As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. But what is perfect? Is there such a thing as perfect technique? On this week’s GAINcast we look at technique, movement, and perfection. By better understanding what we’re chasing, we can better frame and design what we are doing in training. Read more
When we look at track and field, technique in different events have evolved at different paces over the course of the last century. Comparing different events it is interesting to see how some techniques have barely changed while others have become unrecognizable. All of this begs the question why some events move forward technically, and others do not. Read more
Baseball has become a faster and more athletic game recently, in large part due to advances in training. Ron Wolforth set up the Texas Baseball Ranch 16 years ago and has been pumping out elite pitchers ever since. The key isn’t in their program, but in the process that helps assess and find the performance pathway for each athlete. On this week’s GAINcast he joins us to discuss his approach to player assessment, training, and specific methodologies. Read more
No matter the sport, speed matters. Speed is a topic we’ve covered a lot here on HMMR Media, and it is also a topic we will keep coming back to because it is so vital to elite performance. In July we put together a variety of resources on the topic from 10 contributors, including 1 new video lesson, 5 new podcast episodes, and 7 detailed training articles.
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As a young coach, one thing I didn’t realize was how variable speed requirements are between different sports. We might think of speed as a single quality trained in a single way, but the reality is that speed manifests itself differently in each sport and therefore needs to be trained differently. As I have gained experience in different sports, my thought process has slowly evolved. Read more
Around the throws world you hear people talking all the time about how this individual or that individual has “good technique.” What exactly does that mean? Read more
On last week’s HMMR Podcast, guest Kevin McMahon talked about how lifting and throwing chase different feelings. A maximum squat has a very different feeling that a personal best throw. A good throw is like a sprint: it is loose and quick, not a grind like heavy lifting. Maximum strength plays an important role in develop throwers, but McMahon emphasized that it should not take priority over the feel for the throwing movement. Read more
Throughout 2018 we’ve had the chance to sit down and talk shop with some of the world’s top throwing coaches. To close out the year we’ve compiled six of our favorite highlights from our interviews with coaches like Dan Lange, Don Babbitt, John Frazier, Aretha Thurmond, and Mattias Jons, covering a variety of topics like coaching character, communication, individualizing technique, the biomechanics of throwing, and the champion’s mindset. Read more
At the 2017 World Athletics Championships in London, the IAAF and Leeds Beckett University collaborated on a wide-ranging and expansive biomechanics project, with the aim of giving us further insights into the biomechanical underpinnings of elite performance. Of interest to me was, of course, the data from the 100-meter dash, given my history in that event. Immediately following the final, the IAAF released some rough and ready data, which I analyzed at the time for HMMRMedia. Then, in July this year, they released the extended report, including great coaching commentary from PJ Vazel. There are a few interesting facets of the study which I hope to shed light on here. Read more
Human movement is fundamentally beautiful and flowing. Step back and look at sports from a movement perspective, not a sport skill perspective, you will see a commonality in movement, a beauty and a flow. Start with walking gait. Overserve the opposition of the arms and legs and the counter rotation of the shoulders and the hips. Look for this across movements. Gait is a great place to start! All throws look fundamentally the same, all jumps look the same, acceleration, regardless of the sport looks the same. The only thing that changes is the implement, the surface and the uniform in the sport. When I coach I look for the commonalities in movements and coach those commonalities. All sports involve some combination of the following movements: running, jumping, throwing, pushing, pulling, reaching, lifting, bending, extending, stopping and starting. Read more
