THPStrength

What is THPStrength?

Isaiah Rivera, pro dunker, and John Evans discuss anything related to maximizing athletic performance, and in particular, jump training. Strength and conditioning, jumping technique, weight room practices, and general fitness and health tips and advice are shared on this podcast.

John:

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the THPStrength podcast. My name is John Evans, and I have coached four of the current six individuals with a 50 inch Berkley. You're probably familiar with one of those guys, Isaiah Rivera. Today, he got recognized at the court.

John:

He was an absolute celebrity. People were filming him, taking videos, and, no one even said hi to me. So, you know, just kidding. You're the

Isaiah:

ghost writer. You're the ghost writer.

John:

I'm the yeah. Am. I'm the ghost writer. But today, we're gonna be talking about throws. Specifically, we're gonna be talking about shop put throws and going over why I like to use them, what their utility is, and some of the other benefits.

John:

So before we do that, if you guys are interested in coaching and you would like to have some med ball throws in your training, then go to thpstrength.com and sign up for coaching, which we say every day. So hopefully, you don't forget.

Isaiah:

Anyways If you want, I can screen share the throws. I put them on my IG recently.

John:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see your brolic looking back.

John:

So the the ones there are a couple different ways to do the throws. I actually don't like doing it with a medicine ball. I really, really like doing it with an Olympic size shot put. So 16 pound shot. I actually bought one, a nice one, a soft shell one.

John:

So we could do these throws. It was like $215. It's totally worth it though. It's probably it's probably one of my favorite things we do. We always and and so let's actually go how we program these because I think some people will be interested.

John:

I don't oftentimes talk about throws. This might be a good YouTube video for another day too. But, yeah, let's go ahead. Watch this here. If you're watching, Isaiah's taking the ball between his legs and launching it.

John:

Violence.

Isaiah:

That's it. Awesome.

John:

That was awesome. So, yeah, there's there's essentially four throws that I really like to do. I like OHB, which is short for overhead back. I like between the legs forward, which is b t l. Wait.

John:

B t f.

Isaiah:

Sound like you're saying dunks.

John:

In the leg. Wait. B l f. Sorry. B l f.

John:

And the other one I like is a side toss. So it's kinda like swinging a golf club, and then the other one that we do is a squat throw, and it's like a thruster, if you guys know what that is, where you put the ball kind of on your chest, squat down, and then explode outward and throw the ball upward. But there's also other derivatives that you can do of those that I also really, really like. So let's talk about this in terms of specificity.

Isaiah:

Can you talk about what you throw as well real quick? How heavy?

John:

Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

John:

That's what I was saying. I don't think you were pulling up the video. But, yeah, 16 pound shot. You can do also a 12 pound shot or eight pound shot. You're gonna throw it.

John:

I probably wouldn't go lighter than eight. Maybe yeah. I'd probably get the lightest as four kilos, but we like to throw the 16 pound shot. So what the difference between these is is based on the why why is that word slipping in mind? Bio bio what are the five biomotor

Isaiah:

What are the there

John:

we go. That was just slipped my mind. And so there there are five biomotor capacities. There's strength, speed, endurance, coordination, and mobility. Did I forget any?

John:

That's right. So those are the five biomotor capacities, and the shop with rows function to train strength and speed speed in kind of the form of what we would just call power. Right? But you can get power a lot of different ways. You can get power by doing a really, really heavy power clean.

John:

You could get it by doing a body weight jump. You can get it by doing an approach jump. There's tons of ways that you can produce power because it's force times distance over time. So what we're doing is we're actually more so on the side of speed strength. And if you think about a power clean, we're even a a hang power snatch at 50%.

John:

That's gonna be, for me, 90 Body weight. 90 pounds. Yeah. Wait. What?

John:

50% of your power snatch is your body weight? No. Your power 50%

Isaiah:

of my clean. 50% of

John:

my clean. Oh, I was like, what?

Isaiah:

Or 55% because I was snatching one ninety, I think, yesterday or two days ago, and that was 55% of my power clean, which is my it's like a little heavier than my body weight.

