Throws Strength

Home	Throwing is all about propelling an implement with the maximal velocity you can at the correct angle of trajectory. As explained elsewhere - these pages are not designed to help with your technique, but purely with conditioning your body to throw as well as possible. Therefore, we are going to work on developing your muscles to impart maximal velocity on your chosen implement. Although you might think this is done by just getting massively strong, this is not the whole story. Just by being able to bench press a large weight - which by its nature is going to be a slow movement does not mean you'll be able to move a shot or discus fast. Even with the Shot Putt, which is 7.26kg, this is not a heavy weight compared with the weights that will be lifted in the gym, we need to remember this and develop speed of movement for throwing. It is all about imparting the force on the implement whilst you are in contact with it - clearly, once it has left your hand, there is nothing that you can do. The other thing to remember is that to throw as far as possible you need to utilise all the muscles of the body - it is not enough to develop your upper body, your legs will gain you much of the distance that you will throw. As with other events this strength will be gained from a mixture of weight training and plyometric exercise. Weight Training As explained before, you are training to gain strength to move the implement you are throwing faster. Working with very large weight will improve your strength, but you need to couple this with working with lighter weights where the repetitions are done faster. Early in the winter you might work on building muscle and strength with repetitions like 4 x 8 or 5 x 10 at 60-70% of maximal effort. Later in the year, in the pre-competition phase you will try to build your power and pure strength, with reps of 3 x 4 or 5 x 3 on 80-90% of maximum and also your speed of movement by adding sets like 4 x 10 @ 40-50%. During competition phases you are trying to peak your speed and power, so you'll cut the intensity and try 4 x 6 @ 40% alternating with sessions with a mixture of speed and strength, for example a pyramid of 8,6,4,2,1 reps This works well for bench press, shoulder press, squats etc. For the more dynamic exercises, it is not as important to do the large number of reps early in the year concentrating more on sessions like 4 x 5 @ 70% Cleans, Snatch and Dead lift fall into this category. Plyometrics Using plyometric training is going to help you with the speed of delivery for your throw and movement across the circle / runway. This includes bounding, hurdle jumping, depth jumps as well as resistance running (which can be done running forwards or backwards). These exercises and more are detailed in the Drills Section of the site.
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