Some great stuff in this issueÉ - Dan Johndanjohn.net/pdfs/v4.pdf · and make you realize what is...

Volume V, Issue 4 November 2006

Get Up! The Official Newsletter of the Lifting and Throwing Page

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Some great stuff in this

issue…

You know, every so often, you read

something that stops you in your tracks.

Here at Get Up, we know who are

friends are…and we don’t toss them

aside with the whims of booze, money or

the tides.

Enough of me…

Let’s remember the mission here:

Our mission? To teach everyone:

1. The Body is One Piece 2. There are three kinds of strength training:

• Putting weight overhead

• Picking it off the ground

• Carrying it for time or distance

3. All training is complementary.

An Email from a Friend of

Get Up!

Dan,

I initially checked out the velocity diet

after reading your results on T-nation

and then hearing your interview with

Kevin Larrabee on The FitCast. I have

since listened to all of his recordings and

interviews of you and found them to be

very inspirational. So I thought of you

after I posted a reply on the FitCast

forums. Kevin has a thread where some

of us are recording our results while on

the diet. I am currently finishing up day

10 right now but today was a heck of a

day. My thread can be found here (

http://www.thefitcast.com/forum/viewto

pic.php?t=88) but I want to copy and

paste an excerpt from my last entry in

hopes that I can relate a little of how I

was inspired today.

I am a Captain in the US Army and was

tasked today with an unfortunate but

very important and honorable duty. My

post is as follows:

Ok, now let me tell you about my day. If

I was going to quit, today would've been

the day.

About 45 minutes after making my post

this morning I received a phone call. I

was told that I had the unfortunate task

of notifying a mother that her son had

been killed in Iraq earlier that morning. I

have been in the Army for 20 years and

have 3 kids of my own so it was hard not

to imagine what that lady was going to

feel. I knew that at that very moment she

was living her life as normal while I had

news that would completely and totally

devastate her and change her life

forever.

So I had to go home and get my dress

uniform and make some shakes for the


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trip as I would probably be gone the

entire day (it was a 2-hour drive to the

mother's house). It would have been very

easy, and in a lot of ways, desirable, to

just go ahead and eat normal food for

this one day. I knew that nobody on the

forums would think any less of me

because it was an extraordinary

circumstance. But ten days ago I made a

commitment and I was going to stick

with it.

We got to the house at about 2:00pm but

nobody answered the door (a chaplain

accompanies you for casualty

notifications for support). We went to

get something to drink (and I drank

water) then went back to wait for the

mother to get home. Then at 3:45 she

came out of the house (turns out she had

been in there the whole time) and asked

if she could help us. And man, this was

the hardest thing I've had to do in a long

time. Once we got closer and she saw

that we were in uniform she knew why

we were there but was still hoping for

some stroke of luck. The look on her

face damn near broke my heart as I

began telling her my message:

"Ma'am, the Secretary of the Army

wants me to express his deepest regrets

that your son, PFC Daniel xxxxxx was

killed in Baghdad, Iraq at 10:25am on 13

November."

And at that point I was too broken up to

continue as she was crying hysterically.

Her son was supposed to be home in 6

days and she had just talked to him last

night. Nobody else knew about this as it

was going to be a surprise. I couldn't do

anything else but stand there and hold

her as she sobbed in my arms. We ended

up there for about an hour to help her

deal with this as family arrived.

So I guess my whole point of typing this

is just to let everyone know that no

matter how bad you think your day was,

someone out there had it even worse as

she lost her precious son forever. Things

like this really put things in perspective

and make you realize what is important

in life.

So Newman, don't give up. Do whatever

you have to do to lose the weight and

live a long and healthy life because

without knowing you, I know someone

out there cares about you. And I only say

Newman because he is also posting

along with me. To everyone else doing

this diet, remember why you are doing

it. Get fit, get healthy and pass along

your knowledge. And Kevin, thanks for

providing a vehicle to get this fitness

knowledge out to the masses. I, for one,

appreciate it.

Sorry if I got kind of sappy but days like

this just make you step back and think a

little bit.

