Hammer Throw: Yearly Design and Application

As a coach the athlete will ask many questions. They never seem to be the ones that you can answer, but none theless when you cannot answer the question quickly and precisely the athlete will start to lose faith in your abilities to coach them. My personal favorite is; “How many throws today?” This seemingly easy question is not verbatim. The following article can be adapted to encourage the coach-athlete relationship. This article will provide a systematic approach to periodization for the hammer throw. 

When setting the yearly design the training year must be determined. The best way to obtain this is to workbackwards from the U.S.A.T.F National Championship, it is usually the third or fourth week in June. 

The first week of outdoor competition can vary upon location and availability. I am using the first week in April asthe start of the competition season. The competition season is designated as a training macro-cycle where the sole goal is to improve performance of one specific training parameter and in the case of the hammer throw it is the 16 pound hammer.  Prospective improvements in distance from the end of the Hypertrophy macro-cycle could be as much as +7%. 

Four weeks before the competitive season the will be a macro-cycle emphasizing power. This will be called thepower macro-cycle. In this macro-cycle volume will be lowered and near maximum weights will be used to increase in the rate of force development(388). Tonnage will drop severely, but there will be personal records with light balls. 

The maximum strength macro-cycle will start 12 weeks before the power macro-cycle. Tonnage should be thesame here as the preceding macro-cycle, but volume is slightly less and intensity is greater. The goal is the recruitment of high threshold motor units not previously recruitable(252).There are 3 micro-cycles, each 4 weeks in length, with the 2^nd micro-cycle being the most demanding. 

It is clearly stated to optimize phosphagen levels at rest in the muscle there must be 180-200 days of specifictraining(245). This would put our start date back to the second week in October. This is the foundation of the training year where every major physical adaptation and technical mastery is attained. This is the hypertrophy macro-cycle. The 2nd of 3 micro-cycles is the most demanding micro-cycle with the highest volume of the year. The objective is to handle as much volume (tonnage) as possible while still improving or maintaining training distance. Do not overtrain to handle too great of volume (tonnage) and destroy motor learning patterns! 

Before any high volume training is done there must be a preparation macro-cycle to enable the body to prepare forsuch future demands, this is the preparation macro-cycle and can vary in length (4-8 weeks) depending on training age. The younger the athlete the longer the preparatory cycle. In this case I picked 6 weeks, the start of September due its availability and mental presence as the start of a new month along with the start of a new training year. The intent is to push the lactate threshold (for future recovery), increase flexibility, and prepare the joint stability of the body for the upcoming volume. 

The next determination is the amount of work and time dedicated towards training parameters. I divided the sport into two distinct areas. The first is “skill” where time and effort is dedicated towards the technique mastery of the hammer throw, the best determinate of technique improvement can be distance. The second is “athletic” where time and effort is dedicated towards the improvement of the athletes attributes needed to perform well in the sport. In the case of the hammer throw the goal is increased power output through resistance and assistance exercises. Through each macro-cycle I altered the focus of these two parameters. Ideally the percentages of concentration should be even throughout the year based on athletic abilities and technical mastery. Realistically changing climate and physical well-being are additional parameters in the equation and training focus can be altered to best suit optimum performance. There is a decrease in skill training, macrocycles II and III, associated with an increase in athletic improvement. I believe skill mastery of the hammer throw in a cold climate is more difficult to achieve and the athlete may have greater competitive results with that time placed into athletic improvement. The result from this is fewer training throws consequently an increase in skill work will need to be applied to macro-cycles I, IV, and V.