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Closing Out the Season: A Conversation
by Dane Miller
This blog is a transcript of a conversation between Garage Strength Head Coach Dane Miller, and three of his post-collegiate throwers: Sam Mattis, Ryan Njegovan, and Noah Kennedy White.
- discus
- shotput
- throwing
- track
- training
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Nutrition for Throwers
by Dane Miller
One of my biggest pet peeves as a throws coach is this prevailing idea that throwers can just eat whatever they want, whenever they want. Anyone is welcome to do this, but they should be ok with looking fat and unathletic, as well as training and competing poorly. It’s not productive for throwing or from a health perspective to eat with no plan and no focus on proper nutrition. Proper nutrition is important for all athletes, and it is one of the easiest ways to make huge gains!
- discus
- nutrition
- shotput
- throws
- training
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Not Feeling Great in Your Peak?
by Dane Miller
I think almost every athlete has been in this situation before: creeping closer to a major competition, beginning your peak, and yet things just feel slightly off. Your legs aren’t moving as fast as you thought they would, and you aren’t throwing as far or lifting as much as you thought you would. Here, I’m going to explain why this is perfectly fine--and even expected.
- discus
- peaking
- programming
- shotput
- training
- usaw
- weightlifting
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Pan Ams Part II: Hayley's Meet, and Where to Go from Here?
by Dane Miller
As we saw with Hayley, nerves and the mental aspect were the weakest point of her competition in Santo Domingo. Even with this weakness, she was still able to post a fourth place finish in clean and jerk and an 8th place finish overall, contributing to the point system system for next year’s Pan Am Games. So...where can we go with her training?
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Pan Ams Part I: Pan Am Criticism
by Dane Miller
It is very difficult to approach this meet with high expectations and impressive results. Basically, every athlete involved with the competition should not be focused on this meet as their priority for the yearly block of training. Just about everyone should be focused long term preparation for Junior Worlds or Senior Worlds. On top of those factors, it is very well known that Pan Am competitions are poorly managed, hot, not the greatest living conditions, and generally a poorly executed competition which makes it very difficult to set up for a strong peak.
- clean and jerk
- Pan Ams
- snatch
- training
- usaw
- weightlifting
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Do Female Throwers Have to Be Big?
by Dane Miller
There are many successful women on the world stage who coaches look to for inspiration. I think many coaches lose sight of the fact that these athletes are throwing, at the heaviest, a 4 kilogram implement (in the case of shot and hammer). The women’s discus only weighs 2.2 pounds! Yet I hear high school coaches telling female athletes things like, “you gotta go to McDonald’s, you gotta put on weight.” This is exactly the wrong attitude to take. Women don’t NEED to be huge to throw far. You can take one of a number of examples of excellent female throwers who are muscular, but not terribly overweight: Maggie Ewen, Valarie Allman, Whitney Ashley, Sandra Perkovic, the list goes on. Perkovic is easily the most dominant female discus thrower alive right now. Ewen is the most well rounded thrower, female or male, on the planet.
- discus
- nutrition
- programming
- shotput
- throwing
- training
- weight gain
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Training Frequency Questions
by Dane Miller
Many people see elite athletes training with a lot of frequency. Nine, ten, eleven times per week sometimes. I want to address some of my thoughts on training frequency, and some of the important considerations when a coach or athlete is deciding how much frequency is enough.
- discus
- frequency
- progamming
- shotput
- throwing
- Training
- usaw
- weightlifting
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Start Benching With a Fat Bar
by Dane Miller
A lot of people point out that when you see my athletes benching on Youtube or Instagram, you primarily see them benching with a fat bar. I want to address some common questions I get about why my athletes use a fat bar to bench with, and why I see it as much more beneficial than benching with a standard 45lb bar. For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume a fat bar is any bar with a diameter larger than that of a standard bar. Although, ideally, I’d have athletes use a bar with a 2” diameter. So, let’s start.
- discus
- fat bar
- football
- programming
- shotput
- training
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Throwers and Deadlifts Part 2: When To Use Deadlifts
by Dane Miller
For those of you who haven’t read my article on why I tend not to program deadlifts for my throwers, check it out here. Since I try not to completely write-off any movement, I wanted to write a quick follow-up that would address a situation where I might program deadlifts for a thrower.
- deadlift
- discus
- programming
- shotput
- throwers
- training
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Why My Throwers Don't Deadlift
by Dane Miller
First, I just want to address what some people have probably already decided based on the title: no, I don’t hate deadlifts. Deadlifts can be an extremely effective tool for increasing strength. I really like deadlifts for a sport like wrestling, where more brute strength is required, and the sport itself is more of a grind. But for now, let’s dig deeper into why I don’t have my athletes deadlift in general.
- clean
- clean and jerk
- discus
- programming
- shotput
- snatch
- training
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Squat Variations
by Dane Miller
For this article, I’m going to get into some squat variations: which ones are my favorites, and how I choose to program them for certain people. To start, I’ll just lay out the variations I can think of--Single Leg Squat, Cambered Bar Squat, Duffalo Bar Squat, Safety Squat Bar Squat, and Zombie Squat. Each has their own benefits and I’ll get into them below
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Season Blog: Not Quite There Yet
by Noah Kennedy White
Well, that did not go as planned. After starting the season well and heading to the Lehigh Games feeling confident, I just did not execute the way I had imagined. I had not performed that well the prior week at Princeton, but that can just be a tough place to throw discus due to the sector. I didn't have as much of an all-around great training week leading up to Lehigh as I did before Penn and Bucknell, where I PR'd, but I threw well enough the two days before that I figured I could take advantage of the favorable sector at Lehigh and go get a Nationals qualifying mark. But I think we all know meets often don't go as we want.
- programming
- training
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