Old Novice - Russ Campbell

Edited by The Hulk - 12/28/22 at 12:45pm

I think that this will be my last post for awhile. I've been through a journey as an Old Novice and I've arrived at a way station. I've explored a lot of the literature, science, practical recommendations & experience and tried my best to make sense of it, which included becoming a Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist and attending several throwing camps. Here is a summary. I never used to warmup. I now start with foam rolling. Then I do my dynamic warm-up that prepares me for the workout by mirroring the body movements that we use in HG in each of the three main planes of motion. I throw 2-3 times a week. I keep the throwing reps lower than typical of others in this sport for a bunch of reasons - to avoid acute injury, to avoid overuse injuries, to throw with maximum force to closely replicate the competition throw, and to build strength & power. I believe that there is good evidence that overweight throwing is important in developing the strength needed - especially in the off-season. Only once the strength foundation has been built can power improve. I can't get much faster but I can get stronger in the ways needed for HG. I have settled on a block periodization plan for my weight training, alternating 2-3 week periods of strength & power with deload weeks between each. That enables me to build max strength and strength-speed - both of which are necessary for our sport. I never do more than 6 reps in any exercise. Again my focus is strength and power. I have also added in plyometrics for speed-strength and even speed. I do what I call slow plyos (no use of stretch reflex) during strength blocks and fast plyos during power blocks. I focus on what I call the big 5 (press, squat, pull, clean, snatch) and close derivatives. Strength in all the little muscles can be developed most effectively with overweight throwing. Finally, I stretch the most troublesome/sport-limiting parts of my body - in my case my hips. While I'm not quite there yet I also believe in the importance of a proper taper in preparation for an event. Why do all of the prep work and then not be 110% physically and mentally on event day is my attitude. I think that this is a reasonable and justifiable program. I think that it has general applicability to others. The modifications that I make reflect my training status, injury history, age, and few other specific elements and this would be true for anyone else. As I have said many times, my goals were always performance and staying mainly injury-free for sport and overall longevity. It's sometimes hard to balance these two. Keeping it simple, specific, efficient and focusing on what I need to do next helps with the balance.   

So that was a fun "de-load" week with 4 days of throwing and 3 days of physical therapy. I have a big strength week and 3 week block coming up so we'll see if my non-deload week undermines my progress. And this week promises a lot of volume. So M is foam rolling + dynamic warmup + throwing in the morning + physical therapy later in the day. T is foam rolling + dynamic warmup + slow plyos (for strength eg, vertical jumps, horizontal jumps), and sets of 5 upright rows, ballistic pushups and a squat variation. W is foam rolling + dynamic warmup + throwing in the morning + physical therapy later in the day.Th is foam rolling + dynamic warmup + throwing in the morning. F is foam rolling + dynamic warmup + slow plyos and sets of 3 push press, bent over rows and squat + physical therapy later in the day. I also try to remember to do static stretches after every throw or weight workout. This all seems like a lot but I've reached this point progressively and I'm not too shy to back off a workout if I'm just too tired in order to avoid overtraining and injury. It wasn't so long ago that I never warmed up, never did plyometrics and never stretched. I think I've developed a more balanced & well -rounded program without ever losing the emphasis on strength and power. With age I am losing pretty much all of whatever physical qualities I had but the bottom line is that I do enjoy throwing  heavy things and everything that I'm doing is attuned to that objective. The key part is focusing on the major physical deficiencies and correcting them while keeping the rest afloat. Then pulling it all together - in combination with tapering - to be at my best at game time. One last thing, I don't talk about technique because I am still (and always will be) an old novice so most athletes I meet know way more than I do about throwing. However what I do know is that I can't even get into the positions needed and make the movements required without having some minimum physical qualities. As my training has progressed I feel like I am improving my capacity to acquire technical skills. I have attended a few throwing camps and read the literature so I know a little of the theory. So throwing practice along with improving physical capacity should lead to enhanced performance.        

So this is my de-load week and as usual I am going to change things up to reflect my current needs and longer term goals. My intention is to throw light implements 5 days this week. Physical therapy is 3 days and I get some leg strength work in there as well as stretching. So in the mornings I'll throw - keeping the volume low for strength/power and with maximum intent. The idea is to understand how my patterns are and each workout - like anyone else I guess - I try to focus on a couple of keys. Next week will be the start of  strength block - but with just 2 days weights and 3 days throwing. This is my pre-competitive plan. I still think that I can get stronger with just two days a week but I really want to focus on throwing strength and a comfortable pattern for each event. |No plyos this week but I continue to do a dynamic warmup. I've already put a lot of pressure on myself to do well this fall but I have to be realistic. It's been awhile since I've competed or even thrown all the events (Remind me what a caber is again!? It used to be my best event). And I've got this nagging hip deterioration. But my attitude has to stay positive. So what if I don't throw PRs? It will be fun, feel great to compete again, see old friends and revitalize my connections to the culture and the sport. And as always it is intriguing to me to see what I can do. 

