TRAINING LOG: Greg York

N00b alert!

Age: 50. Height: 6’. Weight: 270lbs. Locale: Seattle
Metro/Ballard.   New to throwing except for one season of
high school field 34 years ago.    

How I Got Here: Stumbled on the ’11 Enumclaw games by
accident and decided throwing things looked like fun.
Picked up a stone and made a LWFD in August!   Found a
local thrower’s forum and, at the very first get
together, met a buncha Icelandic power lifters learning
to turn the caber. Now, just how cool is that?

Background in endurance oriented power sport.   Rower
(100 lbs ago). Surfski (80 lbs ago). Some olympic
lifting and weight training.

Coming off a seemingly eternal decade of
injury/recovery/rehab thanks to a miscellaneous self-
inflicted mishaps.   Busted knee. Busted elbow. Busted
wrist. Separated shoulder. So, have some joints to
strengthen. Maybe others with similar problems can weigh
in on that – more later.

Able to start lifting again in August, and throwing stuff
makes it fun like it never was before.

For you old dudes looking for fresh meat for competition
during our slide into the grave…

Lift PRs:
Current maxs are unknown. Won’t be spectacular, whatever
they are. Starting cycle to first max in years. Check
back in 5 weeks.

Throws PR:
LWFD: Single: 46’6”. Sprint: 46’4”.   That’s a HUGE
improvement! My sprint used to kill feet.

HWFD: Unknown

WOB: Unknown.   Irritates the hell out of my shoulder.
Done sparingly.

22lb Braemar: 27’9”.   That’s ¾. Full kills a foot.
Think I might need some work there?

18lb Open Stone: Standing 31’ and consistent. Add glide
and I can find THREE more inches!   Right now the focus
is on throwing consistently correct to avoid shoulder
problems. Less pain these days.

Sheaf: Unknown

Heavy Hammer: Single: 62’.   Double: 58’   Triple: 51’.   

Any see the pattern there?

I do.

From these results it should be clear to everyone that if
you’d all stop moving around so much, you’d throw a lot
farther!

Science!

To all – thanks for contributing.   Looking to learn a
lot more from the forum.

Warmup - Particular attention to left groin/knee, and
right shoulder.

Incline Press
8*115
6*125
6*145
5*165
3*185

3x((:30,:30)2:00) Circuit - Jumping squats, Rows, curls,
Hanging Leg Raises
Plyos - 6*10 Jumping Lunges
Grip - Plate pinches. 25" x 50

Rehab - Shoulders & scapulae

Problem areas:
Left groin & knee - In a particular controlled plane they
operate properly. Variants are problematic.

Right shoulder - can not hang with a underhand grip. Way
to effing painful.

Using Eric Cressey rehab techniques.

Another Throwing Day - Focus on feel...

Warmup
Puds

5 x open stone - standing. Focus on proper arm, shoulder
, hand mechanics.   No shoulder tweaks!

5 x open stone - glide. Focus on shoulder mechanics and
repeatably finding power positions.   Only one shoulder
tweak. Repeatable power position is evading me.

5 x open stone - rotation.   Surprising improvement for
second week. One bad shoulder tweak. Two tosses sucked
bad. One was a good middling toss, and 2 matched the
glide max for today.   Gonna do more of this!

Glide 29'*
Rotation 29'*

Throwing up slope. Rotational probably significantly
shorted on flat, but still, happy that it's working.
Past attempts have been maining prat falls.

Hammer
5 winds for feel
5 singles for feel
5 doubles for feel.   
1 triple.

Double 54' 6"
Single 54'

First time ever that a multi-wind outperformed my
singles. A fluke. But nice to have the possibility in my
pocket. The triple wind actually got me a middle distance
toss just slighter better than most throws today.
Generally more kinesthetically familiar with the
movement, but, not sufficiently aware that I can identify
what causes what.

Thought I was gonna get called out by the Parks
department, but they actually ok'd use of the field as
long as I plug my holes. That's the big win of the day.
A permanent throwing field!

Warmup
Roll

Deads
145x8
175x6
205x6
235x5
265x4 Pain. Stopped. Back good, but left knee gives me
that bone on bone pain at lockout.   Need to find a new
type of dead, or not lock out in the knees.

Circuit (30" on, 30" off, 2:00 rest)
Dumbell Clean and Press strong
... weak
Mixed grip pullup
Overhead situps

Plyos
Explosive push ups - just clapping, not climbing.

Grip
135 single hand holds.

Throwing day...

Meh. Tired. The GPP portion of that workout I adopted
is chewing me up and spitting me out. Almost couldn't
work up the gumption to go.

