AuthorHi i'm Spencer Williams, shot putter, and author of these blogs. Archives
May 2020
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Week 125/17/2020 Over the time of this project, I worked very hard and improved in many different ways. I ended up throwing 50 feet, 3 inches which is not in competition, in other words without the adrenaline rush of a real competition. Sub-par but still it’s very good to not be in a slump like last year. As my coach says, it gets worse before it gets better, so I’m looking for some big throws this summer. The nice thing about my project is that no matter what result I get, I can keep expanding on it and get better. As I said at the beginning of the project, I said that I wanted to go to college for this, and it was a great opportunity to get better and stronger. And I have done both of those very well I would say. I spent a lot of time working out but I changed styles later in the project, I moved to pushups, sit-ups, and jumping rope to work on explosiveness and speed. The number of pushups I can do doubled over the course of 2 weeks and it keeps growing all the time, also the number of sit-ups I can do doubled over that same time period. The jumping rope has gotten a lot smoother and faster with fewer mess ups and with more reps, which gives me a better work out and better conditions my feet and legs. As far as throwing, I’ve gotten faster, more balanced, and I’ve been throwing farther as a whole. I’m doing better driving into the power position and really getting the torque I need to throw the shot. Also with getting stronger, the drive is more powerful so that I can use my hips more to drive the shot into the air. I’m still trying to work on turning my foot in the middle to keep turning, that is what will keep me on balance and help me drive. One problem I’ve had though is landing to the left of the middle which is causing me to fall off to the right and make me scratch, but just slowing down will help me resolve that.
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Week 115/10/2020 This week I did a lot of focusing on strength instead of throwing, although I got good amounts of practice in both. I’ve been spending a lot of time and working on doing exercises other than heavy lifting, I’ve been doing pushups, curl-ups, and jumping rope to gain speed and explosiveness, when I go to the gym we focus on lighter lifting with better form, that does not say that the workouts are easier because we do hard exercises for a lot of reps. Like for instance, we did some curl, press, and skull crusher all consecutively for 10 reps each arm and then 10 reps for both, he also added a twist which made us keep our feet off the ground while we were doing it. There’s a lot more that I could say about the kinds of things that we do but that would take a long time, but I will say that his workouts are nothing like I have done before and I like that because I fell that I am already benefiting from it. I do the pushups, curl-ups, and jump rope every day along with some running so that even when I’m not in the gym, I am still gaining. In this week’s news on throwing, I had some time to practice and it went relatively well. I’ve been traveling so that put a dent in my ability to throw as much as I would like but I am still finding a way. At the place I stay at on the beach there is a park where I like to throw, I threw a 157-foot discus there which is not too great but it’s good considering the circumstances. I also had the chance today to throw some shot and discus, I threw shot on the beach which helps me with foot speed and control, I threw about 47 feet uphill so, in the end, they were some darn good throws. I’m still looking to increase my speed and be stronger while throwing the shot, I feel like I’m falling away from the show when I throw it which is greatly reducing my distance. Overall a great week and I am ready for another week of training.
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Week 94/26/2020 I Had a very eventful week this week, I had a great shot day and I got a new personal trainer. Things have been less stressful in school and I have a new style of training. The personal trainer uses better reps, and less weight to build up muscle fibers for real instead of show. We focused on pushups, curl-ups, and kettlebell work, not to mention jumping rope to improve footwork and speed. All of those aspects are important in the ring for speed, form, and control. Every day I have to do 20 pushups, 10 stack pushups, 20 curl-ups, and a lot of jumping rope, as those numbers may sound little, its impact is not, it will give you work. Speaking of things starting to work, my shot throws are more consistently working, I am rotating well, getting good distances, and being consistently controlled. I think this is a product of balance and focus, I feel a lot more comfortable in the ring and that not only makes me calmer but causes me to be more fluid. I threw 50’3” this week and I am proud of that, I did well getting low, but I could have gotten lower, even my new trainer made the comment that getting lower would help me. I sent the video to my coach and he said all good, except for one thing, not low enough!! If I really get low and explode up I could boost my throw by multiple feet. I also need to start throwing the shot at the right height, I had one great throw form-wise but it was way too high, as you may know, that is a distance killer and should be fixed. It can also cause potential back problems as I had before, I arched my back and it caused severe pain that even inhibited my throwing. Lastly, my foot turn int the middle is getting a lot better and that is making my throws smoother and also making me more patient in the middle, giving me balance and good power. Overall, I have a TON of room to grow and improve and I’m looking forward to it all!