Anyway, I got home at 8:00pm, changed

my clothes and went to the gym. After a

day like this I really needed to hear that

metal banging together and push myself.

Karl

In my weight training classes, we

continue to keep Daniel, his mother, his

family, his friends and you, Karl, in our

prayers. There is little more that can be

said except “Thank you.”

Volume V, Issue 3 October 2006


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Dan John’s 13

Lessons

Rob Shaul

I’m no strength athlete, power

lifter or oly lifting stud. I’m a 150-pound

weakling, who can barely bench 200,

squat 250, and dead lift 300. But despite

my performance, I’m a lifelong gym rat,

who worships at the alter of Iron and

Sweat.

I’m also a rookie strength and

conditioning coach. I’ve been training

weekend-warrior athletes part time for a

year and have a couple national

certifications. I’m considering opening

my own gym but I know enough to

realize I don’t know enough to do it

right.

I met Coach John last fall at a

CrossFit certification, and there learned

he lived in Salt Lake City, just four

hours from my home. I planned to visit a

relative in Salt Lake in mid-October, and

while there visit several gyms and talked

to strength coaches. Prior to leaving I

also e-mailed Coach John and asked if I

could also meet with him. He was

incredibly gracious, and I met with him

for an hour and a half at his home that

Saturday. I asked to spend a few days

observing and learning in his weight

room. He said yes.

Last week I spent four days

observing Coach John work at this

weightroom in Juan Diego Catholic

High School. These are the lessons

Coach John imparted on me.

1. Be Generous.

Coach John was incredibly

generous with not only his time but his

knowledge. Every morning I came into

the coaches’ office he had another article

or book for me to read. And every night

I had homework. I constantly peppered

him with questions, most of them

obvious and inane. He was incredibly

patient, and as a man who loves his

work, colleagues and athletes, very

excited to banter back and forth with

even a novice like me.

I followed him into the

weightroom for every class, did the

workouts with his athletes, and asked

more stupid questions.

He even had me over to his own

home where we worked out together at

the infamous Murray Institute for

Lifelong Fitness, then talked strength

and conditioning for another two ours

over steak and whiskey.

Coach John volunteered copies

of his athlete’s workouts, told me the

practical evolution of his weightroom

design, equipment and layout, and

described in detail why he had chosen

the exercises being performed.

I’ve never experienced

generosity like this and I found it simply

inspiring.

2. Never stop learning.


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4

Coaching is an craft and a master

craftsman will tell you he is always

learning. Coach John embraces this idea

completely. He is a walking

encyclopedia of theories on program

design, results of scientific studies and

hands on coaching lessons. His

professional library is bottomless. He is

always reading.

Every morning and throughout

the day he spent time reading the daily

blogs and articles written by the top

strength and conditioning coaches in the

industry. Often when I’d come in to the

coaches' office he’d already have one or

two articles printed our for me to read

and discuss with him.

Instead of being jealous and

suspicious of his peers, Coach John

seeks other S&C coaches out, fosters

relationships, readily shares information.

He is open to new ideas wants and

criticism and feedback of his own

programs.

4. Don’t be a slave to any program,

routine, or tradition.

Coach John is constantly

tweaking his workouts, questioning

exercises and trying new exercises,

programs and equipment. He’s not afraid

to change. He doesn’t care where the

idea comes from. If it works, he

graciously gives credit, and implements

it.

Dan doesn’t worry that his

program isn’t being followed, but that

it’s been followed too long.

5. Everything starts at the table.

Coach John pounds nutrition into

his athletes. Every class included some

comments on what to eat and what not to

eat. And he leads by example. His

lunches were salad mixed with tuna or

chicken breast.

6. Keep it simple, but hard.

Coach John’s athletes lift the

major lifts: bench, front squat, dead lift,

the olympic lifts. Their warm up

involves walks and basic exercises with

kettlebells, plus push ups and pull ups.

There are no exercise balls or machines

in his weightroom. The workouts are

killer.

Coach John will use tricks to

keep things simple. All off the bench and

squat barbells in Coach John’s

weightroom have chains.

