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10 years ago I was at a small division III school in Ohio, on the football team, and without a coach for the throws. On a whim I reached out to an alum on facebook who was training post collegiately and asked them to help train me so I could learn the 'secrets' from the throws guru he was training with in Kamloops, British Columbia.
I continued to crawl through this rabbit hole for the next decade and while it hasn't led to an Avengers level event I feel that this post could help you look back…

This is long but good, you should read everything.

A few days have passed since one of the best weekends of my life every year; Starting at 3:00 On Friday, December 15th and ending Monday night, the 18th, I slept for about 6 total hours as I lay host to 150 of America's best and most dedicated athletes from world class to novice level.

While in years past the clinic had been Big, this is the year that certain things became traditions and new things created their own folds on the weekend; from…

Reggie Jagers stepped into the ring and threw the 2K discus 55.97m, I turned to Justin Rodhe and asked 'what round is this?', he replied '5th', I responded, 'we should just give them 12 attempts'. That about sums up my feelings about the Big Weekend...I just didn't want it to end!

In 2004 I watched a youtube video of Koji throwing the hammer in the olympics, that indoor season I tore through dozens of towels, swaddling shot puts within them and trying to throw them like hammers. Years later,…

When I first arrived at Grand Valley in my first staff meeting I asked about the possibility of hosting an indoor discus competition; 14 months later it came to fruition and I believe the experience to be one of the greatest throwing festivals ever put together and a model others will mimic for years to come.

Somehow I managed to convince two of the best throws minds in the world today, Justin Rodhe and Dane Miller to carpool in a van from Philadelphia and Columbus to speak on training and…

As a college coach I am often asked by many groups of people for ‘Drills for Throwing’, whether it be shot put, discus, hammer, weight or javelin, students, teachers and fans alike are looking to increase their wealth of knowledge of the throwing disciplines to better teach their craft.

I often ask myself ‘what is a drill?’, ‘why does everybody want them?’, ‘how do they make us better?' I did plenty of ‘drills’ in high school but throughout my college career I can probably count…

Saturday, June 13th, 2015-

I am sitting in my house in Allendale, Michigan watching Raiders of The Lost Ark, waiting for the women's NCAA Championships to show some throws this evening. I just finished watching the Adidas Grand Prix in NYC, where I saw about a minute and a half of throwing, fortunately I was also getting some great live tweets and interviews from Dan McQuaid and the Truf Twins (http://mcthrows.com/).

This weekend was also the Midwest Meet of Champions down in Granville, Ohio…

Who do you coach?

I coach my college athletes at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. I also coach Amanda Bingson.

Where do you train?

We train in Manhattan, ks.

What is the core of your off season training goals, Philosophy?

In the off season we are mostly focused on technical development of the competitive movement as well as the development of specific strength. General strength is also emphasized especially with the younger college kids but we are always working on…

In general, I look at the year in 3 phases: fall is the time to get fitter and correct technical flaws from last season- that (correct flaws) is the main thing I want to do in fall; Winter is for ingraining and making technical corrections the "new normal" and improving special/throwing power and speed; Spring/competition season kinda speaks for itself- stay healthy, perfect technique and plan peaks for important meets.

Who do you coach?

I work with several elite HS throwers in our Kultan…

Who do you coach? 

I am currently coach Matthias Tayala, Danniel Thomas, Reggie Jaggers, Jackie and Becca Leppelmemeir, Mke King and the rest of Kent State throws squad.






I am going to do one question at a time. if that's cool.

Where do you train? 

We train at Kent State year round we are fortunate to have a sweet field house when the weather turns nasty, but the hammer throwers still endure the cold weather.

What is the core of your off-season training goals, philosophy?

Our off…

Overview:

Perception is life. In throwing perception is dependent upon communication. Communication between Coach and Athlete. Communication between Athlete and Body. Communication between what is seen and heard and what is thought and executed. The way we speak is fundamental in the way we perceive and develop thoughts, and so it is imperative in Coaching The Throws to have an excellent lexicon and understanding practiced between Coach and Athlete.

Analysis:

This can be easily misconstrued…

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Before we had the image recording software of today throwers yearned to see themselves throw, to see others throw and to make themselves look like the throws they could see throwing. Old film strips were often kept and copied by athletes and coaches and could easily be played forwards and backwards and at different speeds. Some of those old videos can still be found on youtube today as videos of these videos of these classic throwers.Before video cameras became cheap enough for throwers to buy…

Excuse me if I have miscounted (there were quite a number of applicants) but 42 throwers garnered regional athlete of the year honors ranging from the 2014 indoor and outdoor season. Throwers have completely dominated the NCAA this season and show a great promise for the future at the international level should they find the support to continue their training. Below is a list of those award winners and their accomplishments. 19 Throws Coaches were also declared coach of the year for their…

Early in the 20th Century the sand of the New Mexican Desert was turned to glass during the Manhattan Project Testing. Somebody should head down to Tucson to check the status of their sand after this Memorial Day weekend. While we all take time to remember all that has been lost and won in order for us to have the luxury of even consider throwing as a profession the best throwers in the world in all events took to the Arizonian Desert to Drop Bombs in the Tucson Classic. Playing the roles of…

The American athletic system has become unified with its academic institutions. The American academic institution is changing and thus the athletic development program will reflect such changes. These changes will benefit athletes if appropriately leveraged by all parties into a 5-6 year model of training. Successful components of such changes will include providing an affordable and usable education for athletes that could potentially supersede bachelor’s degrees. An academic calendar and…

Chirstian Cantwell won the Kansas Street Meet with the best mark in the world of 21.36M. Returning from a serious elbow injury and late in his career Cantwell didn't hold back barely fouling some near 22m throws. Kurt Roberts was second with a near life time best of 21.23M while Reese Hoffa was third with a 20.96M toss.

There was a crowd of an estimated 2-3,000 spectators in downtown Kansas tonight, resting on the chalk bucket was a check for an exact $2,000 for any athlete that could break…

When Kevin Carr was in graduate school in 1995 the internet was just starting. Google didn’t exist; hotmail was a brand new company. Carr was studying how to use the internet to deliver online learning; he created one of the first online astronomy boards. To do that he had to learn code using PERL and write web pages using HTML. At the University of Idaho the Physics Department had it’s own servers which gave Carr direct access to a system to create and deliver web pages, and eventually create …

This past weekend in Chicago the Illinois Track (and Field) and Cross Country Coaches Association had their yearly clinic and Hall of Fame inductions. The keynote speaker (for us throwers anyways) was Mac Wilkins, 1976 & 84 Olympian in the Discus, winning the 1976 games, a 7-time U.S. National Champion in the Discus, 4-Time World Record Holder in the Discus, 5-Time American Record Holder in the Discus and Oregon HS State Champion, NCAA Champion and current Throws Coach at the OTC in California.…

All athletes, regardless of sport or level of competitiveness share at least one common experience: pain. For throwers one of the most common ailments is the ‘Thrower’s Hand’, whether this be torn fingers from the chords of a javelin, decimated pads and knuckles from a hammer, blood blisters that near aneurismisitc quality and finally the most famous of the four: The Paw of a shot put thrower. These are the thrower’s weight to carry and it is also the mark of their commitment. Not to…

This story began quaintly enough as I set out to research the history and origin of the ‘South African’ discus drill, also known as the ‘step-and-turn’; I spoke with throwers around the world tracing it’s roots all the way to Pretoria and a 73-year-old man named Jakobus du Preez. He has been at the heart of coaching South African discus throwing for the past half-century.

The ‘Step-and-Turn’, as it is known in South Africa and around the World, was created as a fast way to teach the full…