Don't Let Your Head Get in Your Way

One concept that I've struggled with for a long time now, is that you don't need to PR every week. Some times it's better that you're being consistent. This is something that I've had a hard time ingraining in myself. I'll get really frustrated with myself, and throw off my enter practice or meet. I can get way too into my head at times and be really hard on myself.

I'm finally starting to realize that, no matter what happens, I give it my all. There is no reason to be so hard on myself. I've been putting in the work, but some times there are just off days.

This last Saturday was a partially off day for me. North Central competed at the Olivet Nazarene University(ONU) Invitational. Weight throw was first up. My warm ups were looking decent, solid 15s consistently. When it came to the actual throws, I couldn't get out of my head; I was stuck in a funk.

 Prelims

 

Finals

It wasn't even that I was throwing very poorly, I was just not being patient. I tend to move too early in the beginning of the throw, and this causes me to be too far ahead of the ball.

As you can see above, because I started early, I have to pull the crap out of the weight to get it around me to finish my throw. I've been working at this little(aka huge) problem for a while now. After I had changed my start, I had seen some improvement, but all the things I had changed went right out the window on Saturday. At least for the most part, anyway.

I got 5th place out of 31 throwers, finishing at the same seed I came in as. So, technically, it wasn't too bad of a weight day. It just wasn't what I wanted to happen.

Shot put on the other hand went better than it has in a while. One of my teammates gave me a tip to stay closed, and it really helped. He told me to over-rotate my upper half so that I was overly closed, and that the overcompensation would even out when I finished.

By following his advice, I was able to stay closed more and tuck my feet under me for some more powerful throws.

1st Flight Prelims

 

Overall

I may not be exactly where I want to be, but I'm definitely headed in the right direction.

 "A little progress everyday adds up to BIG results."

- Satya Nani