Chains, Coach John explains,

force the athlete to use perfect lifting

tempo. Lower the weight slowly, lift it

fast. The less the athlete has to think

about, the better, he explains.

7. Use positive reinforcement to create a

culture of hard work and achievement.

Coach John’s warm up includes

an entire mini-workout of kettlebell

exercises and walks, and the athletes

consistently strove to increase the size of

the bells they were using. During

compound lift circuits, athletes diligently

added plates to bars, and quickly moved

from station to station.

Coach John’s “athletes” are all

high-school kids taking elective weight

lifting courses - these are hardly self-

motivated professionals. Despite their

ages, there was surprisingly little lolly

gagging and talking. All these kids

wanted to get stronger.

Coach John has created an

atmosphere of hard work and

achievement in his weightroom without

using fear or hoopla. Not once did I see

Coach John or another of his coaches



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yell at an athlete. Nor were there any

fiery psyc-up speeches.

Coach John’s weight room has

few mirrors, no inspirational quotes and

no posters of body builders. With the

exception of a few informational articles

on nutrition and anatomy, the

weightroom’s walls are bare white. The

floor is covered with industrial-looking

black rubber mats.

The lifting equipment is

decidedly blue-collar. Coach John’s

lifting platforms are not shiny,

commercially made platforms with the

school’s logo in the center. They are

handmade, screwed-together sheets of

plywood and horse stall mats. Many of

the heavy bumper plates are split. All the

bars are worn.

Yet I saw 7th graders do sets of

5-rep, 100 pound bench presses, 15 year

old girls do front squats with chains, and

freshmen boys perform perfect-form

dead lifts.

The athletes at Juan Diego worked

extremely hard.

It took a while for me to

understand how Coach John motivates

his athletes to work like this. He doesn’t

encourage or scold his athletes to use

more weight. Instead, when they do, he

quietly compliments them. This sparing,

positive reinforcement is eaten up by the

athletes.

Also, Coach John doesn’t correct

every lifting form mistake he sees. Just

as he uses positive reinforcement

sparingly, he corrects sparingly too,

careful not to “over coach.”

Finally, Coach John has arranged

his weightroom so the lifting stations are

around the perimeter, and the center is

big and open. He explains that unlike

many other weightrooms where athletes

can hide, in his weightroom, the coach

can see everyone at the same time.

Hence, his athletes know they are not

going to get away with anything.

8. Sincerely care about your athletes and

the organization.

In the week I spent in Coach

John’s weightroom, he never said no to

an athlete's request to discuss lifting or

exercise programs.

He kept the weightroom open

after school and gave on -the-spot

workouts to off season athletes and

faculty members. He attended sporting

events - on his own time - and shared

comments with athletes about their

performance in class.

Coach John’s concern for his

athletes goes beyond sport. He seemed

to know all of them personally and every

member of their families. He knew when

kids were having trouble at home, and

reached out to them.

He is generous with his time. He

regularly attends school functions and

sporting events. He donates to his own

school. He organized a weightroom

canned food drive for needy families and

provided cash prizes for a nutritional

cereal bowl contest.


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6

Coach John’s generosity is

greatly respected by other faculty

members. I witnessed them praise him

and saw how they interacted with him.

He took me on tours through the rest of

the facility. He showed me the library,

art on the walls, statues. He went out of

his way to introduce me to other staff

members. His pride glowed.

9. Let the athlete figure it out.

Don’t over coach, Dan insists -

you’ll just confuse the athlete. Be

patient, don’t correct every mistake, and

eventually the athlete will figure out the

proper form or movement. The “key,”

Coach John says, is repetition. Just do it

again and again and again.

Part of Dan’s training regimen at

Juan Diego includes “tumbling days”

spent in the school wrestling room. He

noted how several of the athletes had

initial trouble performing basic moves

like shoulder rolls and cartwheels. But

after several weeks of practice and little

coaching, most of the kids had these

basic rolls down cold. Repetition was

key.

This was also evident in squat

form. Of the dozens of kids I saw train in

Dan’s weightroom, just a handful didn’t

have nearly perfect, straight back, ass to

the grass squat form.

