You were anxious for the outdoor season. All winter you focused on big throws, improving your technique, getting stronger in the weight room. The time had come to display your ability. Everything you worked for, the internal drive, the grind, the hard work, and dedication was all going to pay off. It would all culminate into something incredible. What happened next was unbelievable, incredible and unfathomable.
The Build-Up
Coaches and athletes alike have spent thousands of hours in their system development. Everyone has been invested in the improvement of athletic performance, athletes have improved their nutrition, their strength work, their technical comprehension, all things that lead to greater results in throwing.
This effort has not gone unnoticed, nor will this effort be worthless.
As the Covid-19 started to spread throughout China, there was discussion immediately about the Olympics being canceled. There was a deep dive into what would come about from the situation and many western individuals felt they would feel zero impact from the disease.
That was until this past week, particularly starting on March 9th.
We had already seen the Arnold Classic canceled to outside vendors. We had noticed that organizers were leaving MILLIONS upon MILLIONS of dollars on the table. From an outsider perspective, when the “ruling class” begins to sacrifice the almighty dollar to protect the lives of millions of people, a red flag begins to appear.
The debacle in Italy began to spread to American news sources and slowly we started to see cases come into the US. Slowly, over the last week, the NBA has postponed their season, high schools are closing throughout the US and now the NCAA has canceled all competitions for the remainder of the year, including March Madness.
All Over?
What does this mean for throwers? Is life over? Are we done?
We need to remember what drew us into the actual sport of throwing. Was it competing in front of thousands of people all the time? Absolutely not. We have all thrown in meets with 5-10 people standing on the side, watching only because their brother or sister was competing. Picking up these implements to push our limits had nothing to do with external gratification. The love of the sport comes from internal solidarity. The drive and fire that sits deep inside our stomach and pushes us to compete and throw in cold weather, rain, heat, snow, everything!
This is a time to utilize as an elite athlete. As quarantine and lockdowns are put into place throughout the United States, we need to establish a simple zone of existence.
Stay at home, visit the local shot or discus circle and then train in your basement or outside. Use your bodyweight as a source of resistance, work on unilateral stability, build an awesome plyometric circuit and focus on speed strength.
Stay home and take notes of your general feeling, recognize technical aspects you never before thought of and figure out feelings that you deemed unfathomable. This is a time for yourself. To watch hours of film, drill for hours, and to train by yourself.
Stay in Touch
One of the coolest aspects behind Social Media is the fact that we can all be in lockdown at home to keep this virus from spreading, meanwhile, we can all be in touch directly through means of social media.
At ThrowsU, we have opened our Facebook Group to the Public. Click on the image below and get into our group and start sharing your training situations!
We will be providing tips and analysis as usual, we want our people throughout the world to stay physically and mentally healthy. The more active you are, the more you can get outside in a solitary situation, the more productive you will feel and the more effective this time will be to long term development.
This is a time in history that is incredibly serious. It has been over 100 years since something this dangerous has scoured our planet. Do we need to have some semblance of fear? Absolutely, fear can prevent complacency in society. However, that fear does not need to hold PANIC.
Panic leads to incapacitation and poor decision making. This is a time to comprehend what negligence can do to a nation while observing a true lockdown can knockdown the spreading of the virus and ultimately get us to the end goal faster: back to normalcy.
Calling
This time in the US is a calling to all throwers and athletes alike to recognize that a full-blown lockdown will happen. The sooner we realize that being in crowded areas is not only a bad decision for individuals, it’s also a poor decision for the external community.
That means we need to support one another on social media, we need to provide unique ideas, provide creative training situations and ALWAYS PROGRESS FORWARD!
This pandemic will alter our normalcy and daily lives, it will stunt our consumerism but it has the potential to expand our internal horizon and creativity. We need to build ourselves up as individuals that care about society. We need to protect our families and do what we love while spending more time with our loved ones! Use this as a serious time to grow!
"Our aim is to provide concise and concrete education and training on the throws, helping coaches and athletes learn what they need to do to succeed and become champions."
- Dane and Trevor
