Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #4: Gill1918 presents Flip Courter "Developing a Javelin Training Program That Works for YOU"
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
- 0:03coaches, for coaches powered by Gill Athletics.
- 0:06Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
- 0:09Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
- 0:12you grow as a coach. We'll bring in the once a year
- 0:15track clinic straight to your ears daily.
- 0:17Interested in creating your own episode?
- 0:19Everyone's welcome to participate.
- 0:21Check out the show notes below For more information.
- 0:23Now let's get into today's topic.
- 0:28This is Flip Quarter. Today we're going to talk about
- 0:30developing a javelin training program that works for you.
- 0:34A little about myself. First off, I am the javelin
- 0:40coach at Grain Valley High School in Grain Valley, MO.
- 0:44And like many people that coach javelin, especially in Missouri
- 0:48and a lot of states that are just now getting this great
- 0:51event, I didn't throw it in high school.
- 0:53I didn't throw it in college. Back in the late 90s when I was
- 0:57competing in track in high school, I was a four event guy.
- 1:00I was decent at the shot, I was below average at the disc and I
- 1:05was quite poor in the 3200 and the 4 by 8.
- 1:10Not really the combination that you would expect from a from a
- 1:13thrower, but I did it. I enjoyed it and really thought
- 1:17that my track career was going to be done after high school.
- 1:22I ended up being a junior high coach for a couple of years in
- 1:252001 to 2003 in Mercer, MO, and then didn't coach track again
- 1:30until 2019 when I took the javelin job at GRAIN or at
- 1:35William Chrisman High School in Independence, MO.
- 1:38And that was not intentional. It was I was going to come help
- 1:41the throwers and was working with the shot.
- 1:45And one day Tyler Rathke, the head coach, said, hey, why don't
- 1:48you go down and work with the javelin kids?
- 1:50And I'd never worked with javelin before.
- 1:52I'd never even touched a javelin until that day of practice in
- 1:562019 and went down there. And in fact, I had to have the
- 2:01the athletes had to have the throwers show me the grips on
- 2:05how to do this. And I'm pretty sure that Coach
- 2:07Rathke just sent me down there so that I could babysit and make
- 2:11sure nobody died. And mission accomplished.
- 2:13That hadn't happened. What I didn't know at the time
- 2:17was that I was getting started in something that would become a
- 2:20major passion of mine and has been one of the highlights of my
- 2:25teaching and coaching career. Some of the greatest people that
- 2:29I have met in all of my years of education and coaching have been
- 2:33because of this this great event.
- 2:36And because I don't have the background, I've really picked
- 2:42and pulled from a lot of different resources over the
- 2:45years. I was one of those guys who
- 2:48learned how to coach by watching YouTube and by talking to other
- 2:51people and going out and trying it myself.
- 2:55And it's given me opportunities to help create and host the the
- 2:59National Javelin Summit, which was an online thing that Coach
- 3:02Rathke and I did a few years ago and to help out at the Midwest
- 3:07Elite throws camp put on in Missouri.
- 3:09And we've been able to send kids to college through use of
- 3:14javelin today. But when Mike Cunningham, you
- 3:19know, put this out, it's a few weeks ago or whenever it was
- 3:23and, and he, you know, asked me about possibly doing 1.
- 3:27I jumped at the opportunity and looked at a couple of different
- 3:31options. But the one that kept coming
- 3:32back to me was, was trying to create a program and, and a
- 3:37throwing program, a plan as to when we do things on certain
- 3:42days. I'm a very structured person
- 3:44and, and I like to have a plan of attack and I like to have a
- 3:47routine. And when it comes to throws,
- 3:50especially Javelin, there's the old saying that there's only so
- 3:53many guns in the bullet. And I've worked with kids from
- 3:56other schools and listening to them talk about how much they
- 4:00throw. I just feel like there was a lot
- 4:01of overuse being done. There was a few kids that I've
- 4:05talked to that you look at their results and middle of the
- 4:10season, they're they're hitting their PRS and they're throwing
- 4:13really well. And then by the end when they
- 4:15need to be throwing their best at the district and at the state
- 4:18level, you know, they're starting to taper off because of
- 4:21of overuse. So over the years, we've kind of
- 4:26tweaked a little bit of things here and there about how much we
- 4:29throw. We don't throw very much.
