I know this is a very complicated debate, but I’d like to take a reasonable approach that might open up some understanding and dialog about training. There is so much in the conversation that I would like to add that I will split this up into a few different blogs. I will start with the idea of what is most important and why, next I will talk about how this applies to training, and finally how I see it going into training (taking into consideration gender and athletes’ abilities). I am very open to questions and comments and encourage those who read it to keep the dialog going.
Just getting my workout on
First thing is first. Let’s just understand the fact that different things work for different athletes because, well, they are different. Also, some athletes succeed BECAUSE of the system and some athletes succeed DESPITE the system they are using. So, we cannot simply say that one training system is good because so and so did well or because it worked for someone and didn’t work for someone else. With that behind us, we will also look at cause and effect because I feel like in the great debate this can sometimes be confused.
My order of important whether you are a beginning thrower to even the most experienced thrower is first technique, then specific strength, and finally general weight room strength. Sometimes people confuse this argument for saying that strength isn’t necessary or important, it is import. I’m not arguing that. My stance is the order of importance and thus my personal beliefs for the focus of training.
What Are We Really Trying To Do With Training:
The point of training whether it’s sprints, lifting, throwing, drills, whatever, is trying to make our bodies perform optimally to maximize our competition. Of course all coaches want this, but how we go about this is all different. I’d like to focus on the key word optimum, not to be confused with maximum. We want maximum performance, yes, but we must train our bodies optimally.
Why Optimum and Not Maximum?
We want to maximize our results, and ultimately maximize ourselves as athletes; however, throwing isn’t about extreme maximums in athleticism. If you look at athletic fitness as a triangle with the corners being three extremes or maximums of maximum strength, maximum speed, and maximum endurance, you will see all sports fall somewhere inside (the difference being how each are utilized). The closer you get to one edge the further you go from others. Just like an endurance runner training for maximum endurance cannot also train for maximum strength, we as throwers cannot train for maximum strength and risk losing other tools we need. Throwers are not maximum strength athletes, we need speed, explosiveness, flexibility, rhythm, and finesse. I think finesse is one of the keys. It’s that magic touch of the scrawny kid that keeps the meat heads scratching their noggins on how they got their butts handed to them. If we train maximum strength, we could lose those abilities.
Not only that, but we only have so much energy and time in a day to devote to training. These time and energy systems must be split up wisely, focusing on the most important things in the athlete, in order to prepare the body optimally. Sure drugs let some athletes push boundaries and recover where us honest athletes cannot, so let’s forget that the meat head mentally of being tired is weakness and pushing through until you pass out in everything. Pretend that all athletes are a glass of water, a finite amount, and training is like puring water into containers. How much should be poured into which containers to get the best throw ? I know there aren’t many athletes out there who haven’t experienced over-training, just giving too much and not having enough. And all athletes have experienced that on harder lifting days, throwing may suffer. And on harder conditioning days, lifting may suffer. On harder throwing days, other training may suffer. Therefore training smarter is always better than just training harder. (i.e. Understanding and focusing on the most important things will build better results than just working really hard on everything hoping something will work.)
Why Technique is Most Important:
Efficient technique is the device we use to put ourselves into our throw. It takes all of our strengths (speed, strength, etc) and puts it into the throw. The more efficient the technique the more of our strengths are utilized. Just that simple. If you have a thrower who can fake strength number is 500lbs but has 80% efficiency in technique, he will be better than the athlete who is 500lbs but only has 70% efficiency. Both athletes may be on the same level physically, but technically the other athlete will win out. I know it’s simple, but it illustrates a point.
Getting strong is easier, so that’s why people focus on it, especially in younger throwers. However, it’s not smarter. I will go into more depth on this in my next blog, but realize the strength you can add is very finite. It’s like a sprinter taking off in the first lap of the 5,000m. Sure, you’ll stay ahead for the first lap, but eventually, you’re gonna get tired.
But more of the reason why focusing on adding strength and maximizing that is because YOU CAN ONLY USE THE STRENGTH AND SPEED THAT YOU CAN USE. What does this mean? It means if you can’t use the strength and speed you’re working so hard to get, then it is useless. The only good speed and strength is that in which you can use in the throw, anything else is just taking time and energy (and may even prove detrimental if it changes your timing, lose flexibility, slows you down, etc.)
That brings us back to why technique is most important: because not only does it allow you to use the gifts of yourself as an athlete the most efficiently, it also allows you to use your added strength and speed into the throw as well. Without proper technique, the added strength and speed is useless.
Me choosing my torture device of kettle bells.
Specific Strength over Weight Room Strength:
So we’ve established, and hopefully you’ve followed, why technique is so important both for using the gifts you have and being able to use the abilities (strength, speed, explosiveness) you add as you train. But let’s talk now about specific strength. For this argument, I am calling specific strength any athletic abilities used specifically and only for the throw (so that can be speed, explosiveness, strength, etc).
How many Olympic lifters and Professional Power lifters are also top level, Olympic throwers? Anyone? A few sneak in there? While these athletes are amazingly talented within the realms of their sport, it doesn’t translate over exactly. People argue how important strength is in throwers (and yes, top level athletes are very strong, but they forgot our cousins who are even stronger are not!)
But this is because while they are strong, they are not throwing strong (and yes, I realize they are not throwers and don’t have the technique either.) But the strength we have as throwers is a different strength, I call hammer strong or specific strength, and that doesn’t always come from a bar.
