 Do you feel like your leg strength is a flat lining and you kind of feel that lack of power in your throw as well? We're going to talk about a simple way to add shot put leg strength in this video. So check it out. Hey guys, what's going on? It's Eric Johnson from AirTay throws nation. And in today's video, we are going to talk about leg strength for the shot put. Now one of the things that we get a lot of questions, Hey coach, can you help me? How do I improve my strength? And specifically we see a lot of people there. They say their squat is stuck. Now there's going to be multiple things that we want to think about. There's two types of strength that we can deal with. And perhaps one of the reasons why you're stuck is you're focused on bilateral strength, which means you're doing squats, both feet on the ground and you're doing lots of squats. And that's what people see. You see, you know, these monsters out there like Joe Kovacs or NCAA champion, uh, Tripp Paperi. These guys are consistent 70 plus footers, the young gun, the, the legend and everybody's like, I got to go squat and you're spending a lot of time on your squat. And then what you're noticing is your gains are actually happening slow. So that's because you need probably some variation in your training. And one of the things if you're just squatting, which is good, but how much time do you spend on accessory movements like hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes, working on your mobility and range of motion. These are all things that create limitations. So what I'm going to do is kind of talk about today, really simplified thing that I know you know, but maybe you're overlooking how effective it can be for helping you bust through some of these plateaus and kind of add that extra dimension that you're missing from your shot put strength, or that you need for to increase your distance and improve your shot put specific strength. So what am I talking about? I said squats are bilateral due to legs. So what do we want to do? We want to add something simple. We can talk about adding a lunge. A lunge is an easy way to work unilateral strength. Obviously when I'm sitting here and I'm moving forward in this position and I'm moving back, I'm going to try to keep everything nice and aligned. And this motion is extremely beneficial. Why? Because in the throw, we talk about as we have our pillar one, we have our pillar two, we start to move on to that single leg position in pillar two. And then that's through pillar three. So we have two pillars that basically have that one leg and that's the single support is the big technical term biomechanics wise. And we simplify those, that language, right? To make understanding the complexities of throwing easier. That's what our six pillar systems all about. So the next phase that you have in your throw is the landing. When I'm coming through here and I'm on a single leg and you're going to see that right there, I'm on that single leg position as I'm going to move into the power position. So one of the reasons that you want to add something in like a lunge. So one of the things that we talk about is the value of adding in the lunge. And one of the simple things that you can do, again, this isn't like some, oh my God, I've never heard of a lunge. I'm not saying, and I don't think that, but what I want to do is make sure that you understand that small lifts like this actually can carry a ton of upside for doing something like this and doing it consistently. And as you get stronger, being able to increase the weight. So a couple of things we like to, we talked about, we want to make sure alignment is critical. I see so many kids, they do stuff, they step in, they step narrow, they're wobbly, they bend, their feet kind of turn, they're, they're stepping here, their foot kind of turns out. I see a lot of that kind of stuff. What you want to do is make sure you feel that nice control, the line position. You're going to feel this. A lot of people are weird about the knee. I learned a long time ago from strength training legend, Charles Pollack when to push the knee forward. This is going to help develop that VMO, that teardrop muscle. And that's going to be really key for developing and adding explosive ability into your throwing, but also it's going to help you with your bigger movements like front squats and back squats. So when I'm working this unilateral strength that I'm seeing in here, I'm getting my hip is usually going to be coming down as I push here. I can try to continue to push for, and I'm going to keep that heel kind of down, but I can get that heel elevated and that can be beneficial as well. So simple thing, adding unilateral strength focus is a great way to mix up your training. And if you find yourself that you're plateaued, definitely add in some of this type of movement. A couple of the variations that you can do, like we said, you can step forward and step back. You can do a walking lunge. You can do dumbbell carries. You can do barbell carries. You can do a whole bunch of different things. You can move laterally. So there's a lot of benefit to adding in this unilateral movement into your throw. So keep that in mind. If you find yourself that you're struggling and you need to develop single leg strength is really important. You have single leg squats. You have Bulgarian split squats. You have a lot of different things, but if what I see with so many developing athletes, so for coaches that are watching your athletes, if you're watching and you just want to emulate the top guys, that's great. But remember the top guys, they put up those big lifts because they're exciting, but those top guys don't forget and don't think for a second that they're not doing all kinds of small important lifts that are going to help them stay healthy so that they can put up those big numbers. So remember utilize something as simple as a lunge. It's going to help. Again, it's great for unilateral strength. If you're low on weights, walk for a minute. Do lunges for a minute straight or two minutes straight or three minutes straight and watch how your legs will just balloon up so you can bust through those plateaus and improve that throwing specific strength by adding in something as simple as a lunge. So again, hopefully you guys enjoyed today's video. We find it. Hopefully it was helpful. We will see you on the next video.