Off-season training

[Alan H]

Hey, that video looks pretty good! Head-chest up at the delivery.....Man, you look a LOT better than my rotational throws! Good job!

[eclarkhb]

Hey, that video looks pretty good! Head-chest up at the delivery.....Man, you look a LOT better than my rotational throws! Good job!

Thanks a lot! Tons to improve on, though - that's why I love having the video. I'm using almost no legs, standing straight up & not maintaining the power position - I'm also looking down in the middle of the throw & again at the very end (looking at my feet). And then to top it off I'm throwing from about 2' behind the trigg....

So lots to work on!

[Alan H]

In fact....... I have a bag full of shoes!

1. med-top football cleats. These were my original throwing shoes but they are very tiring on your feet and they are awful in anything but deep grass. But when the day comes that you walk on the field the morning after it rained all night, and nobody has cut the grass for a week, you will bless those freakin' cleats.

2. med-high top artificial turf cleats from Nike. These are the shoes I threw in, on every surface until I bought the turf hogs. I got them for dirt cheap off of ebay, and I LOVED these shoes. I'd not have bought the Turf Hogs if I didn't have an issue with the soles coming unglued from the Nike's. I wish I could show you the bottoms, they are a real miniature square-waffle pattern and the "waffle squares" only stick up between 1/8th and 1/4 of an inch. In contrast to that, the Turf Hog "cleats"...all hundred of them.... are easily longer than 1/4 of an inch. Walking around on pavement, I can feel my feet "wiggle" a little bit when I wear the Hogs.

On those plywood platforms, the Nikes are great. Honestly, running shoes or crosstraining shoes are probably just fine.

3. The Turf Hogs. There are pictures of these all over the internet. I LOVE these shoes on regular grass, and I can't recommend them highly enough.

About the plywood platforms and So Cal Games. I've only been to a few but...

1. Queen Mary in Feb., I am pretty sure you throw off of real grass at Queen Mary

Here's some guy we all know, throwing at Queen Mary a few years ago. You'd think he's have better sense, considering how OLD he is, but...*hey*.




2. Bakersfield...that's not an SAAA Game, and I know for a fact you throw off of natural grass at Bakersfield.
3. Vista ... I THINK that is held on a baseball field, and so some of the throws are off of grass and some are off of a dirt infield.


4. Costa Mesa... you throw off of natural grass. I've been to those Games.
5. Ventura...you know the score, there.
6. Las Vegas ... That's an SHA Game, and the SHA doesn't have the plywood platforms, AND I know that Games is held in a park with lots of grass, so I assume you throw off of grass, there.

The only other Games I throw at, where I throw off of the platforms, is Enumclaw, in Washington.

[Alan H]

Monday was the first Deadlift workout of the offseason

stationary bike 4 minutes
stretch legs/hips in the cage
deadlifts...8 x 185, 3 x 3 x 225, 3 x 2 x 265 wimpy for someone my size but you gotta start somewhere. I'll get there.
core 1 - incline situps ... 17, no wweight
core 2 ... hanging leg lifts, 15
zerchers squats - speed .... 2 x 8 x 115. That's light but I had to use a pre-loaded up bar, all the squat racks were busy
cable pulls...various, for shoulders
towing machine ... 7 m inutes @ <2:30/500m


Today was the first Incline Bench Press Day. I thought I'd ramp up to failure, just to see where that was going to be.

Stretch in the cage
Incline Bench Press ... 15 x bar, 8 x 155, 6 x 175, 195-FAIL
single arm bench rows ... 8 x 3 x 85 pound dumbell, each side.
triceps pull down - cable... 8 x 2 x 70, 8 x 85
seated flies ... 6 x 175 on the stack, 4 x 175 on the stack, 4 x 150 on the stack...*Seriously* olff on this.
Core 1 ... lat pulls on Roman chair... 8 x 2 x 60 pound dumbell, each side.
random upper body...did lat pull downs today 8 x 2 x 160 on the stack

[eclarkhb]

Good stuff, Alan - are you going to be logging your offseason workouts in this thread?

Also, do you have any specific lifting goals for the next few months?