Dan’s athletes begins performing

front squats with barbells and chains in

7th grade. And every workout,

regardless of the athlete’s age, includes

dozens of squats in the warm up.

Repetition, repetition, repetition.

10. Strength is king.

The best thing you can do to

improve an athlete’s performance on the

field, Coach John argues, is get him

stronger. Coach John has just three

measurements for his athlete’s

performance: bench press, dead lift and

standing long jump. In terms of football,

Coach John works to have Juan Diego’s

football players deadlift 400 pounds, and

bench press 200 pounds. “Strength is the

greatest predictor of athletic

performance,” he says.

He dismisses time spent on

agility drills. When I ask about foot

work-focused speed development

programs he scoffed, “Get ‘em stronger

and they’ll be faster.”

He also isn’t sold on “energy

system” conditioning. When I question

him about fatigue in the fourth quarter

he tells me a story from his own high

school football playing days. His team

was so strong and so good that they were

usually up 35-0 by the end of the first

half. The starters never played in the

fourth quarter. Players on other teams

would tell Dan that they knew their team

was better conditioned, but they never

had a chance to prove it. They were

overwhelmed by skill and strength.

11. Progression is more than weight

increases.

It also includes skills, Coach

John explains. “Constantly expose your

athlete to what they can’t do, then fix it.”

This mental side of strength

coaching includes program design.

Coach John strives to keep the “edge” on

his program. He used to use PVC pipe in

the weightroom to train the olympic lifts

and to use in the warm up - that was

until he saw the circuit training class

using the pipes in their class. “If the

football players saw the circuit training

class using PVC they’d lose respect for

it,” he explains. So he cut back on using

it in his weightroom.



7

Another way he does this is to

throw out all the weight lifting records

and achievements from the year before.

His weightroom includes a huge white

board where athletes get to put down

their names for reaching weight lifting

benchmarks, but early in the year it was

mostly blank. Even the senior class

athletes have to start over.

“You have to keep the edge on

you program,” Coach John says, “or

your athletes will lose interest.”

12. Movements, not muscles.

“I think squats are important. I

think presses are important. I think pulls

are important,” Coach John says. “Not

thighs, pecs or biceps.”

Along those lines, Coach John

practices what he preaches - “If it’s

important, do it every day.” Every

workout included functional, full body

movements, lots of squats, push ups and

bench presses.

Auxiliary lifts? Forget it. Coach

John’s athletes pound away at the basics.

The warm up alone lasts 40 minutes,

which is followed by the “workout” -

consisting mostly of the major lifts.

13. Athletes don’t do well with

“medium.”

You can’t tell an athlete to take a

month off by doing 4 weeks of light

workouts, Coach John says. He/she will

get resentful, frustrated, and will end up

being discouraged.

Rather, make them take a whole

month off, do nothing at all (eat out, go

to every movie, watch lots of bad TV).

After a while the athlete’s body will start

missing working out and being in

condition, and when the athlete does get

back into the gym, they’ll hit it hard,

with renewed vigor and enjoyment.

Rob, the door is always open for you!

Great review…

Go hang yourself

“Sean is one of Canada's premier HGers.”

“Fronzenkilt” is a helpful insightful intelligent

new writer for Get Up. Our quote is from Gary

John who went the extra mile getting us this

biography…

There’s always a little bit of debate that

happens on THE INTERNETS about the

Olympic lifts and their worth as an

athlete. I’ll kind of give my opinion on

that right now: you don’t NEED them.

Really. Just like you don’t NEED money

to pick up women. But it sure doesn’t

hurt, does it?

Allow me to give a little background and

get a couple things out of the way right

away: I’m not a coach. Of anything. I’m

not an earth-shattering athlete. I haven’t

trained a champion and I seriously doubt

that situation will ever come up. I’m just

a guy who has been training now for

long enough to develop his own opinions

about some things training related.


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8

A little on the background: Many moons

ago, I fell in love with a highland dancer.

