Working out weaknesses; 5) Levers/Body Mechanics; 6) Work your strengths; 7) Power development; 8) Back to basics - sort of. Here's a outline of each stage... I summarize some thoughts throughout.

1) Coordination. Coordination is simply the first evolution of any athletic event where you try and get a general idea and feel of what to do. From there, you try and apply a little force and 'voila' you have your first training marks. Coordination for me was particularly difficult in the wfd's. The wfh and hammer seemed better than most in my first comp so I trained then less (which is still strange that my first comp was further than my second in those two events). My lesson from this stage was to take the time to learn the movement. I used a chalk outline in my garage floor during the winter and would work footwork (probably too fast) before meals, after work, whenever I had a chance. Unfortunately I was too quick to want to see distance that the coordination suffered, I fought the throw, and what could have been learned in a month, took the entire off-season to get a general feel in the wfds. Looking at it now and having been able to talk to some of the brightest athletically minded people out there, coordination "is" the foundation for any thrower... which is why there have been incredibly strong athletes try the games that didn't do too well - yes they were strong and powerful, but not coordinated.

2) General weightlifting and Throwing is the stage where I was full of excitement for the games and trying to get better. I joined a local gym, starting a bodybuilder type routine, and starting doing throwing in a park at least 1-2x/week. The weightlifting was good as a basis and understanding of muscles, but was in no way building actual power. I look back and realize that most of the exercises were for upper body (chest, back, shoulders, arms) and that very little was devoted to the legs and no movements were rotational on the core (ab work just up/down is not rotational). The throwing aspect took after the Karl Dodge approach (at the time) and was doing 30-40 throws with the 56/28 each workout and the same in the hammers. Eventually I bought my first video camera, had a flag/marker for the throws and was trying to better it every throw. As I look back on the countless repetitions, this was a mistake and missed the point of how to apply force in a throw. When you're body hits fatigue in throwing, you start to use mass and other muscles to counter the weight. As a result I began to throw the 56 by literally diving my left side arm/head/body on the forward thrust which accelerated the weight, but reduced the radius of the movement and essentially made twice the work for only a little more distance.

3) Purposeful throwing is similar to having 'perfect practice'. If you're going to train your brain and body for a movement, then do it right, otherwise you shouldn't expect a different result in a comp. At this stage I was getting bored and complacement with throwing 30-40x and wanted instead to have 10 focused throws with a single improvement on each throw: keep right leg from floating across the throwing area, hold throwing arm back, pull through, accelerate the end, keep head up, etc. This was actually really beneficial during this stage of my throwing. It forced me to think about where force is applied and opened my eyes when I would take a 75% throw and it would go beyond anything I threw before. This break-down worked in the wfd's, hammer, and stones at the time. Up until this point, no training was done in the caber, wfh or sheaf. Similar to the coordination phase though, I was focused on distance during practice and often overlooked a good idea due to a poor distance (as showed in my stones later in life... early development was just to push the heck out of it... later I realized in the stone you need torque and a combination of levers (not just your tricep) to launch it.

4) Working out the weaknesses was an attempt to improve my stones, hammer, wfh and caber. By this time I joined a powerlifting gym and was doing more powerful movements, but still in the 10-15 rep, 3 set range... saw some great strenth gains, went from never deadlifting to up to 650 in a year and starting tossing cabers as a result. Often the timing of the cabers was off, but in the Amateur ranks and early pro years. Weight for height similarly went up from a 14' average to hitting 15 and peaking at 16'7" from a stand. During training in the gym I was thinking of how to pull high during high pulls, deadlifts, shrugs and how to get my hips under me. I would describe the functional power developed as being from the hips to the shoulders - meaning I wasn't employing strength from the ground up to the hips yet and similarly wasn't extending any power from the shoulder up through the end of a throw. My hammer actually slowed down during this stage, but went the same distance with a better pull at the end. The weights for distance actually went down and just didn't seem as graceful as before. Sheaf development figured out how to do a 'flick' by literally doing a right handed bent over row (as fast as possible), and stones hit a lifetime PR of 49'5" at a comp. During this time I actually trained with a light stone and continue to think that's better than a full 16-17# rock for training.