- 4:31And I'm going to go through a little bit about why and how we
- 4:34structure our days that we throw, our big days, our our
- 4:38recovery days and so on. In this lesson today, what I
- 4:44would like to do is provide a schedule to people that is
- 4:47easily repeatable and focuses on developing physical attributes
- 4:50that will help javelin throwers throw far, but most importantly
- 4:54minimize their risk of injury. A lot of the things that we do,
- 4:58we can do it inside, we can do it outside.
- 5:01That's one thing that we have been very blessed with here in
- 5:03Grain Valley over these three years that I've been here is
- 5:07having coaches and an athletic department that are willing to
- 5:11spend the money to give us some of the best equipment out there
- 5:15that you can get. And as we talk right now, our
- 5:18new Javelin runway is being built.
- 5:21The concrete is down. We're waiting on the surface to
- 5:23be put down and we're going to be throwing off of that instead
- 5:26of throwing off of grass this year, which is very exciting.
- 5:32The Javelins that we have, the training equipment, the indoor
- 5:37facilities that we have are as as good as, as I've seen across
- 5:43the state of Missouri. And I, I would imagine a lot of
- 5:46places throughout the Midwest. A lot of what I do is taken from
- 5:50a lot of other people. And I think that's, that's what
- 5:52we do as coaches. We like to look at things that
- 5:54other people have done and we say that worked for you, let's
- 5:57steal it and use it for ourselves.
- 5:58And, and I hope that I'm going to be able to be a resource for
- 6:02other people just like they have been to me.
- 6:04People like Bill Miller out of Chicago.
- 6:07A lot of the weightlifting that we do is based upon what Bill
- 6:12did and and wrote in his digital book Throwfast, which I highly
- 6:16recommend. If you have not read that.
- 6:18Look up Bill Miller on social media.
- 6:22We do a lot of mobility things from Kevin Foster's Jab Anatomy,
- 6:28a lot of stuff from just YouTube videos, watching Thomas Roller
- 6:32and talking to college coaches. One that I am a big fan of,
- 6:37Brett Halter at the University of Missouri.
- 6:40But the list goes on and on and on and includes even high school
- 6:44coaches in our area. People like Matt Maynor at
- 6:49Liberty High School and the late great Ken Peak, who was a
- 6:53javelin coach at and head track track coach at Liberty North
- 6:57High School in Liberty, MO, who passed away early last year.
- 7:03A lot of the things that we do in our strength and mobility
- 7:06workouts complement our drills that we do with either the jabs.
- 7:10I'm a big fan of Finn Flyers and plyo balls, weighted balls that
- 7:14we can throw inside. We don't throw a lot during our
- 7:19build up to meets. We do a lot of flexibility,
- 7:22mobility and footwork activities.
- 7:26But the key thing that I want to mention before I get into how we
- 7:30structure our plan is I don't know if what we're doing is the
- 7:34right thing or not. I don't know if what we are
- 7:38doing is the right way or the wrong way.
- 7:40But I can tell you this, it, it works for us.
- 7:42It has worked for our kids at Grain Valley, It worked for our
- 7:45kids at Chrisman. It may not work for you.
- 7:49You may think that a lot of what we do is nonsense and and do
- 7:55completely the opposite and that's fine.
- 7:57And that's why I like to call this that works for you because
- 8:00not everybody is going to be the same.