Being a dutiful boyfriend, I went to

many highland dancing competitions and

highland games to offer my support and

because hanging out with the older

dancers is not hard on a man’s eyes or

ego. But, eventually, there is a top out

limit of how many flings a man can

watch and so I went to wandering

around. To make a long story short, I

found the heavy events and got called

out and fell in love with my first real

sport. 10 years later, I’m still into it

heavily.

But let’s fast forward from that first

fateful day about 3 years when I finally

married that highland dancer and one of

my highland games buddies got me a

subscription to Milo as a wedding gift.

Something for ME. The married men in

the crowd will understand the sentiment.

In any case, that little magazine opened

my eyes to a whole new world of

training and strength. Powerlifting, arm-

wrestling, strongman…and Olympic

lifting.

In another fortuitous event, I ended up

seeing a guy doing front squats,

correctly!, at the Gold’s I then trained at.

We got to talking and I found out there

was an Olympic lifting club in town. I

made the trip down to that dingy little

basement about 3 days later and talked

with the coach. A week later, I was

training there. And over the next several

years I learned, competed, played, tooled

and retooled, relearned, recovered and

refined my training more and more to

suit my original sport. I’ve gone from

182# on that first games to about 242#

on average and added a pile of distance

and weight to my bests in the past 10

years. So like I said, I might not be a

coach but I’ve seen firsthand what I

think works and what doesn’t work as

well.

Back to my original statement, you don’t

need the olifts to be a faster, stronger

and more explosive athlete. But they

have more than a little value. Inside the

debate about the olifts is a number of

side arguments about the full lifts vs the

power versions vs just pulls, etc. Add in

rep schemes, weights, claims that it’s all

technique or too difficult to learn,

pendants claiming that rep work is all

you need to get better and other

ridiculousness and you end up with a

giant fog and that’s why I figure most

people just don’t bother. Much less

bother to actually make them decent.

As a recommendation, look around your

area for Olympic lifting gyms with

decent coaches. Not always available but

if it’s there; it is very much worth

whatever time you can make for it. Even

if only once or twice a month for a little

tweaking.

But here are my thoughts on the olifts in

general: your average athlete or trainer

doesn’t need to learn the full squat

versions or even to take the weight from

the floor. Hang work will give you the

majority of the benefits you’ll get from

the olifts, they’re easier to learn and they

train you in that power position that

pretty much every individual sport

known to man uses.

First off, what IS hang work? Taking an

olift “from the hang” is simply taking

the bar from a position above the floor.

The bar “hangs” in your hands as

opposed to sitting dead on the floor.



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Now that’s a pretty wide range as you

can be hovering the weight just off the

floor or be almost entirely upright and

it’s still “from the hang”. What I’m

talking about specifically is taking it

from about the middle of your thighs or

the final pull. This is all power position.

Even more specifically than that, I’m

talking about the power clean. Why the

clean as opposed to the snatch? Simply,

it’s easier and you can use more weight.

The Start Position

The best way to describe the start

position of the hang power clean is to

first deadlift the weight up to full

lockout. At this point, you just want the

weight to be dragging your arms down,

nice and loose.

A quick word about grip: hook. That’s

the word. Don’t tell me it hurts or you

can’t do it. Unless you’re a dwarf or

something, your fingers are long enough.

If it ‘hurts’, I recommend you stop going

to the beach because we all know where

the sand is going to get caught. Just

butch up, toss a wind or two of tape

around your thumbs and get on it. Now I

know someone out there is thinking “My

grip is strong enough to hold onto

anything I could clean.” Good on you.

But the extra grip isn’t the point. The

bonus about the hook is that you can

hold onto the bar and still keep your

arms relaxed. If you’re gripping the bar,

the tendency for an early arm pull

increases. And that won’t help at all.

Anyway, back to the start position. Now

you’re standing there with the bar. What

you’re going to want to do is keep your

arms relaxed, tighten your back, jut your

chin forward and push your hips back to

lower the bar. If the bar is brushing your

thighs on the way down, this is a good

thing. On top of that, your shoulders

should be forward of the bar. Ideally,

your weight should feel pretty centered

on your feet, so not on the toes or too far

back toward the heel. Those of you who

are savvier can also think of this as more

or less the start of a Romanian deadlift.

