No 8: Winter is coming: Have you set your throwing goals for 2024?
https://linktr.ee/jakemat91 - For access to all of my previous work.
If you are like me then you might love to write to do lists and long lists of goals, tasks and steps to help you stay focused.
And if you are like me, then you goals will look something like this?
Throw further
Be bigger, faster, strong, leaner
Become a superhuman power athlete
My throwing goals for 2024 are:
The Halesowen records – my current shot (15.05m) and discus PB (52.67m)
The AMS records – as above
The University of Birmingham Athletics club records – shot (14.95m) and discus (53.2m) https://www.ubsportathletic.co.uk/club-records
The Army records – shot (17.04m) and discus (56m)
Unfortunately, not being Olympic Standard means that the Birchfield records are probably out of reach:
shot - 20.88m (UK) and 22.51m (worldwide)
Discus – 66.84m
My training and physical goals:
Current waist is 98cm, I want to put on muscle (mass) but keep my waist <100cm
Current weight is 110kg, ideally, I would add 5kg lean mass (unlikely)
Current front squat 180kg and I want >200kg by next year
Current hang snatch is 95kg and I want 115kg
Current bench is 160kg and I want 180kg
Current push press is 140kg and I want 150kg
I currently haven’t measured my 60m sprint or broad jump but I want to measure and improve these by next year.
These goals are based on this table from Dane Miller’s Ultimate Thrower’s Guide.
Thanks for reading, and if you want to see the previous posts in this series, then follow the links below:
No 7: The End of Throwing Season 2023 – Did I achieve what I wanted to?
https://linktr.ee/jakemat91 - For access to all of my previous work.
No 6: What's wrong with throwing in the UK?
Welcome back to post No 6! Today was my monthly trip to Cardiff to train with Paul, Neil and Jake K at NIAC. As usual after throwing heavy things around for an hour or two, we sat down with coffee and biscuits to put the world to right. Being throwers, of course there was biscuits!
No 5 – World Records and the Ultimate Throws
The limit of human potential is what has always fascinated me. What is the human body ultimately capable of? Just how big, strong and fast can we get? For us throwers, the bigger question is, how far is it physically possible to throw a shot/ discus/ hammer or javelin?
No 4 - Work Smart and Hard, Find People Who Have the Answers
Welcome to post No 4 and thank you to everyone who signed up, shared the post and sent me your thoughts. I really enjoyed reading them. Most people’s thought could be summarised as “it depends” and “every athlete and coach are different”. Which is sort of what I expected and in some ways, takes the pressure off new coaches an athletes because you don’t …
No 3 - How to be a better thrower? Lots of questions without answers!
After the last blog, I sat down with my coach Paul to have a think about strength, power and throwing in more detail. We ended up chatting for about 2 hours and both of us were left with far more questions than answers. So, this week’s blog is going to be a long list of questions that hopefully, we will be able to answer in the coming weeks, months and …
No 2 - Heavy Throwers jumping like the Maasai
Why does this blog about throwing shot putt and discuss focus on the Maasai? We will come to that after some introduction! My coach Paul Jensen has been training throwers for nearly 50 years. He has been analysing throwers and doing biomechanics work for almost as long. He regularly compares the techniques of the greatest throwers of our age looking for…
No 1 - Intro to the Heavy Guide
Hi, and welcome to the Heavy Guide. This is a new experiment for me. The old teaching cliche is “see one, do one, teach one” and as Richard Feynman says, “if you want to learn something, then teach it”. So, that is my plan. I am currently an enthusiastic but amateur weight-lifter, thrower and coach. I want to be better at all three.