Triskaidekaphobia - Joshua's Training

**Joshua** · 21st February 13, 10:37 PM

clean and jerk up to 245lbs, 2 singles
front squat up to 285lbs, triple
box jumps, 10 single jumps to 24" box, 2 sets of 5 to 18" box

**Joshua** · 24th February 13, 07:21 AM

Yesterday:
Squats up to 365lbs/166kg
Weighted Jumps (triples) with a trap bar: 155lbs (70.5kg), 245lbs (111.4kg), 265lbs (120.5kg), 295lbs (134kg)

The weighted jumps were a new thing from watching Ryan Vierra's training videos. He calls them Jump Shrugs.

After my workout, I ran some errands. Picked up 22lbs of plates from used sporting goods store... then picked up a new pitchfork handle, picked up some hammer spikes from a friend in the area, and finally another store to get some conduit for a hammer. I now have a new implement to train by myself if needs be... here are the fruits of my labor from the painful lessons I've been learning at these games (new cleats, hammer spikes, get a hammer for practice):

**Alan H** · 24th February 13, 01:28 PM

GOTTA have a hammer to practice with. Stacked plates is totally fine, but if you want to get better, you HAVE to have a practice hammer. This will pay off.

**Joshua** · 25th February 13, 07:57 AM

Originally Posted by Alan H

GOTTA have a hammer to practice with. Stacked plates is totally fine, but if you want to get better, you HAVE to have a practice hammer. This will pay off.

Those stacked plates will be epoxied together soon enough... that will prevent most of the shifting and other problems that come with stacked plates. I'm getting 2nd hand plates so cheap, I'll probably make a 16 as well.

**Joshua** · 26th February 13, 08:49 PM

I'm throwing hammer thursday evening btw. A local who happens to be a damn fine masters competitor, has offered to give me pointers on hammer (he throws the light hammer 100+ and threw the heavy over 100 before he was a master) as long as I give him pointers on olympic lifting. Cross-pollenation of disciplines and all.

Tonight, did powersnatches up to 80kg, front squats up to a 140kg triple.

**Joshua** · 28th February 13, 05:45 PM

22# Hammer - 5-wind throws not going for distance as much as familiarity, I seriously did about 15 of these with little-to-no rest. I measured the last three and all three were right in the low 50' range.

14# Stone, no approach - I did 3 throws with this, focusing on my hips "starting" the put. 25 - 26' averaged

14# Stone, glide - 9 throws - best throw 33', worst 29'

Training throws by yourself is a flipping bear, btw.

**Alan H** · 28th February 13, 06:59 PM

Originally Posted by Joshua

I'm throwing hammer thursday evening btw. A local who happens to be a damn fine masters competitor, has offered to give me pointers on hammer (he throws the light hammer 100+ and threw the heavy over 100 before he was a master) as long as I give him pointers on olympic lifting. Cross-pollenation of disciplines and all.

Tonight, did powersnatches up to 80kg, front squats up to a 140kg triple.

Anybody who can put the 22 pounder out past 100 feet is a seriously fine hammer thrower. I would take advantage of this immediately!!! Sweet deal!

Just an aside...about moving up to the A's. First of all, here in CA it's really up to the individual athlete. For example, I know one guy who threw in the B's for 3 years. A lot of the time his hammer numbers were easily A class numbers but everything else was really B class. He just got sick of throwing in the B's and he's started registering for the A's. Nobody has stopped him, yet and sometimes he doesn't finish DFL in the A class. His logic was, if he wanted to get better, then he should move on and throw with guys who are better.

I coach a lad who moved up from the B's to the A's this past season. I told him to hang in there with the B class until he'd won three solid Games. That means a class with at least 8-9 athletes in it. Some of the guys were starting to grumble "sandbagger"...and when you hear that, you know the time is approaching to move up.

His numbers, at the transition point..

HWFD - 28-29 feet, sometimes 30 in practice
LWFD - 52-56 feet.
Open stone - 38-39 feet. This is about where he finished off last season.
Braemar stone - usually just a bit over 30. Best of about 32.
Light hammer - mid to high 90's sometimes 100-105.
Heavy Hammer - 75-78
WOB - 14, every time. Never 15.
Caber. he eats our practice cabers for lunch; 16 feet, 87 pounds, 17 feet, 70 pounds. He's been stumped by a lot of the really big A class sticks, though...18' and 110 pounds, stuff like that.

He won the Woodland B class...and that's a HUGE class, like 14-15 guys with these numbers.

B stone ... 29' 8"
O stone ... 38' 7"
HWFD - 29' 2"
LWFD - 49' 7"
Heavy Hammer - 76' 9"
Light hammer - 94- 2"
WOB- 13

His first Games as an A were the Pleasanton Championships...pretty good gig for your first outing as an A and he wasn't dead last! LOL

B stone ... 27' 3" (26 pound monster stone)
O stone ... 36' even"
HWFD - 32' 8"
LWFD - 60' 6"
Heavy Hammer - 82' 5"
Light hammer - 96' 6"
WOB- 14

Now, that's out here in California, and I don't know how things are where you live. But I would suggest that you hang in there with the B's until the majority of your numbers start to look like this, at least...

B stone ... 22 pounds consistent at 30 or more
O stone .... consistantly at 38+
HWFD ... consistently 29+, the magic number is 30.
LWFD .... consistently 55+
Heavy hammer ... consistently high 70's
Light hammer .... consistently 90+
WOB ... 13+ pretty often.

This is just my two cents...something to think about, maybe.

**Joshua** · 28th February 13, 08:20 PM

I would stick with B's but for one thing. I'm one of the best B's we have in our class. Our B games get 20 applicants, but only 15 make it to throw. We only have about 8 solid A's in practice as our best guys have just turned masters.

I've been told by the AD's that we NEED to have some of the B's move up. My old games training partner and drinking buddy Travis, won 2 B competitions with very similar numbers to my own and now throws in the B's.

And the athletes who are the LSC (Long Suffering Crew) who have been B's for a long time, are giving me **** for being a sandbagger as I consistently beat them. Maybe your level of B is higher than ours, but we normally have no space for C athletes so our B's are a combo of sub-A's, as well as novices.

Either way, I'm throwing in competition as an A on Saturday... but back to the B's for Dunedin in April. I have 5 weeks to get my **** together and that means I'll be throwing twice a week. I know for a fact that I am stronger than every A on our field, I just need to put in the time with the implements and become a better thrower.

**Alan H** · 28th February 13, 09:37 PM

Hey, every location is different, and if you need to move up, then you should move up. No worries!

**Joshua** · 1st March 13, 09:53 AM

Learning to throw with spikes was a whole new world. I had to really think long and hard about foot placement because once you're spiked, you have no room for adjustment. Too narrow and you aren't stable... too wide and your hammer bottoms out. I might skip using my spikes in competition tomorrow until I've been able to perfect throwing in them, or at the very least I'll just wear one spike on my right foot.