The Necessary Ingredients to Make a Great Thrower
Building a thrower is like creating a great recipe. There are a lot of ingredients.
What drives me crazy are the coaches that look for throwers and only think TALL, HEAVY, STRONG. That's like asking someone the ingredients for a birthday cake and them replying CAKE, FROSTING, CANDLES!
That's only what you see on the surface. A birthday cake might look like cake, frosting, and candles but there is a lot more to it than that. Way more. Flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla, how long you bake the cake, the ingredients to the frosting, the size of the pan, and probably a whole lot of other things I am missing.
Building a thrower works the SAME EXACT WAY!
Coaches, parents, spectators, and other throwers only see size and strength. It's no wonder why I constantly get emails from bigger athletes wondering why smaller athletes are beating them and from small athletes wondering why they are beating the big guys.
There's so much more to the recipe than just size and strength.
(It's a pizza, it's a cake, it's the best of both worlds!!)
Here's what I want you to do. Watch the video below to learn all about the main ingredients that go into making a good thrower. Then continue reading below to learn how to find out your weaknesses and figure out what you should be training.
Here is what I want you to do. Get a clean sheet of paper and write down all the ingredients that go into building a great thrower:
HEIGHT
WEIGHT
STRENGTH
SPEED
BALANCE
COORDINATION
LEVERAGES
POWER
AGILITY
ATHLETIC BACKGROUND
WORK BACKGROUND
INTENSITY
THROWER IQ
ABILITY TO SHOW UP AND COMPETE
TECHNIQUE AND FORM
Now that you have those down on paper, I want you to start giving yourself a grade.
Write down next to each ingredient a number from 1 to 10.
1 means you don't have that ingredient at all and need it the most.
10 means you are way above average in that ingredient.
So for me when I was in high school, height would have been a 9. Strength maybe a 6. Weight was a 5. Athletic background was around an 8. Work background was a 10 (farm life). The ability to show up and compete was a 10. Form...maybe a 7.
Once you give yourself a grade on each category, put them in order from the lowest number to the highest number. The stuff with the lowest number is what you need to concentrate on and improve the most.
If your height is a 1...not much you can do about that (sorry).
If your strength is a 4...start getting stronger.
If your balance is a 10...don't worry about it.
If your ability to show up and compete is a 7...you need to get your mind right.
This is also how you figure out what you need to do in the weight room.
Can you jump up and touch the rim of the basketball hoop but can't squat your own bodyweight...start working on squats.
Can you squat double your bodyweight but have a 2 inch vertical...start doing more jumps.
Are you a 10 in bodyweight but the slowest on your team...start doing more sprints and agility training.
Once you know what to work on you can start putting together a plan to improve those deficiencies.
It's like school. If you're failing geometry but getting a B+ in history, you get a geometry tutor!
Work the weaknesses and you will see the biggest improvements.
As always...THROW FAR!!
Coach Matt Ellis