- 8:02Find what works for you and your throwers because that's what's
- 8:06the most important thing. I'm not a strength and
- 8:09conditioning coach. I teach high school history and
- 8:13psychology. I am, I do not have a degree in
- 8:17kinesiology or I'm not got any of the certifications to run a
- 8:23weight room program, but I talked to a lot of people that
- 8:26give us some really good advice and I would recommend that you
- 8:30guys do that too. So looking at kind of how we
- 8:36structure our, our calendar, our calendar is set up that we throw
- 8:42heavy two days a week on Mondays and Fridays.
- 8:45Now this is based upon the varsity schedule.
- 8:47A majority of our varsity meets are on Fridays and at the end of
- 8:52the season we get into the district, sectional and state
- 8:54meet portion of the schedule on Saturdays.
- 8:57So we kind of base it upon varsity throwing most of their
- 9:02meats on Fridays. Now if your schedule is
- 9:06different, you can tweak it how you see fit.
- 9:10If you've got, if you really wanted to, you could go in and
- 9:13since like for us, we have half of our JV meets are on Tuesdays
- 9:19and the other half are on Wednesdays, you can rearrange
- 9:21the schedule based upon that where we're having a a slam day
- 9:25as we call it, that's our heavy throw days on Monday and Friday.
- 9:31Maybe your slam day now becomes a Wednesday because that's when
- 9:34your JV kids are going to throw. Maybe there's on a different one
- 9:37and you can tailor it for each individual kid depending upon
- 9:41whether they're a varsity or JV thrower.
- 9:44I know for us, some of our kids kind of fluctuate.
- 9:47We have a couple that are going to be varsity only.
- 9:49We have a handful that are going to be JV only.
- 9:52And then based upon the numbers of the meets that are allowed,
- 9:56one week this kid might be JV, but the next week they might be
- 9:59varsity. And then we have those kids that
- 10:00are kind of in competition back and forth each week to determine
- 10:04whether they're going to a varsity or JV meet.
- 10:06So you can kind of tweak that however you want.
- 10:11Monday, that is our, as we said, slam day.
- 10:14And that was a term that we swiped from Sean Fury A2 time US
- 10:18Olympic javelin thrower got the opportunity to work with Coach
- 10:23Fury at the Midwest Elite Throws Clinic in Kansas City a few
- 10:27years ago. And, and I like that name slam
- 10:31day so that we do those on Mondays.
- 10:34That's where we're going to get our heavy throwing in.
- 10:36And at the beginning of the season, we don't throw a lot.
- 10:39We may only take, you know, anywhere between, you know, 4 or
- 10:436 throws in in the first couple of weeks, trying to build up to
- 10:48where we're getting most of our heavy throws in the month of
- 10:51April. And then as we get into May, we
- 10:54start to taper them back down so that we are saving our arms a
- 10:58little bit more for those meats. So we throw throw light on our
- 11:04slam days in March because here in Missouri our first day this
- 11:08year was March 3rd and we don't have an official indoor season.
- 11:13So, you know, obviously that wouldn't help with the jab
- 11:16links. There's no indoor jab.
- 11:17That would be interesting. But if a kid was doing other
- 11:20events in indoor during the spring, they may come in and
- 11:23already be in shape time we get them.
- 11:26We've been doing some pre season stuff, but when the the javelin
- 11:30throwing starts, we start out kind of light, then we build up
- 11:33and and hit that peak kind of there in April and then taper it
- 11:37back down at the at the end of the season in May.
- 11:42So that's Monday. Tuesday is a big speed and
- 11:45approach day that we we just really work on.
- 11:50We do some Sprint work. We go in on Tuesdays and we do a
- 11:54lot of crossover drills. We do some ankle stability
- 12:00things, high knee work. We do short sprints.
- 12:06As a javelin thrower going down the runway, you're never going
- 12:09to be running very far. We hardly ever go more than
- 12:13probably about 20 yards in our sprints.
- 12:18If we're doing build UPS, we may go out to 30 where it's, you
- 12:22know, 50% to the 10 yard line on the football field and then 75
- 12:26and then finishing up sprinting through the 30.