So three days of physical therapy was added to three days of weights and two days of throwing last week. Needless to say this sudden increase in volume took a lot out of me - essentially it was an overload week. I am expecting that next week will feel a little better but the load will be the same or maybe even a little higher. While doing all of this isn't optimal from any perspective, its all necessary for different reasons and I do feel that I am developing the capacity to train longer and harder. And since there is a time between workouts, I am maximizing the various effects. Weights are M/W/F morning and physical therapy is M/W/F late afternoon. Throwing is T/Th mornings. So next week will be another power week like last week and then I'll do a de-load week. Starting at the beginning of August, I'll have 7 weeks until a competition so I'll alternate a strength block of 3 weeks+1 deload & then finish with a power block of 2 weeks with a de-load week before the competition. I finally starting warming up with a foam roller and it's made a huge difference. Since I workout in the mornings, a foam roller and a dynamic warmup get things moving very well. I used a vibrating foam roller at the physio and I was impressed with the aftereffects. So I've purchased one to use at home and I'll use it with my warmup. I have a fairly fixed dynamic warmup now - jumping jacks, split jumps, hip circles, torso circles, knee lifts and hip hinge+squat (WOB motion) that works pretty well for warming up for throwing. But I think that I need to lengthen the list of exercises to avoid boredom and build more patterns for the long run. I see the dynamic warmup as integral to my long term success and every exercise should be about more than just the daily workout but also about building athletic capabilities. I've also added static stretching after my workouts with a focus on hip mobility which is my greatest need. Another area for investigation for me is medicine balls. I know that Olympic throwers use medballs as an integral part of their training. At first thought, I feel that I'm getting all of the rotational work and power I need from throwing. And I'm not sure what I'd take out of my program to make room for medballs. But I'm going to set aside my initial skepticism and look for research that supports the use of medballs as an alternative or supplement to my training. Maybe I need to make room for it. Medballs are certainly a popular modality in the thrower community. I am really happy with the addition of plyometrics - hopping, jumping both vertically and horizontally to my program. They act as part of my warmup and I feel that they are contributing to my athleticism for throwing. I don't need to do a lot of reps/foot touches to make a difference. Lastly, I am still enjoying alternating blocks of strength and power. with deloads between each. I feel that it gives me time to build strength/power because of focus and yet it staves off boredom and overtraining. In the offseason I will probably change it up but for now it allows me to have a structured approach to preparing for the frequent competitions in this sport. Otherwise it's hard for me to get the mix of strength, power, speed, technique etc optimized to be ready for game day.

I have never been very flexible and after 50 years of sport and lifting weights I have developed arthritis in my hips. The combination of pain and mobility declining even faster finally prompted me to do something about it. Or rather my wife told me to. So I was referred to a physical therapist. Of course my hip mobility is terrible but just one session with a therapist was therapeutic. Of course I'm going back, and I do exercises daily. Other people I'm sure know the benefits of PT already and I know I'm ignorant and late to the game but better late than never. I do the static stretching moves recommended after working out when I'm still warm. Most importantly, throwing already feels more comfortable. Generally I'm skeptical that so-called functional training is good for anything but general fitness and I think that an over-emphasis on mobility takes time and energy away developing, strength, power, speed, agility etc. that is needed for our sport. I know that this is controversial topic. But I have the mobility I have and there are limits as to how much I can improve and sustain any improvement made. The major exception in my opinion is where mobility prevents me from throwing or where an injury - like my hip - impacts not only throwing but also exacerbates the injury, reducing my workload and forcing more recovery time. In this case I think it's worthwhile and necessary to add work on hip mobility to my training. On the other hand, my shoulders are pretty immobile but I can still throw stones relatively well, my shoulders don't hurt and I work them a lot so I'm less concerned/obsessed with improving shoulder mobility for this sport. I'd rather spend the time that could go to shoulder mobility on incline presses, push presses, squats etc. There are lots of things that we can do as athletes that promise improvements but I think that athletes and coaches have to make judgement calls about what is needed for a particular athlete at a particular time. You can't do everything and not everything is going to help a specific athlete. I think that you take the minimum necessary prescription not the whole drug store.     