5) Levers and Body mechanics was a stage in reading anything I could get my hands on related to using levers, developing a better chain in the body, and applying force in a way I otherwise wasn't use to. This was also a stage where the focus was to start with the larger muscle groups and gradually speed up (slow to fast) to maximize all the energy put into the implement. My hips in specific were a source that I threw big marks from... in the wfd's I practiced "slow to fast" for the final forward movement and pull - which in a way became a signature to my throwing. Essentially I would do a single turn, stay back on the throw until the weight was at the low point, start to load the hips, and then lift/twist/push in a continuous motion... I believe the statement at this time was the weight would throw itself 40 feet. I rarely practiced with the 28 and instead worked the 56 nearly every day with the thought that the 56 would create more power and being slower was better to train the brain on where to feel the tug against the weight. An example of a body mechanic movement is like walking up stairs.. instead of lifting my leg to the next step, I would push hard enough to propel my leg (fully extended) to be received on the next step. This mini-plyo change in everyday things made applying force in a throw more comfortable and saw increases come back in my wfds. In the hammer, I had to retrain my throw to develop a long pull at the end of the throw, especially in the 22#. I have training logs that show an 8' increase in getting the hips behind and into the final pull versus just the arms. It was a week after hitting lifetime PR's at home that I had a motorcycle accident (4 days prior to the World Championships) and had to rethink training, life, weightlifting, etc.

6) Back to basics... I recall spending some time with Jack McGee at a clinic well several years after my accident. It was compelling to see him and many Master's trying to throw the same technique as the un-broken 20 year olds out there... simply meaning that a lot of throwers have bad knees, ankles or a hitch in their get-along. The several years that I spent compensating for an injured ankle actually helped me to understand better balance and how to accelerate the weights in ways that I otherwise thought came from heavy lifting. For well over a year, I stopped lifting all-together and just threw... surprisingly with no reduction in general performance. The types of throwing I did had video's of most of the sessions and worked on how to rotate into the throw and lean in certain areas to use mass as an accelerator rather than just the legs. In Jack's case, he had an ankle brace and I was able to relate how to adapt the throw and still apply force. I recall him saying he hit a PR the next games with no pain. Personally I think everyone should sustain an injury... to realize how important it is to work minor muscle groups, eat better, and to reflect on what you can do to avoid the injury again. Some of the best throwers out there happen to have had lots of injuries to learn from... you could learn a thing or two from them.

In a basic-sense, most of the events 'sling' an implement. Rather than have continuous improving speed on a wfh or 28, there became a basic sense to 'set-up' a sling-shot movement. Training actually took on this regime... I bought a Tendo unit at this time, starting to see real-time power from movement and began focused on fast-twitch, peak power, and getting into a position to apply peak power. Weight for height went from 18' in May to 19' early June and 20' mid-June. I'm still amazed what little change in overall training it took to have a huge difference in performance. Talk of plyometics, jumping, explosiveness, etc are all good, but only if you can APPLY them. If you apply them and miss the right position, you're just muscling the weight. Coordination and getting used to being in a position are key.

Training now has many sport-specific elements. In the weights (as an example), the trouble areas for me are usually getting out the back, accelerating across the trig (without diving and with keeping my shoulders square), and then lifting at the end. I've rigged up equipment to work each of those individual components... mainly because it's too tiring to hold a 56 and try to work the middle when I can grab one of my 'gadgets' and hit the position multiple times in just a few minutes. This works those minor core muscles that get jammed in throwing with my ultimate goal to never get hurt in the back or core again. Throwing is a pleasant by-product for this type of training.

What does all this mean... my two cents is that Coordination, Technique and Power are the three items in any discipline, and that all throwing is 'from the ground up', meaning that if you're doing a throw with your arms, rather than your hips/legs, then you're limiting yourself. Of those, coordination is probably the most overlooked, technique second. Take the time to video yourself and realize where you may not be 'slinging' an implement. An easy example, do a weight for distance turn with no weight... are you squared up, comfortable. Now do it with a 10# weight in your throwing hand. You should be able to do this with only your legs (no arms) and the weight should be slinging. If it's not, then you're too much upper body on the movement... the throw isn't to see how comfortable you can turn with a weight, but to apply the most amount of force/energy to the weight which in-turn will launch it.

As far as lifting and developing a base - that's a post to itself and depend on what experience someone has. Functionally I think just doing squats and pulls is all you ever need for the highland games.

Dave

[Rich McClain]

I took the liberty to post the information on the glsaa site and offer a ride to anyone wishing to attend. Have you talked to Andrew Callan lately? I can give him a call to see if he is interested.

[Sheaf daddy]

I have sent him emails and thank you for post on the GLSAA site. Go ahead and give Andrew a call. Also if someone could post on the SSAAA site I would appreciate it.

Bryan