as a discus thrower speed must be expressed quickly: two steps. so how would one train for say the 3 yard dash ; ) ? what kind of sprinting workout would increase starting speed most, without worry of any kind of top speed. and the movement of throwing is not straight forward as in sprinting rather the first step is like the first step in the “karaoke foot drill” anyway what would you guys suggest.
thanks in advance Derek
3 yard dash eh! The best way to train for short sprints is to do just that. After a thorough warm up you could do short accleration sprints of about 6-10m from a 3pt start however you may want to go as far as 20m so you can train a faster leg tempo. With such short sprints you may benefit from some sort of small resistance like towing a tyre. A typical set might go as follows:
1 x 6m accl’ tyre tow
3 x 10m accl’ no resistance (all >3min rec.)
You need to play around with the volumes and distances but i probably wouldn’t go above 12 sprints in a session (3 sets of 4) less with greater distances.
With such short explosiveness required in discus, plyo’s, med ball throws and oly lifts would also be a good tool to include. I’m sure you probaly already do some/all of these but for explosiveness the following might be good for discus:
Plyo’s: Standing long jump (both legs and single legs)
Depth Jumps
Sideways standing Lj?
Medball: Vertical throws for height
Vert. throws for dist.
Rugby ball pass (possibly with a dive onto mats to involve the legs)
That’s my thoughts anyway.
Alan.
should I start from blocks? and should I use spikes
thanks
You would need spikes for grip as your putting in a lot of horizontal force. As for blocks it depends how comfortable u r using them. Blocks would take some strain off the achilles and would allow a little more power but unless you proficient using them you’d be better off from a crouched 3point start which would feel more natural to start with.
I wouldn’t use blocks.
I would keep the reps short in distance. Acceleration is important for all throwers.
As has been suggested play around with the distance. Although 30m would probably be the max.
I worked with a discus thrower many years ago, and by working on improving his speed out to 20m and even farther, he had dramatic improvements in performance- from 62 to 67 meters. He developed great speed, running the football 40y in 4.6h.
ACOOPER sounds about right.