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