 Hey everybody, it's Eric Johnson from Maritime Throws Nation. In today's video, we're going to talk about progression and some key things that you need to focus on to get more out of every training session. So check it out. In today's video, one of the things was we roll into the off season and I pulled up some clips of some young throwers because I think it's a really good indicator of what you can be achieving and what you should be working on. And many of the things that you're working on when you're young are the same things you're going to be working on when you become either an advanced high school, collegiate, and beyond. So the process of throwing is essentially a series of biomechanical points and positions and you need to learn how to make all those movements happen naturally and then put it together so it can become very rhythmical. So one of the things we talk about in the throwing chain reaction is to be able to go through the basics of progression. We work on specific things and then we always kind of clear our head and we just try to become very rhythmical. So we try to add that in. And you can get stuck sometimes focusing so much on mechanics that you become mechanical and you really want to avoid that and that's something we always stress in the system. Apply positions and technique and mechanics and then think about one thing that's the basis of the chain reaction. Set up one key position and then go and basically let everything kind of fall into place and be reactive. So two athletes today, this is a good shout out to Coach Richard Capps. He is one of our members from Gold Coast Athletics down in the Gold Coast of Australia and these are his two kids and he's done a phenomenal job. These kids move incredibly well. So we're going to be looking at 10 year old Chelsea and I think Charlie was her older brother and he's just about two years older. You're going to notice that these guys move extremely well. They've only been thrown a couple of years and I think it's just, you know, Coach Capps has done a phenomenal job and really, you know, take it as a huge compliment that he's expressed how much the throwing chain reaction helped him because he had never been a throws coach prior. So, and I think that's a good point. Now, one of the things that we try to do when we stress and what we're going to do in this video is talk about progression and the key thing is not to just throw but to throw with a very specific focus. So one of the basic things we're going to have you do is we kind of set up and this was a fast progression because we'd been at a camp and been training on different things. So what we focused on is we're going to go through basically a pre block or a stand throw. This is a variation of the finish. We're working on what we call as pillar five six and then we are going to, we call it a wheel drill or a modified wheel. So we're basically doing a 180 or a half turn. I say that a million times when I shoot video and then we go to a full throw and throughout it, we're going to be building and working on specifics and we're going to focus on the specifics at those points of the throw. So here we're going to take a look at Chelsea. She's 10 years old. She is throwing right around just over a hundred feet. So like 33 meters. And you're going to notice that again, one of the key things that we try to teach in this position, you're going to notice that she does really well. She's going to have this kind of double bent legs which is a really key position that's going to help hip rotation. She's got a really great orbit and she's creating nice length, right? So all of these things are going to help create more stretch reflex separation to create stretch reflex. And this is going to allow her to really smash the lower body into the throw. So you're going to see when she gets here, she's going to pull in and then you're going to notice we focus on some things. We're going to be focusing on block side. So block arm, block leg, delivery leg and then whipping the discus. And you're going to notice that she does that extremely well. So you're going to notice when we show her here, the block elbow is really locked at the side so that everything can move around and out into the throw. Now here's our older brother and one of the things is you'll notice that he doesn't have, he's listening to some of our cues and he's not quite as loaded on double bent legs. So his separation is going to be a little different. And in all fairness to Charlie, when we had done this camp, he had been still coming off of an elbow injury from throwing the jab. And so it kind of had a little influence on his ability to train. So he hadn't been thrown as frequently as his sister. But again, he's moving really well. And you're going to notice here, just a couple of differences. He has the shift and he gets the foot moving. But you're going to notice his block is pretty solid and it comes right there. It stops, you kind of see the same thing, pulls the head a little bit. But you're going to notice the whole focus in the system is to be focusing on that block side and moving the delivery side out and around. Now, considering again, these kids have only been thrown two years, dad had really never coached until he had utilized the system. And then you can see how good these kids move. It's a huge compliment and it just goes to show how athleticism is key, but understanding the right thing so that those good athletes can develop better technique fast. So as we go through, you'll notice that those are the things. So we're working on block side delivery sequence. We're feeling stretch reflexes, something we're going to train throughout the whole throw and something we advise you guys to do too. So you don't just throw, you're working on very specific things. Again, that's what we do in our system. We have specific drills. We work the drills to teach the positions. Then we put together the progression of throwing and we kind of do that throughout and we build the throw. Okay, so now we're going to take a look in the next progression. And this is again our simple progression where we kind of go from our, we go, we call it a pre-block, which is a version of a stand throw to help engage the block side easier and then to create that stretch and that sling. And then we're going to go to our wheels. So one of the things we're going to be really conscious of is the hip position. Now, this is what's interesting is you can see the older brother versus the sister, right? And the younger sister, actually, you're going to notice that the hip position, she's got her hips closer to the back foot and notice the length. So this is the thing that we kind of noticed. She had really exceptional feel and movement and great movement for such a young athlete. And so you're going to notice this little difference, right? The older brother, he doesn't have the arms quite as lengthened and that is going to be a real subtle thing. So that's a real simple tip that you guys can focus on. Always stay long and force yourself to move and utilize the lower body action faster. So you're going to watch Chelsea as she comes in, does a really nice job. She's going to push, she's going to get back into that same position, engage the block and you can see how she really pushes and drives the hip through. Now, again, being that she's 10, she's pulling down a tiny bit. But remember, when we're looking at this video, this is a 10-year-old who's been throwing for two years. She's doing a phenomenal job and she moves better than a lot of athletes. I have some guys who've thrown over 200 feet with the discus and they don't do some of these things. They're just really talented athletes, but this athlete is keeping on par with some of their movement. So again, you can see that as