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Hi, David Weck here. I'm coming S-10 Fitness in San Diego and today, I'm going to teach you a tip on how to improve your overhand throwing motion with both sides. The overhand throwing motion is a very athletic move that requires a complete tie-in from hands down to feet and if we learn to do it with both sides of the body, we can become far more athletic. It's just another fun way to exercise as well.
I'm using the RMT Club, which stands for Rotational Movement Training. I'm using the audible feedback and the tactile feedback of this to make the patterns powerful and precise.
To start it out, there are three basic positions: Position one is vertical and I let the weight shift into that position. Position two, I simply bring it behind the head, get it vertical and let the weight shift into that position. Now I rotate the club ninety degrees and I bring the club over. So I've got a simple 1-2-3.
I can start to pick up the pace on that and then I take it and make it centrifugal where I don't want to hear the club. I've patterned the move, so I've got those points that I want to hit and now I make it fluid and connected. Tie it to the core and drill it down through the feet. Okay, that's the dominant side, you can feel the joints nice and juiced up and I'm starting to lay down connection that's going to translate into a better, more powerful throw with clean interaction through the joints.
Now for some non-dominant side training. Paint by numbers, repeat the same 1-2-3 pattern as with the dominant side, only mirrored now on your non-dominant side. Take as many repetitions on the non-dominant side as necessary to make it come off. What I like to do, as well as what I like to do with clients is I'll say "Okay, you're done with the non-dominant side, go back to the dominant side" so you can really feel what it feels like/what you know how to do and then let's put it into that non-dominant side. I want you to have no bias as an athlete as to which side you're going to use.
So you've got that baseline, now speed it up. 1-2-3 and then again but take out all the sound and make it flow. Feel that strength and balance. You just go back and forth between the dominant side and non-dominant side. Paint by numbers and make it perfect, so it's the slow-is-smooth/smooth-is-fast approach.
Now there's obvious physical benefits to doing this and how I would do it with a client is that I'd let them do squats, lunges, etc, I'd come and I'd recover by doing this exercise because I'm not going to get them doing it fast at first.
There's also a mental benefit, because the left and right hands are controlled by opposite sides of the brain and when I start training this ambidextrous action where both sides are capable of flowing and moving with the same kind of balance and precision, I create a better resonance or harmony within the brain. It can actually lead to better thinking. Obviously, you want to do it for the athletic benefit, but it's a nice side benefit that your brain starts to think better too. As an athlete, it's the totality; every cell in your body contributing to your performance and that's your body, your brain and it's unification we want.
So that's the overhand throwing motion. We can modify it by choking up and moving our 1 and 3 points higher to just lay the patterns. Come to WeckMethod to find out more.