- 12:29But we very rarely ever go out and run like hundreds or two
- 12:33hundreds or anything like that because we don't have that much
- 12:37of a distance to get to throw the javelin.
- 12:40We do a lot trying to work on that acceleration though,
- 12:43because we do need to get up to speed very quickly.
- 12:47On Wednesdays we have our low to medium intensity throwing day.
- 12:52We just kind of go out and that'll be a day that we would
- 12:54do some plyo balls inside. We may go and throw fins outside
- 13:00either on our football field or out in our javelin area.
- 13:04They're relaxed. We're we're not going all out
- 13:07there. We're only throwing about 70%.
- 13:10We might use the javelins for real, but the the key there is
- 13:14we're throwing 50 to 70%. We're focusing on the footwork.
- 13:18We're focusing on the drills that we've been doing and we try
- 13:21to stay very relaxed. We may get anywhere between 10
- 13:25and 20 throws on those days, but they are are low effort, low
- 13:29intensity throws on Wednesday. Thursday is another speed
- 13:33workout. Stairs, hills, build up,
- 13:37sprints. We do crossovers, but that would
- 13:40be more of a speed crossover day, whereas on Tuesday it's
- 13:43more about the technique. On Thursday we're going to try
- 13:46to go faster and kind of put those two things together.
- 13:50And then on Friday, Friday is our comp day.
- 13:54Since most of our varsity meets are on Fridays, we try to set up
- 13:57our schedule so that Friday is almost like a meet, especially
- 14:02the beginning of the season. So we have a lot of kids that
- 14:04come in that have maybe never even been in a track meet
- 14:06before. So we'll set up a practice where
- 14:09the first time that we do it, we'll have a cafeteria style so
- 14:13that kids can get used to what it's like being in a cafeteria
- 14:17style meet where it's OK, nobody's stepping up.
- 14:20I'm going to go out there and throw or I've got other events
- 14:23to do. I'm going to go try to get my
- 14:25three or my 4 throws in fairly early so that I can go get ready
- 14:29to, to throw disc or go long jump or whatever else it is that
- 14:34they're doing. And then later on the next
- 14:37Friday, you know, we've got enough information on the kids.
- 14:40We've got some distances because we've been measuring in practice
- 14:43that we start to flight them and we maybe have two flights or
- 14:47three flights so that kids can get used to the idea of when do
- 14:52I need to start warming up? What do I need to do to get
- 14:55ready? OK, I've been here.
- 14:56I've been standing around for 30 minutes while this flight is
- 14:59throwing. Now I have to get myself ready
- 15:01to go throw. So we try to make Fridays as
- 15:05much like a meet as possible because as I said earlier, most
- 15:08of our varsity meets are on Fridays.
- 15:13So that's kind of the days that we throw and, and what we do on
- 15:16those certain days. And it doesn't matter what we
- 15:19do, we always come back in and we get a workout in.
- 15:23I remember one year when I was at Chrisman, we would only be
- 15:25outside for maybe 4550 minutes, depending on how long our warm
- 15:30up was, the weather conditions and so on.
- 15:33We might get up to an hour. And then we were walking back
- 15:36into the building one day and, and one of the track athletes
- 15:39from another event said, I think I'm going to come out and throw
- 15:42javelin because you guys only practice for an hour.
- 15:44You guys have short practices. And I said that's not how it
- 15:47works. The fun part's done.
- 15:49We're going to work now. We're heading back up to the
- 15:52weight room and then we were going to get in our post throw
- 15:55activity. A lot of farmer walks, waiter
- 15:57walks. Mondays we do lower body
- 16:00strength. So we're we're working on trying
- 16:03to develop the strength for coming down the runway and
- 16:06hitting that block with with as much intensity and as much force
- 16:10as we can. Tuesday's is an upper body
- 16:13strength day. Wednesday is mobility.