So my third week of this strength block is going well. Some new PRs. I felt that the first week was a struggle (as is the first week of every block due to the change in exercises, volume, intensity and so on). And since my blocks are on the short side - 2-3 weeks - I really don't feel like I can afford a week of getting back into the rhythm of a new block. So I have a thought. I do a de-loading week at the end of each block which I am currently using as an exclusively throwing week. What if I add a couple days of light (60% of 1RM) lifting to that week doing the exercises coming up in the next block? So for example I am finishing off my strength block this week and a de-load week will be next. So I'll throw heavy & overweight implements for de-load week because the weights are relatively light compared to my strength training. Then I'll also add 2-3 sessions with 60% and low volume power exercises as preparation for the following two weeks of a power block. That way, the movements are familiar and I don't waste a week getting back into gear. So my de-load week will have more volume but limited intensity so it should still help to recover from the last block and rehab any niggling little injuries that may have developed as well as acting as a prep week for the next power block. I'll do two weeks of power. I was thinking that I needed to do 3 weeks of power to see results because of the wasted first week that I felt occurred under my old approach. But with a prep phase combined with de-loading I should be able to go all-out during two weeks and see real progress. I won't do plyos during the de-load week though just to give my body a break. But plyos will be part of the program in the next power block. One final thing. I've been doing light weight throwing 2 days a week during this strength block. And I'll switch to heavy/overweight throwing during the de-load week. But I am considering adding heavy weight throwing 2x a week during the power block since the gym weights lifted in the power block are a little lighter. This is probably tougher to do than say but I'll give it a shot. If I can manage 3x a week of power and 2x a week of heavy weight throwing it should be helpful. I'll monitor my sleep pattern to see if I'm overdoing it but I'd really like to combine the weight training program with the throwing program in some logical way. I'm hoping that throwing light weights acts as a way to physically recover from heavy, relatively slow strength work, while throwing heavy weights may act similarly helping to recover mentally and physically from fast, medium-heavy power work. We'll see if I have the work capacity and it pays off in injury-free results.

I have one more workout left this week... I always forget how exhausting the first week of a new block of training is. No matter how in shape you are, new exercises, volume, intensity, sessions or whatever represent a shock to the system that was just settling into a comfortable - too comfortable - groove. And every new block I begin with a sense of euphoria which makes me push too hard, too soon - this is the block that pushes me to world beating heights! No, it is not. Just start easy and make progress week by week is the better way. While pushing all out I am also conscious of not micro-managing everything. But I do try to introduce little changes. This year I've actually learnt how to do a warm-up that elevated my body temperature and prepared me to throw without annoying my brain by doing things that feel like a waste of time. But after my warmup, there was a temptation to go straight to throwing. What I forgot was that just like training for power & strength rest is also important. So today I took a 3-5 minute break after warming up and before throwing. One of the hazards of training mainly alone is the feeling of urgency to get the workout done. It's also easy to rationalize that I'm building cardio endurance by doing things quickly. Unfortunately endurance & strength/power are enemies for strength athletes. There aren't many marathoners that can compete with me in the caber toss I suspect. Another little detail that I have incorporated into my workouts is pre-hydrating. With the extreme heat these days, of course everyone is probably on the alert to stay hydrated. But as I start my morning workouts, I am already dehydrated from not drinking fluids since the previous night. So I drink a bunch before heading out to lift or throw. Dehydration is harder to recognize in your body as you get older and so drinking a lot before I'm thirsty is important. So next week will be another strength week with 3 days lifting and 2 days throwing. It should be a little easier than this week. Although if I have excess energy knowing me I'm just going to use it to push volume and intensity. Lastly I've been thinking not about my next block of training even though its weeks away but also the competition season which for me will begin in mid-September. So starting August 1st I'm going to flip my training from 3 days lifting/2 days throwing per week to 3 days throwing/2 days lifting. I think that I can keep up and maybe even increase my strength and power with 2 days a week even if its just a little bit. But I need more throwing. So from the beginning of August, I'll keep with alternating strength and power blocks but weights only 2 days a week. It may be possible for other people to reduce the weights down to 1x a week for a few weeks but I'm not sure that I can keep up my strength by doing so little. One more thing. I don't know yet if there is a payoff for all this thinking and action that I have been doing since I started posting here. I know I've been better in terms of individual elements like strength, power, mobility, technique etc but as a package I feel like I'm in pretty good shape. Here's a small but perhaps telling example. I have seen a material improvement in my standing long jump. That's an indication of my explosive power for not only jumping but also accelerating from a standing start. Useful qualities for throwing. Whatever my results turn out to be this fall, I feel like an athlete and I feel fit for my sport.  It's nice to have goals but for me it's all about the process. Results will look after themselves.    

