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The weight over bar had concluded and I was soon to be crowned the 2016 IHGF World Heavy Events World Champion. Fellow competitors and friends were congratulating me as volunteers and organizers offered their well wishes. I had done it; all the training, all the practice had culminated to this. I was walking to the athletic tent when a certain man pulled me aside. This man was Bill Kazmaier, the strength legend. If you don’t know the “Kaz,” then I can best describe him as the biggest name in American Strength Sports history. A three-time winner of World’s Strongest Man (there’s...

Gone are the days of new advances like "auto-tracking." And now, you can be kind without having to rewind! So, when it comes to video review and analysis for throwers, quite honestly, it's never been easier.YouTube, smartphones and WiFi may be the greatest advancements in throwing we've seen. We have such amazing tools at our disposal, but do we use them? Do you film your practices to review at that time or later in the day? For the throwers who went before us, how did they do this? Did they even do this? One of my favorite examples of work...

With the offseason in full swing, I am seeing more and more approaches and outlines for people's offseason plans. One of the things I find in increased popularity is mobility and even flexibility as a way for athletes to improve their throws. While increased flexibility is never a bad thing, is it really a needed focus for the off-season? The arguments I hear are:- He/she feels their lack of perceived mobilit keeps them from hitting the correct positions in the throws.- He/she thinks that if they can get to postions of greater torque, then they will automatically throw further (i.e....

We all know that nothing replaces throws. If you truly want to improve in the Scottish Highland Games, nothing does it better than getting reps in. But, in the off-season, how do you get better at throwing … without throwing? Not throwing in the off-season is another blog for another day, but are there lifts that directly correlate to the events? The simple answer is, “No.” But, I believe there are a number of very important lifts for each of the events and you’d be remiss if you didn’t program them in this off-season! Now, let me also get the...

We’ve previously discussed getting into the first turn in the weights for distance, but when it comes to the “sprint” or “drive” to the front of the trig, how do you optimize that movement? How do you keep from driving yourself right out of the box; better yet, to avoid the dreaded front center foul?For me, this is the most critical component of my throw; it’s the difference of about 6-8' for me. And, when I threw over 94’ in Utah in 2014, I was finally getting this movement down and applying speed to the weight in the box. I...