So you’re standing there now with your

ass out, your chin forward and the bar

somewhere between just above the knees

and mid-thigh with your back tight and

hamstrings nicely pre-loaded. Welcome

to the power position.

The Big Bang

What happens now? Now it’s time to

explode. Avoid the tendency to start

pulling with the arms and just drive your

feet through the floor. Your hips should

push forward like they would if you

were jumping. At that point, you want

the traps to kick in with an explosive

shrug. As violent a shrug as you can

manage. Everyone kind of has a

different way to think about this whole

part of the movement. Some think


10

10

‘Jump!’, others ‘explode’. I tend to think

about driving my shoulders up into the

roof.

Here’s where decent coaching kicks in.

Or at least some decent mental imagery.

You want to pull with your arms but

avoid dropping your elbows and doing a

“power reverse curl”. Which is what

you’ll see most poorly coached athletes

doing. Picture holding onto a fixed bar.

Now just think about pulling yourself

down to that bar. You don’t imagine

yourself reverse curling down to it, do

you? Chances are you think about

keeping your elbows up, ‘softening’

your legs and pulling straight down.

Same thing you’re trying to do here.

Only the bar will still have some upward

movement, making your life even easier.

Contact, contact, contact. Keep pulling

on that bar at all times so you never lose

the feel of where it is. That’s what’ll

make the bar and you meet in the

middle. Done right and you won’t even

have to think about the ‘catch’ portion.

It’ll mostly happen out of necessity.

Still, for those who want to think about

it, you pull as hard as you can and when

the bar is at your shoulders (not chest!)

you literally whip your elbows around

and out. Bam. It’s yours.

Yeah, I know. It’s slightly more complex

than that, but not as complex as most

think. In terms of little things, try to

avoid the tendency to jump your feet out

into a wide stance to catch. Just bend the

knees and catch it flexed in a partial

front squat position. Much easier to

recover from. Oh, and just to let you

know, a “power” clean is anything above

parallel. Chances are you’ll be catching

the bar a lot higher than that.

Here’s a little video I put together to

hopefully illustrate all the points I just

mentioned:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSm

8XMlo198

As I mentioned previously, I’m far from

perfect and way far from explosive but if

I can pull this stuff off anyone can.

Minutia

Invariably, when something like this gets

posted, the questions come out about

sets, reps, frequency, weight and the

like. Everyone differs in what they

respond to but I’ll happily share my

experiences and opinions about some of

it.

One, I don’t believe in high rep olifts. At

all. Basically, I figure most stuff over 5

reps is a complete waste of time and

even higher than triples is suspect. These

are high skill moves you are trying to

accomplish and fatigue does set in and

that makes it sloppy. Practice,

remember, doesn’t make perfect. It

makes permanent. So perfect practice

makes perfect. As long as you’re always

getting into that same start position,

thinking of whatever keys you need to

(chest out, back tight, chin out, weight

on center of foot), you’re drilling

yourself into a better position.

Once fatigue starts to loom, you’re going

to start pulling with your arms, not

finishing the hip extensions and

otherwise turning into a sloppy cheat

reverse curl. There are legions of trainers

doing this for ‘fitness’. Whatever. If you

want to rail your heart rate with high rep

exercises, grab a kettlebell and go nuts.



11

If you want to get better at something,

strive for better reps not just more of

them.

As I get more experience (read as

‘older’), I find that singles work better

for me than anything else for the olifts.

However, what I’d recommend to people

starting out would be doubles. 6 to 10 of

them. Ladders would also work well for

this work.

And because doing more reps really does

make you better, I’d increase the

frequency so you’re doing them 2 or 3

times a week. Once a week will still

work, but more often will work faster.

Same as with any other high skill

movement.

The biggest mistake I usually see is

people either using too little weight for

too long. This goes back to those folks

doing high rep sets. If you can do sets of

10 with a weight, it’s worthless.

Honestly. It isn’t going to teach you

anything. It isn’t going to ‘ingrain the

pattern’ or anything else because weight

that light moves radically different than

heavy weight. It could be compared to

doing sets of 10 at 135# for squats and

telling people you’re training to do 4

plates. You need to feel the weight. . It’ll

take a little playing to get it right and

starting off light is erring properly on the

side of caution. Just don’t stay there.