So I've completed my 2 weeks of power/Olympic lifting training - 3 days lifting plus 2 days throwing. Week 1 was exhausting but manageable and week 2 was quite bearable. No records but everything was moving fast and reasonably smoothly. Little strains and aches deserve a deloading week. So next week will be throwing only - 3 days. I'll use heavy + overloaded weights. For me that means a 28 lb ball, a 28 lb hammer and a 56 lb WFD/WOB. I'm not at all concerned about how far I heave these things. It's more about developing strength in my core and all the little muscles that enable rotation, hingeing etc. Before I can have power or even proper technique I have to be strong enough. Weight training is great but my strength also has to be specific to the sport. So now a week of focus on throwing strength. Then the following 3 weeks will be back to strength training - 3 days a week plus 2 days of throwing light implements. Ideally I'd like to continue to throw heavy implements on the 2 days in concert with my focus on strength training but I think that it would be too much load for me. So I will get some technical throwing in 2x a week which will also serve as a "rest/recovery" day from heavy strength training.  One issue that I have been considering is throwing volume. A lot of throwers do a lot of throwing practice. First of all I don't have the energy/endurance/whatever to do 50 throws in a practice. Secondly, I'd struggle to recover. Third, I wouldn't be able to throw with maximum intent each time. So my technique would vary. In my Olympic weightlifting world, we do few 100% lifts whether measured by our goals, past performance or strength on the day. Similarly the great sprint coach Charlie Francis, kept the number of all-out sprints for his athletes low. So following this line of thinking I am keeping the number of throws per practice low and throwing with maximum intention. Now both Olympic lifters and throwers have to do more to build capacity and I am too by throwing over weight stuff and lifting for both strength and power. Fewer, "better", all-out throws could be better for me than 50 lower intensity, variable technique throws. I haven't seen any research to support this but I know what lifting 80% of 1RM is and I can closely duplicate the technique of a 100% RM lift. I am not so sure that an 80% effort throw is anything like a 100% effort throw. Bottom line, is 50 - 80% throws the same as 10 - 100% throws? I guess I'll find out the hard way. The consensus in the business though seems to be throw more, not less. One last point is rest. I don't know how I could do a throwing workout with appropriate rest/recovery periods between throws if I do 50 throws. I think the temptation would be to do these throws one after the next and therefore build endurance, not strength/power. On the other hand, 10 throws with a 3-5 minute break between throws is more manageable. This work - rest ratio is not only consistent with building max strength and power it is also more consistent with the time between throws at a meet.

So a couple of things. I've now do plyos at the beginning of my weight training workout. Since I always wear weightlifting boots for training I just started jumping with them on. Probably not the best idea. So now I go barefoot. If I did huge volumes of plyos, proper footwear would be better in the long run but for the number of jumps I do I should be fine. Today I decided to continue the barefoot motif and I did front squats to a box and clean & jerks barefoot. I don't think I'll do this all the time but I noticed something interesting. I focused on pushing my knee ahead of my toes on the eccentric portion of the front squat and also pushed the knees forward as far as possible on both the clean and jerk. I think that it helped stretch and I felt more powerful on the lifts as I had a deeper knee bend than usual especially on the clean/jerk. This focus and knee action also reminded me of some reading I've been doing lately about the "shank" which is the angle of the shin. Apparently this is a topic of discussion in sprinting circles. Having a steeper shank angle ie knee as far forward of toes as possible/practical adds to force development. Not a bad thing for throwers either. Speaking of technique, I've seen too many videos of throwers doing hang cleans. I've always loved hang cleans. But the technique used by many is awful and its something that I try to stay acutely aware of for myself as well. Many throwers turn the hang clean into a reverse curl and wide split catch. This is bad for a lot of reasons but the biggest reason from a sport performance perspective is that it won't translate to throwing. Nothing we do resembles a reverse horizontal curl and lateral leg split on the catch. Lousy technique is also a recipe for injury. Whenever I am tempted to do this I just go back to exercises like upright rows, muscle cleans, & mid-thigh clean pulls etc to get back on track with the proper triple extension & vertical pull. Lastly, there are some fundamental movement screens out there that claim to predict the probability of injury. The argument is made that unless you fix deficient movements you will get injured. Seems logical. But there is no proof in the research that it is true.  It's very hard to materially improve movement characteristics and the effects wear off if the effort to improve is not sustained. So I have a certain range of movement that I will live with. For example, I can't sit in the full squat position. However I don't need to for HG. Where I have significant problems I will focus my attention using foam rolling, dynamic warmups, full range of motion exercise and static stretching on off days. But I am not going to try  to fix everything. I don't need to and I am no likely to get injured than someone with better mobility than me.  So I can focus my energy elsewhere.