- 16:17And I'm going to talk more about mobility here in a little bit
- 16:19because we do something mobility wise every single day that we're
- 16:24together. And even when we're not, I ask
- 16:26that they do that on their own. Thursdays we get back in the
- 16:30weight room once again and do kind of a total body workout.
- 16:34And I would be more than happy to share all of this stuff.
- 16:38I would give out my throwing plan, my daily plan if you want,
- 16:42and I'll have my contact information at the end for
- 16:44anybody that would like to reach out.
- 16:47And then on Friday, since we tried to turn that into almost
- 16:50like a meet, they go out, they get their throws in, we don't go
- 16:54into the weight room. We, we finish up with some
- 16:58flexibility and some mobility stuff and try to work out any
- 17:03soreness that we may have and, and get prepared for the weekend
- 17:07so we can start the cycle again on Monday.
- 17:10Now, obviously, based upon when the meets happen, if we have a
- 17:13varsity meet on a Thursday, which does happen once we adjust
- 17:17our schedule or throw schedule for one of the big meets that we
- 17:21have in the early middle part of the year, that's on a Saturday,
- 17:25we we adjust things and maybe we give two days in between our
- 17:29recovery day and our slam day or comp day.
- 17:32So you've got to have some flexibility with your with your
- 17:36scheduling. Now talking about the mobility,
- 17:39that's something that I've gotten really tuned into here
- 17:43over the last few years. Kevin Foster, great stuff from
- 17:47Java, Java anatomy, His mobility ability e-book is, is fantastic.
- 17:55We do things lower body on Monday after we've gone out and
- 18:01done a lower body workout, we, we hit lower body mobility.
- 18:05And I know you hear that word so much and a lot of people do
- 18:09mobility though we got to do hurdle mobility.
- 18:11We do those in your PE classes, do them in your strength and
- 18:14conditioning classes. Maybe you're javelin throwers do
- 18:16hurdle mobility already. I found this definition about
- 18:20why mobility is important from throwsuniversity.com and and I
- 18:24thought this was so good because we get those words mobility and
- 18:28flexibility confused and we think that they're
- 18:32interchangeable, but they're really not.
- 18:34So this is what they said on Throws University.
- 18:37By improving mobility, throwers can take more advantage of the
- 18:40strength that they have by being able to accelerate at deeper
- 18:43ranges of motion, adding speed to the throw and power to the
- 18:47finish. Mobility as a term is different
- 18:50than flexibility. Being flexible means that an
- 18:53athlete can passively reach deep ranges of motion.
- 18:56However, mobility is when the athlete has active stability in
- 19:01that position with the ability to move out of that position
- 19:04with control. Although having passive
- 19:06flexibility is very important, having mobility takes it to the
- 19:10next level. I'm going to go back to one of
- 19:12those lines when the athlete has active stability in that
- 19:17position with the ability to move out of that position with
- 19:20control, stability and control. So much of what we do is not
- 19:25just about trying to throw far, but it's about trying to stay
- 19:27safe and this helps with this. So we do hurdle mobility on
- 19:33Wednesdays after doing a lower body on Monday and upper body on
- 19:37Tuesday. We do a thoracic mobility
- 19:42session on Thursday and also going back to Wednesday.
- 19:45One thing I forgot to mention, we do yoga.
- 19:50Now if you know me personally, you will know that I am not
- 19:54exactly the type of person that looks like they would do yoga.
- 20:00I started doing this at Chrisman several years ago and the kids
- 20:04bought into it immediately. And we bring in I'd, I'd hook up
- 20:08a video on the screen in our weight room and we had spread
- 20:11out and do a yoga workout. It was a great way to finish,
- 20:17you know, a workout. To work on some mobility, to
- 20:21work on some flexibility and at the same time to just maybe get
- 20:25our minds right a little bit. When I came to Grain Valley, the
- 20:29buy in wasn't necessarily there the first year when we first
- 20:32started it, but the more we did it, kids could start to see the
- 20:36benefits of it at the beginning of the year.
- 20:39For the first two months, we only do it on Wednesdays.
