Booooriiiing

Just training. You?

Yes, I am using two pillows.

Moving Fast Takes a Long Time

The Wind Blows

First and Worst

First throwing day of the year. Threw stones and a little bit of 28 WFD. Practice was interrupted by an impromptu kids' clinic. Some of the neighborhood kids were curious what I was doing, so I let them all have a go and explained the sport as best I could. Makes me very happy to cultivate tiny fans for the sport.

Slow, and my timing is out of whack, but day 1 is in the books. Stands to 37'-6", glide to 40'-6". WFD was cut short so I only lobbed it out to 57' today. All day I never pushed the speed above 75-80%

Turn Down The Volume

Mike - Working the Pole

I have a ton of work to do on my cabers, and a lot of it is in the weight room. Here's me fixing some technique in the meantime:

Mike - Mud and Chalk

I competed this weekend, but the only thing 'Highland Games' about it was that I wore a kilt.

Mike - PRs and Pumpkins

This past Sunday I threw at the Celtober Cowtown Throwdown in Fort Worth, Texas. This is a late-season games that I always participate in, since it's usually the last chance to see all of the Texas gang before everyone starts their off-season.

I put together my best complete day of throwing all season, and hit a couple of big PRs. Still have some work to do in HWFD and caber, but no surprise there.

Braemar: 32-5
Open Stone: 42-10 PR of almost a foot. Whole series over 40'. Switching to the glide again has paid off.
HWFD: 29-6 Good for me, but still terrible.
LWFD: 63-5 PR
Heavy Hammer: 74-4
Light Hammer: 97-10
Caber: 30 but the caber was a disaster. Two broken sticks, and the one we got two shots at was ugly and thorny.
Sheaf: 26 and missed the window twice on 28
WOB: 12

The best part of the day was the challenge event that yours truly was responsible for organizing: Open Pumpkin. One pumpkin per competitor, open stone rules, but we measure to the furthest piece of pumpkin. Therefore, explosions and friendly rolls make all the difference.

Mike - This Sport Makes No Sense

For the latter part of this season, the full spin for open stone had been working with some consistency for me. Lately though, it had started coming apart at the seams, as my stone form often does. For the past two practices, I decided to switch over to the glide to see if I could fix my finish. Well, that resulted in this:

That's more than 6 feet further than my competition PR. Guess I will keep gliding for a while.

Mike - Doing Things For No Reason

Last week I snatched 125 lb. with one hand for a friendly competition on the internet. I think I am going to try to do more.

I also hit a PR power clean of 260 lb. this week. I thought I was going to have to full clean it, but I pulled it higher than expected and the catch almost caught me off guard.

Mike - Unfiltered Light Hammer Practice

We like to be innovators here at Throw Bros. We also really like when people pay attention to us. So in that spirit, I would like to present the first in a series of videos we call "Unfiltered," Unless we decide to change the name.

"Unfiltered" videos will take you through some aspect of training or competition without any of the convenient, quick edits that are commonly used for brevity or just looking cooler. 

This installment looks at entire sequence leading to one of my light hammer reps. On this day, the hammer kept pulling me forward, so I had to give myself some physical and verbal cues to catch the weight softly on my right, and take my time building speed. The next two clips show the progression to getting those things working a little better.

My belief is that a lot of throwers jaw at themselves like this during practice and even in games. What are some of your common verbal cues or motivators you use?

Mike - Cleans, Squats and Insight

Trying to get heavier with the cleans, and faster on squats.

Mike - Off-Season Day 1

Starting my off-season, but on day 1, a tiny hurdle presents itself.