LWFD
Singles * 6
Doubles * 12

Another session where the tape trys to beat into my thick
skull the notion that right now it's more important for
me to learn to hit the positions and throw than it is to
try and impress myself with the speed of the weight.   
One of these days I'll pay attention.

Hammer
Singles * 5
Doubles * 5
Triples * 5

Triple went furthest! Yay! Minor victory. Love it when
I accidentally make something significant happen. Gives
me hope. If I can ever figure out what it was I did.

Warmup
Roll

Incline
8 * 125
6 * 145
6 * 165
6 * 185
3 * 205

GPP circuit - 30" on, 30" off
One arm row
Other arm row
One arm press
Other arm press
2:00 rest
Repeat until pukey

Jumping lunges

Roll

Shoulder & scapulae rehab.

Shoulder holding together well.
Left knee wobbly as a goose in jumping lunges.

Throwing...

LWFD
10 singles. Avg ~41'. Peak: 42.5'
10 doubles. Avg ~42'. Peak: 45'

"Low" seems to be the key concept for me right now.
Speed just causes trouble. The farthest throws have a
'slow motion' aspect to them.

Heavy Hammer
2 single winds. Avg 54'. Peak 55'.
2 double winds. Avg 53'. Peak 54'.
5 triple winds. Avg 53'. Peak 57'.

Off balance. Off kilter. Wobbling all over. No magic
in tacky except I now have no concern about holding onto
the shaft. Probably ought to just wind the hammer during
the week.

Thanks.

Throwing day...
Warmup.
Line drills for WFD.

Open Stone
Standing * 5
Half stance * 5
Glide * 5
Rotational * 5
No shoulder pain!

WOB
5*2 using kettlebell.
No shoulder pain here either!

Evidence of shoulder recovery is the big win this
weekend.

Line drill question. I think I need to be rotated more
at the second landing. Right foot typically lands about
10:30.   Seems like I should be rotated further to at
least 9:00 on landing. Can't tell from videos (Vierra,
Stewart) how they land. Comments welcome here...

Re: Good numbers...
Thanks. LWFD is improving mostly because I like the feel
of the move, but, partly because it made such a fool of
me the first time I tried it. Nobody needs to break a
sweat, though. Hammer's got me stymied - got no clue
what makes that thing work. Stones aren't anything to
write home about. WOB is pitiful - ended up flat on my
ass in the sand yesterday because of that thing.   

Re: Advanced Age... Go slowish...
I hear ya.   I hate being milquetoast about stuff I used
to tear up, but, it's the way of things. I'm
acclimating. Not without protest and learning the hard
way (two or three times), but I'm acclimating.

Warmup
Incline Press
8*125
6*145
6*165
5*185
3*205

Right shoulder wobbles above 200. No pain, though.
Rehab, rehab, rehab.

Circuit * 3. :30 on, :30 rest.     
Alternate dumbbell bench press
Pullups
Overhead situp
Romanian deads

Plyos
Jumping lunges

Shoulder rehab
Rear delt, hitchers, and scapular pulls.

Few days off for biz in Atlanta.  Wasn't feeling so hot this AM, and 5.5 hour airplane rides tend to leave me creaky, but...

Greg, if you ever get out to N. Whidbey Island look me up. There's not too many on the island to throw with.

Bleh.  Overcooked it this weekend.  No gumption.

I want in on this old man wheeze party....

Regarding squats... I have some lower back issues, so I take it slow. Figure that you don't need to be pushing monstrous amounts of weight in your first winter off-season. If you work slow and consistently this winter, you WILL get stronger. Then, after a season of throwing 2x a week and lifting once, you will be surprised how strong you are. Then, when you get back in the weight room next winter, I bet you'll do what happened to me....BIG improvement.

I think it just takes time, once we hit the 50's, to improve. Young guys work hard for 6 weeks and BOOM. IT takes us longer. The advantage is that we're wiser and better looking than they are, and have the required patience.    Just keep at it...and don't get hurt!

Oh, and do hang cleans or high pulls. Get a little bit of coaching on these things. I swear, if I had to pick two weight room exercises that paid off the most, they would be squatting and hang cleans.

BTW, 46 LWFD in your first two months of practice???  That's HUGE.  Lots' and lots of guys take 2-3 years to get into the low 40's...Like ME, for example!

High 50's for 22 lb hammer. That's respectable, right there. You'll get into the low 60's  soon and that's high enough to "place" top 3  in the 50's in most Games.

If you don't wind up on your ass once in a while, you're not trying hard enough.