Training/Throwing: There's More To It!

There was a time in my life where I played all of the normal sports such as football, basketball and baseball. In 7th grade, I came down with a really bad case of lymes disease in my spinal cord, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. Damn ticks!... Anyway, the lymes disease basically had me bed-ridden for months on end. I actually missed the majority of the school year because of it. Since I was no longer able to play the sports that I grew up and loved playing as a youngster, I was never really introduced to the whole theory of lifting and training that most high school athletes encounter.


In some sports such as football, you don't really have any other choice but to lift. Football players are taught that lifting is good and is actually essential in order to excel as an athlete. Rightly so! When I was in high school, I noticed that the large majority of throwers that I competed against played either football, basketball, or both. These athletes had a good idea of how to lift. It was almost in their nature to lift. It was obvious that they had a good grasp on lifting just by looking at them. You could see it in their muscle mass and size.

 
In high school, I had a "no lift/no train" mindset. The only lifting I ever did was overhead squats (Dan John's theory), dumbbell cheat curls (Al Oerter theory), dumbbell tricep extensions (without triceps you cannot throw), and every once in a while I would bench (honestly, who didn't bench?). I never did any other lift because I simply didn't know how. I thought that the only thing that truly mattered was technique.


Here is where this no lift/no train mindset came from:

 
I started competing in track meets, and I noticed that everybody was double my size. Unfortunately, their technique was horrendous. I started throwing further than a lot of these people, and so I was convinced that technique was the key. However, although technique is extremely important as a thrower, it is not everything. Without lifting, and without training, you cannot reach the highest levels of throwing that you are capable of. It is a pretty simple concept; as a thrower, you must lift!


I have heard stories of a high school coach in Pennsylvania, who doesn't even let their throwers pick up an implement until they have two years of lifting under their belt. My intent is not to agree or disagree with his method, but to give an example of how important lifting is as a thrower. This coach knows how important lifting is to the overall make up of a thrower. You cannot have a "no lift/no train" mindset and expect to achieve greatness. Unless of course, you are blessed with a inhumane natural ability to throw. Even so, the vast (and by vast, I mean VAST!) majority  of people reading this do not have these types of natural abilities. Even more so, if you were one of the really (and by really, I mean REALLY!) lucky ones with this natural ability, you would not be living up to your potential. You would be greatly underachieving. You would be basing your performance off of your opponent's performance.  As I said in my previous post, this type of action is a no-no!

 
Nuggets to take away:

• Although technique is important, it is not everything.
  

• Lifting/training is essential to a thrower.
  

• You need to have a good balance between learning the technique of throwing and getting stronger, more explosive, and athletic through lifting/training.
  

• ... Stay away from ticks!
  

Thanks for reading! Until next time, see ya!