John:

Yeah. So even if you're doing relatively light loads in the Ollie's, it's still considerably heavier than you would do in a shot put throw. So while a lot of people look at shot put like a strength speed exercise, I actually think it's more like a speed strength exercise compared to jumping. Right? And then jumping is even further on that continuum because then you're moving I mean, really, you're moving your body weight plus the mass.

John:

But if you're jumping Everything that you

Isaiah:

do is like your body weight added on there.

John:

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So like speed is, you know, anything with your body weight, but it's really a continuum, you know. It's it's just is it faster or is it slower?

John:

If it's slower, it's gonna be more like strength. If it's faster, it's gonna be more like speed. It's a sliding scale. And that's kind of what Mike was saying too in the podcast is he doesn't really view it in terms of something falling cleanly into, like, a category. It's just forced production.

John:

But the forced production that you're doing with shop with throws is much, much faster. So you're able to get I don't know what the velos are, but they've gotta be pretty freaking high, on these actual throws. But, typically, with the between the legs forward, you wanna hold it overhead, swing it fast down so you get a really, really big eccentric load in the hips, hamstring, posterior chain, and then you explode outwards kind of when the shot is out in front of you so that you're able to actually project it forward and upwards. A lot of people when they do this, specifically on the between the legs board, they'll kind of throw it upwards, but the the key is to actually wait until the shot is out in front of you and then push so that you're able to get a really, really big horizontal vector, kind of lead with the shot and then follow with the legs at the end, and then you'll get really big throws. And then overhead back is similar.

John:

You're holding it above your head, swing it between your legs, throw it backwards over your head. This one, we talked about also in the Mike Young, podcast, but with Boo. But Dan has found Dan Path has found a pretty strong correlation with overhead back, and I think it's high jump and, I wanna say, springing. People that are really, really good at overhead back are generally very fast. He's found, like, a pretty strong correlate there, and then they're also like, high jumpers tend to be really, really good at it.

John:

So when I was at Altus, they actually used the eight kilogram shot. And I was talking to Greg Rutherford the other day, who if you guys don't know who that is, he's a Olympic gold medalist from The UK. And when I was at Altus, we saw him do overhead back tosses, and it was disgusting. I actually am gonna pause this and pull it up. Alright, guys.

John:

I've acquired the video, so I'm gonna share my screen. Let us find the window. Here we go. So this is Greggy boy, Absolute unit back in 2016 is when I filmed this. But this is an overhead back that Greg did, I think, with a four four Sheesh.

John:

Bro, he almost hit the he almost he threw it out of the pit and almost hit the Bro, he just

Isaiah:

water balled. Punched that. Yeah.

John:

He's a unit. When you watch it in slow mo too, it's just like you see how far he flexes? Look at that. That's like and you see how he's falling backward? Yeah.

John:

Like, as he's doing it? That's how you know he's working. I'm learning. Eat it, bro. He used to just yeah.

John:

So far. Boom. Look at that thing. Dude, it's so high. It's in the grass.

John:

I wanna say I don't know how far that throw was. I'd have to ask him, but I wanna see I wanna see through, like, between twenty three and twenty six meters. So it was Yeah. He was definitely good to say the least. But, yeah, with the lighter shot, you're more on that speed side.

John:

So the progression that I would probably do is start with the really, really heavy shots and then progress your way down through to the lighter shots because that's gonna be more specific to jumping, which is gonna be faster. And then also you'll notice that Greg drops really, really fast and gets into really, really deep positions. And that's another thing I like about it. You can't really hit those positions safely, you know, any other way, but you're just trying to max out impulse and and get as much time pushing on this thing as possible. So it's a really good measure of rate coding, in my opinion.

John:

Guys that can really just keep accelerating, accelerating, accelerating. Like, you would do really, really well at this. They have long late stage force production with a really lightweight, and it's pretty specific. So that is one of the well, typically, I'll do, like, two reps each, and I like to put it at the end of sessions. And it's kind of a neural primer.

John:

Mike actually used to do this a lot. So you walk away doing something really, really explosive, and you tend to feel like you left the session not fresher, but more neurally wired and connected after, you know, doing accessory work and stuff like that. Some guys feel flat. But when you end on something really, really powerful and kind of fun and competitive, I found that it it tends to have better carryover for guys for the whole session. You just end on something, you know, kind of wired, and I like that a lot.

