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Answers from Danny M O'Dell:

Q. As a once or twice a year participant in senior games throwing events (shot and discus), I admittedly do not train year-round for these meets. However, I would like to do some sort of a winter routine that will begin and maintain my training cycle, and allow me to ease into the actual throwing season (May-July).

I am moderately busy from September to May with part-time refereeing of prep-level basketball and soccer, so I maintain reasonable fitness, but I currently put in very little time toward summer throwing.

Are there any particular daily or weekly stretches, agility drills, or lighter weightlifting routines, etc. that you might suggest to me that will accomplish my objective without requiring a huge time investment? I am not a big fan of fitness centres or gyms.

You can reply directly to me if you don't think this question has a wide interest base.

Thanks,

Rich

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Answer:

Hi Rich,

You present an interesting situation. You are a competitive thrower during the senior game season and moderately active in the off season but don’t want to spend too much time in the gym actually training for your sport. Several training protocols come to mind:

The first is doing a strength day followed up the day after with a speed strength day followed in turn with a full body hypertrophy day.

Your strength day will consist of legs, shoulders, chest, upper and lower back compound exercises performed in three to four sets of five to six reps at your 80-85% 1RM.

The speed day will be with 35-50% 1RM for six to nine sets of two to three reps. Move the bar as fast as possible with out damaging yourself in the process. Time every set and maintain high speeds.

The hypertrophy day will have you doing a full body workout of four to five sets of eight to ten reps with a work to rest ratio of 1:1-2. The intensity level will be at or around 60-75% 1RM.

The second is to due full body explosive training two times a week.

Explosive strength, as the name implies, is how fast a person can reach the maximum force available. The more force that is developed in the shortest amount of time, the greater is the explosive force. Think speed of movement as there is a mind muscle connection.

Training in such a manner as to inhibit the weaker fibers and going straight to the fast acting powerful ones is the key to instant and explosive force and power. Conditioning the CNS to bypass the non-power fibers occurs in some of the elite strength athletes. This takes the body a long time to make this adaptation and requires a deep dedication to the strength sport-more so than many people have at the lower levels of participation.

Maximum power output, as many strength athletes already know, results from using loads in the intensity ranges of 30-40 % one repetition maximum. But the maximal coefficient of reactivity will be obtained by utilizing weight loads in the 30-33 % ranges.

Strength training will increase explosive power. But training cannot be confined exclusively to strength regimens, some of it must be in the power percentages.

‘To improve an athletes speed potential, strength exercises similar to the sports techniques should be done so as to improve strength while perfecting techniques. Strength exercises aimed at improving speed in sports technique must be similar in form, timing and rhythm of movements to the actual sports technique.

Resistance must also be similar-not too great’ as it will alter the form of movement and prevent the athlete from moving as fast or as explosively as they need to.

Here are a few training suggestions:

Use very fast movements against resistance, such as that provided by standard exercises. Medicine balls thrown in various manners against walls, outward, upward, sideways…, catching and immediately re-throwing a medicine ball, jumps with and without weight for height and/or distance, low level plyometrics, examples of which are one leg hops, bounding, skipping for distance and height, clap push ups, medicine ball drops and re-throwing upward.

These are but a few of the many ways you can increase your explosive strength capabilities. Train hard and fast with these sessions but avoid continuing once fatigue sets in as you will disable the neuromuscular pathways that help develop the speed of execution in the first place.

Training slow and conditioning inappropriately and then performing explosively on the field are mutually exclusive.

Danny M. O’Dell, MA, CSCS*D