Goals, and Al Oerter

I'm sure that most of us know who Al Oerter is (was?).  If you don't, figure it this way.... Al won four Gold Medals in the discus, and set world records with every winning Olympic throw in the late 50's and 60's.  He threw 227+ when he was 43 years old. In the mid 70's my high school discus coach was still teaching me to carry the discus on my hip... how Al did it.

Take a look at this interview.

http://www.aloerter.com/pages/thom.html

And this old article about Al from 1996 (which is interesting, also,  because it gives information about Al's lifting numbers...whooooiiie!)

http://www.biggerfasterstronger.com/home/MagDetails.asp?id=4 15&previd=17

I got interested in this 'cause Mike P. told me about the essence of Al's training technique. It's all about goals, and a towel. I'm gonna pull the "towel" quotes out of those two articles.

JWC: What was your basic training philosophy? 

Al Oerter: Also from day one I enjoyed lifting, running (sprints) and throwing and after the first few years I adopted a program that lasted 12 months out of each year. I simply enjoyed throwing and everything that went into throwing so nothing felt as if it were a burden. My only coach during all of the years that I threw was a towel. I would place the towel at the impact point of my first throw and for the next 80-90 throws I would move the towel out to the new impact point. It simply was a matter of getting beyond the towel and that proved to be a very fine training technique for Olympic competition.

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Oerter's coaches were a calendar and a towel.  He recalls, "my calendar had 1460 days on it, which was the number of days I had to train before the next Olympics.  I checked off every day that I gave 110% effort."  Then, during training I would use a towel to mark the distance I threw. I never set a goal on 'the perfect distance' I simply worked to beat the towel.  Often people would watch me train but I didn't notice them much because I was so focused on that towel. 

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Things have changed since 1950. We have YouTube and NASGA, you know?  But still, Al's philosophy about daily goals really makes sense to me.  When I started this sport I had formal goals, as in..."By the Grandmother Valley Games I want to throw the LWFD 42 feet"... or whatever. I spent a couple of seasons like that.  I think it's natural that we think like that.

The truth is that I still have goals like that. I really wanna hit 50+ in the LWFD at Pleasanton. But I've taken this "towel" thing to heart. when I set up practice markers; cones, flags or whatever, I put one marker about 4 inches ... about the width or a towel....further out than my best throw in that event so far in the season. My goal is to throw past the towel.

Seriously, I am thinking about losing the markers and using a damn towel out there to remind myself.

Big goals are fine. Sure, go ahead and dream/want those big gains. I do. They'll come every now and then, we all have breakthroughs. But the real progress lies in just throwing the thing a little bit past the towel, every day.

Finally, I want to point out something in the second article that says it all,  IMHO.

"When asked how he beat the world four consecutive times in the Olympics, Oerter gave a surprising answer. "I didn't beat the world four times.  Competition is a test of ones self.  I made myself as ready as I could and then when I stepped up to compete I would say to myself I have prepared the best I can and there is nothing left for me to do but my very best."

See ya on the field. I'll have my towel.

good stuff