225# doesn’t move the same as 135#.

So that’s the hang power clean in a very

wordy nutshell. It’s actually easier to do

than it is to explain, but I still

recommend finding your local friendly

Olympic lifting facility and asking the

guys about tips, tricks and technique.

Who knows? You may get sucked into

another sport altogether.

Changes

David Witt

David is by far Get Up’s most popular writer…which

ranks up there in compliments with being Rock

Sprint’s Best Opera Singer…and continues to mine the

gold from his continuing journey in sports….

If you’re going to be a thrower, you

have to be in it for the long haul.

Throwing is a skill that takes a long time

to learn and perfect if you want to

compete at high levels. It is not any

wonder that Olympic Medalists are

usually near or over their 30th birthday.

Throwing well takes years.

For the middle and high school athlete,

I can offer this. Work on learning the

technique of the event the first year, two

if you have time, and after you have a

foundation and understand what you are

trying to do, then start worrying about

adding strength. Every coach and

thrower around can tell you about the

massively strong kid in the weight room

that couldn’t throw a shot over 40 feet.

Starting this way, learning the event

first and adding strength later, can also

help you avoid the pitfalls of learning

bad technique and then trying to unlearn

it later. A story to illustrate.


12

12

I started throwing discus my freshman

year in high school. My technique in

high school was basically a lot like Al

Oerter, me spinning out of the 2 position

and basically backing across the ring

because of over rotation. There was no

pivot in the back into a South African

position and sprinting across the ring.

John Powell’s video was years away

from production. So my senior year I

qualified for the state meet, and the week

before the state meet my coach suggests

that I should change my technique to a

more linear style. “Coach, I don’t have

time to relearn a new technique, I’ve

been doing this for 4 years. I have to go

with what I have,” I said to my coach,

and I did. Habits ingrained over 4 years

take more than a week to unlearn.

So I went off to college and started

working on a more linear sprint. After

my first year, I thought I had it, went

out, and taped some throws on video.

Much to my dismay, I was still backing

out of the back. One year wasn’t

enough. It ended up taking me at least 3

years to change my technique. Actually,

I have a nice picture of myself taken 5

years after high school at our state

games sprinting out of the back nicely,

so it may have taken longer. The longer

you make a mistake, the longer it takes

to unlearn it. Neural pathways get

hardwired into the body and the body

wants to keep things the same. Just

think about how hard it would be to

learn to write with your opposite hand. I

would have loved to learn how to squat

snatch, but I never had any coaching and

so I taught myself the power

movements. So for the last twenty years

I’ve been doing things wrong in the

weight room. If it took me an equal

amount of time to relearn the discus, it

would take me twenty years to relearn

weightlifting. Then I’ll be over 60.

Good thing I’m just a thrower and not a

weightlifter. So I’ll just stay the

challenge for anyone that can coach the

lifts, but I digress.

Find out what you want your style

to look like and learn it from the get-

go.

Now, everybody, master’s included. I

believe that you can only work on at

most two things a year. Actually, I

usually pick one thing a year. Last year

for example, after throwing discus for

Dan and Brian at camp, they told me to

work on my left side. My left side was

collapsing as I crossed the ring. This

helped with my block at the front and

gave me a stable “wall” to push against.

This year I’m working on concomitant

feet. More than one or two things just

creates static. You decide you need to

work on pinning your right foot at the

back, pivoting in the center, and raising

your orbit at the front. What happens is

you concentrate so much on the pin and

the pivot you forget the orbit. So next

throw, you try to remember the orbit,

and forget about the pivot in the middle.

Nothing gets worked on over a

consistent basis. But working on one

thing will get that problem ironed out

pretty quickly. After three or four years

I will have some great technique to

throw with. What would your technique

look like if you could go back in time

and work on one or two things starting 4

years ago? How much would it add to

your throwing?

Published by Daniel John

Daniel John, Editor

Copyright © Daniel John, 2006

All Rights Reserved Any unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.

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