Every year, when I hit the TCR Shot Put & Discus Throws Summer Camp Tour, it’s always really great to see the wide range of athletes, talent levels, work levels, and coaching issues, from good to not-so-good.
In Houston, we had way more requests to add an additional private session after the camp.
… and it’s in these private coaching sessions where I can address some of those issues more in-depth.
Yesterday was the perfect example.
I had 3 private sessions booked, and I had all throwing levels present:
- A beginning thrower
- An upper intermediate thrower
- A more advanced thrower.
Since I was out of town, I couldn’t film the private coaching sessions, so I’m going to add some videos I’ve done that are on our YouTube channel as a visual example.
The Beginning Thrower
The beginning thrower was a very tall, 8th grade girl who has grown, I think her mom said, something like 7 1/2 or 8″ in the last two years!!!!
She was a tall girl—about 5’11″—and with that growth comes a little bit of awkwardness.
I always call it the “Bambi Phase.”
Because of this awkwardness, the athlete had some strength issues that were limiting her ability to throw farther.
Below is a short video about how strength dramatically impacts a thrower’s ability to hit key throwing positions & smash a big throw.
(this video is not of the athlete above)
The Intermediate Thrower
My second athlete had been to a TCR Throws camp last year, and she was extremely fast.
Not real tall, but lightning fast!
Dad is a sprint/hurdle coach; and so he understands a lot of the general concepts of speed, acceleration in the ring, etc.
It’s similar to the concepts of creating speed in the sprints and hurdle.
Last year, this thrower was en route to hit some big PRs after the camp, but then she broke her ankle and had to have two surgeries in the off-season.
Due to this unfortunate event, there were some technical issues and other things that we had to address.
Now being only 5’1″, she’s not real tall, so speed is a needed component for her success and she had plenty of that for us to tap into!
Her #1 concept in the TCR® system she needed to focus on was the window –we went over this at the camp! 😉
(again, the video below is an example of what the window refers to, it’s not of the athlete)
The Advanced Thrower
The 3rd, and last athlete I had to coach is another hard-worker: a grinder!
After being at the shot put camp for 5 hours, we did another 1 1/2 hours of private coaching, and even though he was was pretty smoked, he wound up taking a few more throws and chatting another hour or so.
This thrower had some bad patterns that were established early.
The entire session was untwining the bad patterns and learning the right ones!
Below is a video of another thrower, that had the same bad patterns I was addressing…
As you can see with all 3 of these different levels of athletes, the core thing is to teach the structure of the throw—the six pillars.
The throw happens in roughly two seconds.
How are we going to break down all the things that occur in 2 seconds?
You can’t do that in a throwing circle, actually throwing… you have to work on it in pieces.
When you coach:
- You have to work on each part of the throw separately- the 6 pillars. If you understand the concept of the chain reaction, you’re typically going to be working on Pillar 1 & 2.
- Then, as you proceed, you’re going to coach in pillar 4, which is going to allow the athlete to move more efficiently through Pillar 5 & Pillar 6.
- If you set up the most optimal position, then the movement through Pillar 5 and Pillar 6 (and any adjustments) becomes a lot easier!
This is what we teach inside the TCR® system and at our TCR Throws camps: to show the stretch points, the key shot put & discus throws technical details, and how to set up the trigger.
Everybody wants to get better, faster. We want everyone to get much better, much faster!
Keep studying the throw!
-Coach Johnson