Where does specific strength come from? Yes, we utilize strength in our throws from our traditional US strength methods of lifting in the weight room such as bench, squat, cleans, snatch, etc. But that’s only taking parts and pieces of athleticism and making it into something else. Specific strength can and does come from actual throwing. You use all the muscles you need in throwing during throwing and while you are training, you are building up those specific muscles. That easy. lol. Throwing is training not only technique, but the body to handle the pressures of throwing. You can add heavier or lighter implements to add to the resistance or challenge the body and therefore build the specific strength. You can also use specific strength exercises to build these too such as puds, Med balls, plates, plyos and anything you use to reenact parts of the throw to strengthen the movement.
This is one area I think we as Americans can do a better job on. I’ve heard the excuse that athletes don’t throw heavier implements because they can’t handle it and can’t keep their technique together… Hmm, so you won’t train to strengthen a movement you know translate exactly what you need, but you’ll keep pushing the athlete to break that 300lbs bench that may or may not translate into the throw?
We are a country of instant gratification, we lift, we get strong. We see that, we can measure that. We can’t always see the changes and abilities added through specific strength (well, eventually when you have that new PR).
I know that adding weight on the hammer isn’t easy and kids do want to use different muscles, may drag, or generally look like crap. That’s okay, that’s why it’s called practice. But it’s important to understand why you are using the training method and be rigid on your expectations of the drill. Having someone use a heavy implement incorrectly could just take away from the technique. More on this later.
The top throwers in the world are the “strongest” in their events in terms of relevancy. I’ve seen athletes do specific strength exercises that our 700lbs squatters wish they could do. I’ve trained a lot of different systems over the years and know the difference between feeling throwing strong and weight room strong. Sometimes the throwing strong and weight room strong are similar, and sometimes I’m throwing strong and my weight room numbers are not and sometimes I’m weight room strong, but don’t feel throwing strong. 2009 when I PR’d, I lifted in my main season in the weight room 2x a week, but I did puds and heavy hammers and my strength levels were at the best they’ve ever been in hammer and pretty darn high for traditional lifts. In 2005 when I broke the collegiate record, I had a stress fracture for two years and was only able to lift and train at a small percentage in the weight room but could still do heavy hammers, puds, core, etc. I’m not saying weight room isn’t important, I’m explaining that everything is important… but some more than others.
Specific strength, the strength we actually use in throwing is more important than traditional weight room strength because it also highlights another aspect of throwing, release velocity or speed. It is training the body for what it does best, to hold positions and then to transfer energy quickly. If we have the ability to lift heavy weights but lack the ability to transfer it quickly, it can’t be used. That plain and simple. Any weight we continue to lift that is unable to be used in the time we need is simply taking away from our energy and time period. That is why you see some systems that take this to the extreme where they almost never go extreme in weights but focus more on the speed of lifting. Not saying this is perfect, just opening up dialog.
So, specific strength is very important in throwing. It helps us hold positions we need to have good technique, it helps strengthen the muscles we use for throwing, and it helps teach us to transfer that strength quickly. Sometimes people use the argument that the top level athletes are very weight room strong and we’ve heard the numbers they’ve supposedly done. But ask yourself. Did that athlete do that crazy clean because his specific strength is off the charts or is it the other way around? I think when you think about it, you’ll see one transfers to the other one a lot easier than the other way round.
Weight Room Strength: Useless Then?
Oh weight room strength, have I hurt your ego too much? When I speak of weight room strength, I speak of bench, squat, rows, lunges, etc. (Olympics for me fall somewhere in the middle, but I count them a little closer to weight room). They do have a place in throwing and I am in no way saying to get rid of them. They provide a valuable service just like any other training and are necessary.
Weight room training is a foundation of strength and fitness. It is the general strength that sets the foundation on which all else is built. It helps build up opposing muscles to help keep the body fit and healthy. Any athlete can tell you about the increase of injuries when the body becomes too specialized. It helps build coordination, kinesthetic awareness, flexibility, balance, and general athleticism. During certain parts of the season, I even think it should play a larger role than others. Smart coaches can even use traditional methods of getting strong in the weight room and make it event relevant or specific and I commend their efforts because it is more effective.
It does help build strength and strength is important, but keep in how mind how much of that strength you can actually use. If you can’t use it, then it is useless. If you need more strength, then get more strength. There is more than one way to get strong and we as Americans in our throwing systems already know very well how to do it. So in this blog, I will not being giving any suggestions. It’s easier to add weight room strength than technique. Not easier in that you don’t have to work very hard physically, I just know the perfection and dedication of countless moves to change technique is harder than pushing your body to get that last rep…
So yes, the weight room is important, but just like all the other parts of training, it has its place.
So What Is the Conclusion?:
Basically we know that all parts are important in training, but there is only so much time and energy that can be devoted to each. It’s not a cop out in the debate, but simply saying they each have their place and focus. I have differing beliefs of how much should be devoted to each depending on the event, gender, age, and athlete. But that’s what a good program should do, bring in all of these different aspects.
So the next blog I will go into this a little more. Please, share your comments, questions, whatever. I could write for pages on this, so obviously I’ve not gone into the depth I could in each section.
Hope training is going well!
, everything I own fits in my car, no husband or significant other. lol Actually I have less earthly possessions than when I graduated college.