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Week 84/26/2020 Throughout the week this week I did not get a lot of lifting but I did get a lot of throwing. I’ve been thinking about my lifting and I think that I should change up how I do things, I’m thinking that I should do higher reps and moderate weight because I feel that gives me more of a pump which in turn causes more muscle to form in response. When you work out the strain on your muscles causes microtears to form which gives your muscle a expanded look otherwise known as a pump, as you might know more muscle cells form in between the tears causing your muscle to get bigger and stronger, this is why when I work out I push so hard to get a pump. Over the weeks I’ve been very successful at doing this but I know the more and more that I lift the harder it’s going to be to get a pump, that’s where I bring in higher weight, higher reps, and different exercises. This week and throwing I made some very big accomplishments, and I had some really big Throws. When I threw this week I tried to work on going slower and being more controlled at the beginning of my practice and towards the end speeding up and throwing father. I feel that this gives me a base of balance and comfort instead of just jumping right into throwing as hard as I can, I think that’s what gave me the ability to grow as good as I did this week. Shot wise I threw one day and it did not go so well, I was off balance and did not get any flick off of my hand. Shot is something that I really need to work on recently that I just haven’t found the time to do, every day that I don’t work on it the harder it’s going to get the next day. I really need to slow down in shot just like I did in discus and break down my form from the beginning. But just like I said before I will have all of Quarantine to get my stuff under control until Track could potential he come back and then I could get a chance to show the world what I’ve been practicing.
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Week 5 and 63/30/2020 Coronavirus has honestly really help me out these 2 weeks working out and throwing, I've had a lot more time than I usually do lift and throw. I have successfully worked out every single one of my pre-planned days but still not thrown as much as I would like to. I felt myself getting a lot stronger and honestly throwing better as that goes on.
My lifting has been very successful overall, I focused on explosive lifts such as speed deadlifts cleans and explosive bench presses. I hit a new deadlift PR which was 315 lb for 10 reps, Which was after I did it for 8 reps (also a PR). My lunch is a little less than where I wanted to be but it's never too late to fix that because as I said I will have months upon months to get stronger so no worries here. I did clean to front squats for the first time, they went very well but were indeed very hard, it's a good thing when you're working out though, I enjoy the burn and knowing that I'm going to get better after I do this. In the time that I had to throw I had a very very successful I'm doing it, my phone is making huge improvements and my speed is at the same rate I threw a discus 169 ft and that is a 30 ft PR for me. On that throw, I did a great job of keeping my foot turning in the middle the whole time but there's always room for improvement. This might sound a little bit stupid but I feel as though that I am looking more like an official thrower and rather not a beginner in my form. Everything is starting to look and feel more fluid and smooth in the ring. I'm going to try my hardest this next week and the weeks to follow to throw every day and if not every day every other day, I think this would greatly increase my form and performance in the ring by building stamina and also making me more comfortable in the ring.
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Week 43/22/2020 This week was a very successful week overall, I didn’t get much lifting or throwing in but I spent a lot of time watching videos and looking over my form while I was at the beach to better myself even when I’m not throwing. My coach once told me that lots of throwing and no technical analysis could be potentially bad for your form as you could practice bad habits over and over again and not know the difference. So because of that I spent my time improving my form instead of doing nothing and slacking. Because of coronavirus, my season has been canceled and that upsets me not only because I won’t get my season, but also because it eliminates my means to measure my progress in this project. So because of the cancellation, I will be measuring my progress weekly by having a weekly “meet” In my front yard.
When looking at videos of my throwing I realized that I am very slow in the ring, which means that the shot is not being thrown to my maximum potential which is limiting me not only in this project but also in my career as a track athlete. Over the next week I will be focusing on speeding up my form because I believe that my feet are ready to be sped up as they’re consistently hitting the right positions and my strength is also going up which will help me speed up The throw and in turn throw the shot father. In the weight room, I primarily focused on explosive lifts such as cleans and incline bench. My cleans are not quite where I want them to be but I have plenty of time with this virus to get them there, my bench and incline bench has gone up since I started but they’re still obviously not to the point where I would like them to be but as I said with the cleans there’s plenty of time to have that. This virus actually gives me a very large opportunity to become better than I thought I could be. Now I have a lot more time to think about practice and to actually practice my throws and on top of that weight training.
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Week 23/8/2020 This week was a successful one, although the workouts were spotty due to school and vacations. I’ve learned new things in my form and I’ve practiced much more over the week than I have this season. This week I worked out 1 time but that will change next week, I worked our arms and legs. My legs are getting strengthened again and my arms are continuing to get stronger. I’ve noticed that my left arm is smaller than my right arm and that is because I throw right handed, and without lifting that causes an imbalance which is not good. I’m working to build up my left arm and forearm so that I can get more strength and definition. In my legs I am mostly focusing on quadriceps and gluteal muscles, I don’t have the equipment for hamstrings but I am working to think of a way that I can activate them and grow them with my quads. Calves can be worked my doing leg work and that will grow them. In my throwing news, I worked a lot this week with discus, I’m making big progressions in both forms (they are basically the same thing). I’m working to get a bigger push from the back of the circle to the center in my initial turn, this generates more speed which generates bigger throws. I’m also working on staying balanced in my reverse so that I can stay in the circle with ease. I’ve had a problem since last year of watching the disc and shot and not rotating through which caused me to fall out and that is less of a problem now which is good considering the length of my throws. I hit huge throws this week in discus and I hit 50 in shot in the cold. This is a good distant for practice but as always, there is more work to be done. I will try to work out more this week and to keep practicing as I did last week. Hard work is the only thing in this sport that can get you what you want, so you have to go out and get it.
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