- 20:43When we get in towards the end of the year, we'll bump it up to
- 20:46two and maybe even three times a week as a way to finish.
- 20:50And it could be a 5 minute session, it could be a 10
- 20:52minute. We sometimes we'll go to 20
- 20:55minutes of yoga based upon our availability of time.
- 20:59But I, I've become a big believer in yoga for our
- 21:03throwers. And there are days too where it
- 21:06just just feels good to kind of get that mindfulness aspect that
- 21:11we kind of neglect. Occasionally thoracic workout on
- 21:15Thursday and then Friday we finish up with some hip work
- 21:20that we do in the weight room or out on the turf field, out in
- 21:24the football field. And we do core every single day.
- 21:27We only do kind of two different things, but we do them every
- 21:29single day because store core stability and core strength very
- 21:34important whether you're throwing the javelin, the shot,
- 21:36the disc or really any of the events that we do.
- 21:42So that's kind of the basic structure of what we throw.
- 21:45And when we throw, you can tell that we don't throw a ton.
- 21:50And that's by design. We focus on the drills.
- 21:54The the distance in the throws will come if they're doing the
- 21:58drills right, We're going to try to save the arms as much as
- 22:01possible for the meats that matter the most.
- 22:03And that would be your conference in your district and,
- 22:05and sub state or sectional, whatever you want to call it.
- 22:08And then at the state level where we want our kids to be
- 22:11throwing their absolute best and, and be at their safest.
- 22:17So that's what we do here at Grain Valley.
- 22:20I mentioned it earlier, it works for us.
- 22:23If you want to use it, by all means be more than happy to help
- 22:27out. I am a a big person on I love
- 22:30Twitter. So I refuse to call it XI am 45
- 22:34years old. I'm not calling it X.
- 22:36It's been Twitter for as long as I can remember.
- 22:38It's going to continue to be Twitter for me.
- 22:40If you want to reach out to me and give me a follow, my handle
- 22:44is at Flip Quarter FLIPCOURTER. You also can follow our team and
- 22:53that is at Valley Javcrew. Feel free to reach out, give
- 22:58those a follow. Get into my DMS for any
- 23:01questions, send me a message and I'd be more than happy to share
- 23:05videos. That's something that I'm
- 23:06currently working on too, is putting together a video library
- 23:10that is going to be uploaded to our Google Drive that we have
- 23:13for our jab crew that the kids can go and look at.
- 23:16So like during spring break or if there's a time that they're
- 23:21going to be gone before a meet, I can tell them, hey, go, go do
- 23:25the Thursday workout and make sure you get into set four of
- 23:29the thoracic set. That's what you're going to be
- 23:31missing. And they've got video so they
- 23:33can see what that's going to look like and and be able to do
- 23:36those on their own. I'd be more than happy to share
- 23:39all that stuff with anybody that wants video schedules, ideas,
- 23:44resources. I'm by no means the you know,
- 23:49the end all be all by any means, but if, if I don't know
- 23:55something, I might know people who do know the answers and I I
- 23:58want to help out because I think at the end of the day, that's
- 24:01what we're all here for. We all just want to see our kids
- 24:03succeed and we just want to see javelin, no pun intended, take
- 24:08off here in the United States. We're so good at so many events
- 24:12nationally when we're complete competing in the Olympics, but
- 24:18we're just still behind when it comes to to throwing the jab and
- 24:23the next great javelin throwers probably could be one of our
- 24:26kids that we're coaching right now at the high school level or
- 24:29the collegiate level. And we just need to continue
- 24:33working together to see this event continue to succeed and
- 24:36and the United States to become a power in that like we are in
- 24:40in in the shot put. That's that's kind of the dream.
- 24:43But once again, thank you for listening, Reach out to me on
- 24:47Twitter and I look forward to to talking with you and let me know
- 24:52if there's ever anything I could do.
- 24:55Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
- 24:59episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
- 25:02It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
- 25:05amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
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