she comes here, the key is we're going to feel that block and you're going to notice that. You got that double, we get that leg. She gets back into that position and now she can engage the block. You're going to notice the block arm there stopping and you're going to see how she really pushes the hip through and she gets that hip really turning through so she collapses that foot. You can see again here, the block arm doesn't come past and so she's just really building and putting that extra amount of speed into our stand throw. So we call that going from pillar three, four, five, six now whereas before she was working just pillar five, six. And then so let's look at her older brother. So one of the things you're going to notice, he loses that length, he shortens that arm and the orbit's a little too high. So now he's going to try to keep that orbit. So this is one of those little adjustments and these are things you want to look at. We're looking at keeping stretch, right? Separation, stretch, reflex, orbit. These are the things that we have to take into consideration because that's going to affect the whole flow and rhythm of the throw. Now remember what I said at the beginning of the video. We have to be working on positions. We have to teach mechanics, throwing is unnatural, it happens very quickly and so we have to learn the positions then we have to learn how it all connects and makes it fluid and rhythmical. So as we come here, you're going to notice how the little brother comes in. So Charlie's coming in, nice position. He gets here again. You're noticing he's getting a little active, a little early as compared to his sister. She stays a little longer. You see that? She just stays a little longer there and you can see how at this point he started out a little shorter, action reaction so he's a little shorter in and that's going to make him pull around a little bit more whereas you're going to see, you see how we can see her hand right here and look at Charlie. So right here we're kind of at about an apples to apples position. We can't see Charlie's hand anymore. We can see his back of his shoulder. We can't see the back of Chelsea's shoulder so she's setting a better block and she's coming into it. So that's again, one of your key things when you're working in a throw, you have to understand how to set that block side so that you can have the delivery side coming out and around into the throw. And again, so now you can see pretty good throw though and pretty good movement, right? Again, this is very good for that but you're going to notice the foot, the blocking foot, he's more to the outside. That's because of how he got too active with the block side and therefore it's pulling him off where she's got a firmer plant and can smash it through and get her hip through. But he's got very nice positions as well but these are going to just be some different things. Notice how he started out in a very beginning thing, chain reaction, where were the hips in relation to the start of the throw and the length and that changes the whole movement. So now let's take a look at the full throw. So at this point, what we're going to do is kind of sync them up. You're going to see how we get to this position and they have slightly different styles. You're going to notice how Chelsea is very naturally long. You're going to see this again, that great length and you're going to notice that Charlie's got good positions but he's just got to lengthen a little bit more. He's a little bit older. He's throwing a little bit heavier discus. So watch as they go and you're going to notice how they both move through very quickly. Remember the age and this is why I'm showing you this because if 10 year olds and 12 year olds are going to be moving this effectively, how important this is especially as you get older. So these guys are establishing great habits and their dad, the coach has done a phenomenal job and it was super fun to work with them and tweak up different things. But we kind of going back and looking at the full throw, you're going to see again that high, look at how high she gets the orbit. Look at how she's maintaining the length and she kind of pulls in and you see how she's getting that good sprint. And so that's pretty sweet position. You're going to notice when we talked about who recently did analysis and we looked at stall and we looked at Valerie Ellman and you can see now this is a 10 year old. Imagine where this kid can be when she's 16. I told dad, let her play all kinds of other sports so that she's always excited to come back and throw because she's super talented and moves really, really well. So now you can see here, she gets to the high point, she moves it in, she's really does a great job of hitting that block. You can see how she just really cranks the hip through and creates a great whip on the discus. Really great. So now remember what we talked about from the beginning. We were talking about the block, the orbit, separation, stretch, reflex and notice how we're still focusing on those things on the full throw. So we're putting it all together and again, going on, moving on really good rhythm. Great movement again for a 10 year old, very, very impressive. And I thought if we can show you some 10 year olds for those of you out there, the coaches and everything else, the system works, you gotta work the system. Once you understand it, it's pretty easy and that's what we're trying to do is take complexity and make it much easier to understand so we can get much better results. Okay, so we're gonna just take a look real quick at Charlie and we're gonna notice that, and this is why this is a good comparison. So it's two athletes, same system, same coach, brother and sister and you can see there's just a couple of little nuance differences with Charlie and so he's kinda just a little shorter from the beginning but again, so notice when we look at the position there, so when we look at that position here, we can see there's just a little bit more level, he drops the shoulder and then as he comes out of it, gets into a pretty nice position here and you can see the difference, okay? And watch as she comes here, watch Charlie come here. So because he's a little shorter, you're gonna see him pulling around and that shoulder pulls around just a little bit more but again, really great lower body delivery side hip, creates nice stretch on the discus and again, same thing as this guy gets older, he's gonna be moving that much better, that's the key to throwing, it's just a time intensive, technically focused sport but again, look at how well these kids are moving so huge accomplishment for what these guys are doing technically. The point of this was to kinda show you progression, that it's not just like take some stand throws, do some wheels and do some fulls, we're working on separation, stretch, reflex, we're working on the chain reaction, right? We're always setting the chain reaction, whether that's the stand throw, whether that's the wheel or whether that's the full. We set the chain reaction and become reactive and so we understand where we can identify inefficiencies in the throw and assign drills to train the movement pattern, that's basically how our system works. When you're throwing, focus on your progression and focus on specific things. This is how you get the most out of every practice so every throw becomes more productive towards getting you to master better technical position. So hopefully that helps, gives you guys some insight, you can give you some motivation. Thanks so much, again remember if you liked this video be sure to give us a comment below, see what else you'd like to see in the future. Be sure to share, hit that subscribe button, throw a like, thumbs up and we'll see you on the next video.