Hey guys as the captain of my throwing team im pretty much going to be the head of the practices every day. When the season starts up it will be easy because we can just throw every day or 3 times a week and then either lift on those days or the other days.
Right now its the “tryout” period for about 2 weeks. Yesterday i ran a decent tryout but to me it was missing something. Here’s what we did:
4 lap warm up around field
some stretches/calisthenics (toe touch, BW Squats, push ups, situps, arm circles)
threw 8 and 6 pound medicine balls (through the legs, over the head, pushing with legs like a chest pass)
Standing long jumps
walking lunges
sprints
there were about 12 or so kids yesterday. 20 have signed up so im not sure how many we will have tomorrow.
Does anyone have any good drills/indicators for throwing shot put and discus (or just good calisthenic drills in general)?
if this is for throwers, you can back off of the running abit and focus on whole body explosive movements
one trick is to find a football sled if you can
many good throwers are also offensive linemen because you have to learn how to go from a compact position to a full extension with all of your explosive power behind you
also, try some balance work, because many throws are negated when the thrower steps over the line as a result of a loss of balance
Dan John is the man on this-churns out champion throwers year after year.
Download the free book on his website danjohn.org and his newsletter also has lots of throwing advice.
His article here Lessons from Southwood among others has the basic program he uses for training his classes of students
Dan John was questioned about how far his throwers ran in their warm ups.
Reply went something like - “Run from what ??”
Excellent thrower as a jr, sr and master, great resourse.
As for what to look for, good co-ordination is a big plus, but simply the desire to throw, has turned many very ordinary starters into top athletes.
Think John Powell was throwing around 90-110 foot on entering college and broke WR, won multiple OG medals, Erin Gilreath the AR in Womens hammer, was a walk on in college.
Jud Logan at the 2007 NTCA conf said he looked for athletes, not lifters or throwers.
Again co-ordination speed etc, strength is the easy part.(not saying its easy, but easier than finding athletic talent that is not there.)