[Alan H]

I log religiously over at NASGA. It's been a

*GIGANTIC*

motivator for me. Also...a reality check. There are three other 50-59 yo guys logging over there and we've gotten to be friends. Thing is, if I see Bill pushing a LOT more weight than I am, unless there's some technique factor or something, then I know I might want to ramp it up. Ditto for Todd and Jeff. Todd is a nationally ranked 50-59 discus thrower, almost exactly my size. He outhrows me in discus by about 15 feet, but that's technique, not strength. I'm not out to "beat Bill" or "Beat Todd" or anything, but they provide a yardstick that I can check myself with. They're actually all in Georgia/South Carolina and they'll all be at the Masters Worlds and I am SO looking forward to....

{smack talk}

whuppin' some Southern good old boy ***!

{/smack talk}

But seriously, it will be a blast and a half to throw with these guys after basically training with them for two years. Lies will get told, beer will get drunk, women will swoon with desire. It's gonna be EPIC.


If folks want, I can log here, too. I started out doing that last year, but didn't get a lot of feedback so I stopped.

[Alan H]

Basic principles

1. pick what you do well and DO IT. If catching the bar in hang cleans hurts, then why catch it? You're a thrower, not an Oly lifter. Do what you enjoy, do what helps you but just take a page from Nike and DO IT.

The best program in the world doesn't do you diddly if you're not in the gym or out on the grass, lifting or throwing.

2. pick what you suck at, and do it BETTER. I have lousy upper body strength. Seriously...lousy. So I am doing incline bench (because I've learned that it translates better to Open Stone than flat bench, which I hear tends to make you tighter in the shoulders) and strict Overhead Press. I supplement that with an array of stuff that I just happen to like...bench rows, rack pulls, and a "random exercise" for overall.

3. In the first half of the off season, lift big. Go for PR's if you can. If you're older, then take a tip from o1d dude and set 5-year PR's. As in...your PR from age 50-54, then your PR from age 55-59...then 60-64 and so on.

It's pointless to feel bad that you can't match the PR you set when you were 28, when you're 48, eh? But that doesn't mean that you can't still strive for personal excellence.

Last year I squatted a 1-rep PR of 300 pounds. That's not a lot for a guy my size, but I was proud of that. This year, first two weeks of February I want 325. I've never seriously deadlifted before because of concern about my lower back. Well, I've disccovered that if I'm careful, I can DL and it's OK. So first two weeks of February I want a single rep PR of 375.

In general I don't have lifting goals because the truth is that I don't care how many rubber coated iron plates I can lift off the ground. What I care about is how far I can throw a stone, or a weight with a handle on it, or how high I can fling 42 pounds.

4. In the second half of the off-season, lift for speed. For me, this is from Mid-February to the beginning of April. I start throwing about the second week of March, So there are a few weeks there where I'm both throwing...drilling a LOT, and lifting. This is where you do lots of Olympic lifts, both from off the floor and from hang position. Learning fancy Oly lifting technique is pointless for a thrower, so don't bust a gut getting really good at them. Personally, I just do high pulls from the floor, dumbell snatches from the floor, narrow grip hang snatches, and narrow grip hip snatches. That's it. Wide grip snatches hurt my elbows, so why do them? I also run short sprints, bunny-hop stadium steps, and do box jumps or jumps for height. Pylometrics, basically.

5. KISS - go look at Dan McKims workout. It is the epitome of simple. Seriously...I was blown away. This does NOT have to be complicated.


There. That is what I've learned from 3 years of reading Highland Games workouts from everyone from Pro's to super A's to utter newbs on NASGA

[azwildcat96]

Here's some guy we all know, throwing at Queen Mary a few years ago. You'd think he's have better sense, considering how OLD he is, but...*hey*.

Alan, I just finished the Tucson Celtic Festival Games yesterday, and someone there told me about the Long Beach (Queen Mary) games. Looking at the website, there isn't too much information, only sign-up forms for piping and dancers. Any chance you know more about this event?

[Alan H]

I've never been to the Queen Mary Games, but they're in the winter....February, perhaps?

I would look on the SAAA website for entry forms.

http://www.saaa-net.org/

[GoodGirlGonePlaid]

OK, I give. I don't know who that is in the picture. Is it Jim from OC? That kind of looks like the Fraser tartan but I can't tell.