 Now, the reason I'm talking about all that today is because one of the things that makes that difficult for the discus is, as we step down, you need to maintain this T position. What's up, guys? It's Eric Johnson from Airtate Sores Nation. In today's video, we are going to talk about part two of what is the most difficult part of learning the full throw and what we tend to find in our camps, whether it's beginner, intermediate or advanced throwers, is slowing down the upper body. And that has a lot to do with how you carry the discus, right? So when we did this, we've done a video on this, how to add extra 20 feet, holding the discus is absolutely critical. When you're talking about advanced throwers, slight degree changes can add up to 9, 10 feet really quick. I've seen biomechanical studies done on American throwers where they could show athletes picking up as much as 8 meters just because of how effectively they were able to fly the discus. So remember, flying the discus also has a ton to do with how you carry the discus. And one of the things we talk about is where does that hand placement go? We've talked about the position of the thumb. And remember, if you're a throwing chain reaction system member, take a peek, we're going to have our ultimate hand carry drag training video coming up where we're going to show you everything. And it's all the stops we pull out, multiple finger positions, hand positions, thumb alignment, discus, all that kind of stuff. We've got great videos on YouTube that got a ton of great views. We stand by them. They're really good. But we are doing a full tutorial on it on site. So keep an eye out for that. We'll be posting that up. Now, the reason I'm talking about all that today is because one of the things that makes that difficult for the discus is as we step down, you need to maintain this T position. Too many athletes have kind of got this thing going on. The upper body's turning and the low point's turning up kind of late. And then they're bent at the waist. They create shift, which is going to create this. And you're going to lose the delivery leg and the finish. And that's really, really critical. So one of the things that we want to be able to do is the comfort factor. And when we talked about in our video about what makes it so tough and we talked about this three to four position, keeping the head up and being able to rotate everything into the throw. Now when you're actually throwing, the issue that we tend to have is athletes are starting here and they're doing weird stuff. They're not comfortable holding the discus. Now, I have athletes that we've worked on this extensively and we've really narrowed down some of the technical things. It's very easy to get lost on a lot of technical inefficiencies or bad positions. So a lot of times coaches rightfully show you're not doing this. You know, you're not turning your foot. You know, your shift in, your shoulders are off. Your high point is, you know, too low, right? So if you don't get, if you get the discus up, that keeps the chest over, right? And now you can see how I'm going to be able to turn on top, turn around and come through and hit the throw. So how do you do this though? Simple things are if you're holding the discus correctly. So you see a lot of athletes, they are doing weird stuff. They're turning over. We've seen athletes, they turn the discus over right here and then they try to get it up. So then they get it up like this and they're tilting versus getting the discus up and having it come up like that. And that's a really big important factor. So remember how you hold that discus, that is really critical. The discus essentially has to stay behind the hip. So the most optimal way is to have a high point here that you can kind of come through, right? And you're going to see me when I come this way and I would be hitting the throw in this direction, getting the high point up at the discus right as I am about to hit the right sector line. So as I come up, we're going to hit this. And then when we're in the air, we're hitting that nice high point. Now, granted, my heel wouldn't be on the ground, but I can't hold that position. Super great on there. But in a full-term motion, you're in that for just a few tenths of a second. Before you're going to come down. So that's your pillar of four to five. And then delivery is both knees turning a throw to six. So if you are having a hard time and you're looking down, that affects the hand. That affects how you carry it. We see a lot of kids cupping it. We see a lot of kids carrying the discus like this, where they don't kind of spread their fingers out or they hold the thumb too far from the edge of the discus. So they need to get that discus closer to the edge. They should feel comfortable and you should be able to hold that discus here. And this is what you're going to notice with most elite throwers. And they're going to come through and they're going to be dragging that discus and it's going to stay behind the hip. Now, controlling that upper body. So if you can't hold that discus comfortably and it constantly feels like it's going to fall out, this is going to absolutely impact your ability to feel the throw. Because the majority of throwers, when they get to this position and they're not holding the discus right, they have a sensation that the discus is going to fall out of their hand. So I have an athlete who likes to turn the discus like this when he starts. Well, you're going to notice when I do that, my arm's not an extension. So I'm immediately starting out the throw here and I'm going to get too active with the upper body because there's no stretch. So athletes are going to create involuntary responses or reactions, right? That's what we talk about. The chain reaction works two ways. Optimal reaction and suboptimal reaction. So if you're doing things that are going to affect your ability to feel the positions like not carrying the discus right, having to compensate, carrying it, cupping it, turning it over weird so that your arm isn't elongated and dragging so that you can turn through and sling the discus, you need to probably work on carrying the discus. So remember, this is what we found that transition from the sprint pillar three to four to five. That position, just doing drills. This is where everybody gets into trouble. And again, if you're a beginning thrower, you just need to do probably a lot of those line drills. That was a really simple, effective thing. After you do 25 to 30, just walk, you know, even if you just walk 50 meters of the track, walking down the lane line or cross the football field like you saw or people did at our throwing camps, go there and back just by the time they get there and back, they're already moving better. If you're having a hard time with that, you do that for multiple days, maybe multiple weeks. Once it's kind of understood, it's something you can revisit. And you want to make sure that you're holding that discus correctly, thumb near the edge, fingers here pointed this way. So now the discus is dragging, right? And so now when you get and you move, you're going to see that nice drag, that nice stretch. And we're going to try to keep that up here at the shoulder. And now you're going to be working on working the lower body. And the more that lower body turns ahead, the more stretch you feel. And that transition from the back of the ring, pillar three, four into five, six becomes faster, more balanced. And you start to sling the discus and you will throw further. So that was the last big tip in our kind of our part two. You've got to make sure that you're not doing weird stuff with the hand carry. And there's, like I said, coming soon in the next probably in about a month, there's going to be the complete guide. We're going to go down and break down all the things that we see all across the country. Remember one of the things about the throwing chain or action system and irritate throws nation, we literally deal with nearly a thousand coaches, thousands of athletes. And so we see so many recurring issues that it helps us be able to gather that information to help you guys. So that being said, if you like today's video, be sure to comment. Hopefully if you looked at the previous video, if you missed that, pay attention to that. Make sure you check this out. You've got to hold that discus right. Otherwise you're not going to feel that transition. If you're turning the upper body and turning the arm, that's going to change everything. It's going to slow down your ability to learn the proper technique and feel the right positions. And that's absolutely what you don't want. So if you'd like more information on our six pillar training system, click the link below, check out the throwing chain reaction system. And again, do all the fun YouTube stuff for us. Like, subscribe, turn on notifications. And we will see you on the next video. Take care.