Hit the Hay

I hope you watch the Spartan Race series on TV.  Watch Steve Austin's Broken Skull Ranch Challenge too.  Watch all the videos about OCR that you can on YouTube.  Training videos are great for learning good technique as well as unlearning bad technique.  The worst failure I see in Spartan is the spear throw.  So I'd like to share with you a secret to successfully sticking the spear into the hay bale.  It is keyed to your recovery.

The proper grip for throwing the spear is the sword grip that we covered last time.  When you hold and release the spear, it should just roll off the middle three fingers.  The thumb and little finger do all the control.  It's kind of like throwing a football.  To get that perfect spiral, the ball has to roll off the fingers touching the laces.  You just can't throw a football or a spear if you hold it like you're crushing a grapefruit.

But that's not the secret.  I already told you about that.  The secret is in how you sleep at night.  As I mentioned before, a consistently good nights' sleep is key to recovery.  But how do you ensure that?  If you're like me, you get pretty hyped up the closer race day comes.  I get hyped up at night just thinking about the next day's training.  But all those thoughts get my adrenaline going and then I can't get to sleep.  Not good.

Usually I don't need to do the sword grip thing to get into the sleep zone.  There's another secret.  How can you tell that you are totally relaxed when you get into bed?  They key is in your tongue.  If you are relaxed, your tongue will sort of float freely in your mouth.  If you are hyped up, tense, nervous, angry, or whatever, your tongue will be pressed against the roof of your mouth.  You aren't even aware of it.  How about right now?  Check!

This takes practice.  Relax your whole body.  Relax your mind.  Use the tongue technique to ensure everything is ready to slip into la la land.

Now do the same thing on the course.  Are you too tensed up about throwing that frickin' spear again?  Relax your grip.  Now relax your entire body and do a double-check with the tongue.  Get in the zone.  Direct all the energy into that spear tip.  When you release, you'll know you have it right when you see the forefinger of your throwing hand pointing right where that spear will stick in just a moment..  You'll also be smiling, not gritting your teeth with your tongue pressed against the roof of your mouth.

Try it and let me know how it goes for you.  This takes practice.