Like I imagine other people are doing, I'm easing my way back into throwing shape. I have signed up for 3 competitions this fall. Whenever I start ramping up though inevitably I get injured. I can't compete if I have to sit because of injury. So I've learned the hard way - especially with aging - that I have to warm-up. So I have created a dynamic warmup to raise my body temperature and slowly do movements that resemble throwing within my range of motion. Secondly, as excited as I am to compete, Rome wasn't built in a day. So increases in volume, intensity, speed with lifting and throwing have to be measured. I try to keep increases from week - to - week at less than 5%. And new exercises are introduced slowly - with low volume/intensity/speed. As much as possible, I also try to do most exercises through a full range of motion. Lastly, I used to have a weightlifting coach who was a stickler for perfect technique - on every rep of every set of every exercise. One of the benefits of this approach is reducing the risk of injury. I know that I'm still going to get injured - strains, sprains etc. There are lots of other things that I could be doing that I aware of. Improving mobility for example and monitoring imbalances between opposing muscle groups. I try to accomplish both of these through my workouts.

So after my 3 week strength block, this unloading week has been fun. No lifting just throwing/drills with heavy/overweight implements. My whole body feels good. While throwing takes a lot out of me, its nice to feel athletic and the stress is much different from lifting. So the next two weeks will be a power block. I'll focus on Olympic lifts & squats. But I'm going to pare back a little on the volume so that I can add in 2 things - plyos and throwing. On Monday Wednesday Friday I'll start each workout with my dynamic warmup then do plyometrics to add in some fast stretch shortening cycle work. Then I'll do Olympic lifts and squats. Fast plyos and slower olympic lifts should cover the range for building power. Tuesday Thursday I'll do short throwing sessions and in keeping with the power focus of this training block I'll only use the light implements. After 2 weeks of power, I'll take an unloading week again with no weights but again using overweight implements. So next week looks like this M - Heavy day - Hops & depth jumps, Clean & jerk, squat Tuesday - Throw open stone, light WFD & hammer Wednesday - Light day - Hops & depth jumps, snatch, push press, squat variation Thursday - Throw open stone, light WFD & hammer Friday - Medium day - Hops & depth jumps, snatch, Clean & jerk, squat. We'll see if I can survive this for two weeks. As always my objective is to improve performance without injury. To do this I'll take a step back ie reduce volume on days that I'm not up for the effort. One way that I monitor effort is by watching how fast the bar or implements are moving. If they start noticeably slowing even with maximum intent it's time to back off the workout volume for the day. 

So the second week of this strength block has shown improvement over week 1 which I'm happy about. Hoping for a great 3rd week now before an unloading week. I've decided that my unloading week will be a lot different. Instead of lifting weights I'm going to throw 3x and mainly use overweight implements (after warming up with the lighter weights). My strength work is fine but the overweighted implements will help build the little muscles that I use to throw. After my unloading week I'll do a 2 week power block with a heavy OLY emphasis, followed by an unloading week. My strength block was 3 weeks + 1 unloaded while the power block will be 2 +1. The reason that I'm doing one less week in the power block is that max power can only be sustained for a couple of weeks so I want to be at my best before neural fatigue sets in. I really prefer the sequential block approach as opposed to the max strength-dynamic-hypertrophy approach weekly. I find that I make more progress focusing on strength separately then power. My body seems to prefer it as well. Fewer little injuries. And to avoid detraining, I keep up bar speed during the strength phase and I keep up squat intensity (though not volume) during the power phase. It's still a couple weeks away but I am going to incorporate plyometrics into my power block so I get everything from speed to strength-speed dynamics. I need slow and fast plyos to compete in HG. Looking forward to competing again in the coming months.


Edited by The Hulk - 5/07/21 at 3:38pm