John:

So the other progression that I like, and we haven't done this yet, Isaiah, is actually with hops. So I have a specific circuit that I really like to do. I I don't program them super often, and it's not because I don't like them. It's just because a lot of the time, guys don't have access to the to the shots. And so I don't I don't really like to do it super often, but I am gonna pull that up.

John:

So there's two of them. This is straight from Mike, but Dan uses it quite a bit. So it is hop hop between the legs forward, hop hop between the legs backwards, and then hop hop squat chest. Yeah. So it kinda adds a little bit of a plyometric exercise in there.

Isaiah:

I like

John:

that. Interesting. Yeah. Eric filmed this. I think my buddy Eric I don't know if you guys if I've ever talked about Eric, but he was massively important in my development as a coach, but I'll pull this up here.

Isaiah:

Oh, no. They can see the back end.

John:

So hop hop and then throw. This is not really well done. I like I like people to do, like, big so big broad jump, big broad jump, pull it between the legs, and then explode forward. But this is at least sufficient enough. And then between the legs, backward.

John:

And we we don't we haven't really done this ever, but same concept, launch backwards. And then there's one where it is a hop, hop, and then squat chest. So I really like the the progression for that. I think it fits really cleanly into long, you know, long conjugate sequence systems. And we will likely be doing that next month, Isaiah.

John:

So

Isaiah:

Sounds fun.

John:

Exciting stuff. Yeah. I don't have too much else on the topic. I like I said, I like to keep the volumes really, really low, put it on my high intensity days, put it at the end of the sessions. The hops, I'll probably put after the sprints, like hop hop and then toss.

John:

But the other ones, I like to keep in there. I think it's a really, really good power exercise that not enough people really use or talk about, and it's measurable too. It's fun. It's measurable, it's fun, and it's competitive. Who do you think is the best tosser in the house?

Isaiah:

Donovan.

John:

By far. For sure. And probably Josh. Don is really good for his weight, though. Like Yeah.

John:

He surprised the hell out of me.

Isaiah:

I think we

John:

all are. Back.

Isaiah:

Like, I bet you could, like we I think we all are. Like, we're probably all even, like, if you, like, correct for body weight, we're probably pretty even, like, distance per body weight or some something like that.

John:

I wish I could find Melvin Eckard doing it because when he was at Texas A and M, I think he threw, like, 18 meters overhead back as a long jumper, which is just disgusting. Like, that's ridiculous. Like, guys like Kyle Garland. You know who Kyle Garland is? He's, like, the beefy, huge dude, that's a decathlete.

John:

No. You don't know who he is, dude? He's like a he is a house, which he I think he's thrown well I wanna say he's thrown well into the eighteens, but I'd have to I don't know him well enough to really to really ask. I'll show you. Freight train.

John:

That's what they call him because he's just such a freaking beast. This is what I want you to look like, Isaiah. Kyle Garland. Look at this dude. He's just a freaking unit.

John:

I think this is, it's not like a really, really good session. I don't think he has any videos of him doing it, but he's a freaking monster. But, yeah, that's the video. I guess outside of that, how'd the session go, Isaiah? How do you feel like you're gonna jump next week?

John:

I might fly. I might fly. I'm insanity from you.

Isaiah:

Yeah. Yeah.

John:

I'm getting better, by the way. Next

Isaiah:

week would be yeah. It'll be ridiculous. Just from, like, how high I'm jumping now.

John:

Yeah. My off dribble actually like, you know, my adductor thing? I wasn't I wasn't feeling that at all today. Like, I could go pretty fast.

Isaiah:

I think off one, I will fly too. I'm like, unloaded. I guess, like, unloaded and yeah. Are you gonna jump off one next

John:

week, like like, solo or Yeah. You go Hell yeah. I'm going four. I almost dunked off Bert today. Let me talk about that.

John:

I know. It was shocking, actually. I was like, oh, somebody learned how to putt. But it was a good session. Anyways, if you guys are interested in coaching, go teachmestrength.com.

John:

Catch you guys next time. Ciao. It's Bert.