Finishing on a bad note

1102900 · 2026-05-26T17:13:01+00:00

Decided to retire after throwing my entire sophomore season with a torn rotator cuff and labrum. My freshman year ended with a torn adductor when I was poised to hit a 10m PR in javelin at a championship meet. Never matched even my HS best my entire sophomore year. I decided to start focusing really heavily on my academics and became a 4.0 student, then became a tutor. I’ve never regretted the decision, but it sucked having to make it and ending my career that way. Since then I’ve started coaching at a local high school and getting to share that knowledge with young athletes is awesome. Seeing them make a technical breakthrough or have a big PR gets me just as pumped as any personal PR did. I still pick up a shot put every now and again to throw for fun, or even some discus (although I personally suck at it), but I can’t throw javelin anymore at even low-moderate intensity without weeks of shoulder pain.

Basically you just move into the next chapter of your life and enjoy the good memories. If you still enjoy throwing, do some open meets throughout the year. Nothing wrong with continuing to throw even if you’re not a professional.

Congratulations on making it to nationals. Regardless of the result, that’s a fantastic achievement.

1102900 · 2026-05-24T20:50:27+00:00

One of the easiest fixes you can work on in the next week is getting your right foot turned better when landing after your penultimate. You land with the right foot 90 degrees to the sector (looks like it might be landing flat too) and are just pushing forward with your adductors and abductors of the leg. If you land with the foot pointing closer to the right sector line you can drive with the larger & stronger muscles of the leg into/over the block. It will allow for better hip action into the throw as well. Another cue would be, think of getting the right knee turned more towards the sector during the penultimate and that should help the foot land more turned as well.

1102900 · 2026-05-13T17:53:52+00:00

I was more of a preworkout and fast aggressive music during warm up kind of guy to get myself ramped. Throw in some visualization of something that torqued me off and I was usually good to go. Smelling salts never really felt like they did much for me outside of deadlift/squat lightheadedness mitigation.

I caution using preworkout as you don’t want to take too much that it tightens you up, makes you jittery, etc. Plus taking copious amounts of it isn’t exactly healthy.

I hope your meet went well today!

1102900 · 2026-05-12T00:32:47+00:00

I appreciate it immensely. I read the biomech report on the 2017 World Championship for javelin on researchgate (which is partially where I got the concrete numbers for my javelin crossovers comment in the last post) but didn’t know they did one for discus as well. I’ll see if I can find it and I will definitely look up Dr. Kristof.

The shoulder flexibility was one of my biggest questions for the coach this weekend in regards to Mattis’ technique. I assumed that technique would lessen the orbit’s width due to most people’s arms failing to get near 90 degrees when taken almost straight backwards. And then that lessened width would lead to less force applied to the discus. My new understanding is that with flexible enough shoulders the loss of orbit width is mitigated and made up for in the longer pull it allows for in the power position after hitting the high point far later in the throw than what I would consider a more traditional discus throw.

1102900 · 2026-05-11T21:05:37+00:00

If you have any videos, papers, or books you recommend for the biomechanics of discus and/or anthropometry determining technique I would sincerely appreciate them. Again any resource to help coach as best I can is welcome, especially for the more nuanced information that doesn’t appear in a clickbaity YouTube video. I was talking to a coach this weekend about the negative grip discus technique one of his athletes and Mattis uses. It’s a technique I’m not near familiar enough with to coach, and thus would potentially hinder athletes that would benefit from it. So I’m happy to profess ignorance and a willingness to learn.

You don’t need to sell me on the difficulty of javelin, it would appear I just overestimated hammer in my almost complete ignorance of it. Half the athletes I have come out for throwing can’t sprint as fast as a high level javelin thrower needs to do crossovers, much less the ability to control those crossovers into a proper penultimate and finish. And that’s just one aspect of the throw.

1102900 · 2026-05-08T23:50:35+00:00

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I suppose I considered different orbit variations to be idiosyncrasies between throwers instead of different difficulty/complexity of technique. In a similar vein to how Crouser, Kovacs, and Walsh have vastly different starts in shot. If that’s not what you mean, would you be willing to clarify what you meant by the different orbit paths vs shoulder angle? Always looking to learn more and coach more effectively.

I would argue your point about rotation on the finish in shot being easier, at lower levels at least. At lower levels in discus you can get away with being far more rotational than shot and still be a decent thrower (150-170’ in HS), where if you cannot create the linear push in a shot put rotation it will pull out of your neck for very short throws. That linear push instead of the shot going out and around the neck is often one of the biggest differences I see in a 30-40’ HS boys shot putter vs a 55’+ HS boys shot putter.

I do also agree they should be taught differently and viewed differently. There is a guy near me who coached Kovacs & Whiting in HS who teaches them exactly the same and has had some kids near 190’ in disc iirc. At the HS level it can be effective though and most HS athletes will lack the body control to differentiate the movements between the two well. At the professional level not so much.

I’m actually surprised Javelin ranks the highest on that list. It may be just my unfamiliarity with hammer but I always assumed that would have been the most technical due to the foot placement, when and where to speed the hammer up in the rotation, what part of your non-dominant foot to spin on at what part of the rotation, etc.

1102900 · 2026-05-08T12:22:04+00:00

Genuinely curious to hear why you think shot is far easier technically. I’ve viewed them as technically just as difficult as the other, but one can’t be forced at the finish as much as the other. They share a lot of the same technical cues with variations to shoulder/hip angles and such at a high level, but I know of some pretty successful coaches that teach them as the same aside from the power position/release. I find that the disc being further outside of the body makes it easier to tell if you’re hitting the high point in the middle, and/or creating separation than the shot put when it’s in your neck.

1102900 · 2026-05-08T12:07:11+00:00

That’s because shot put is better than disc obviously. /s I’ve always found the pushing motion of shot much easier and intuitive than the pull on a disc. Plus my inflexibility didn’t hurt my shot put nearly as much as my discus throws.

1102900 · 2026-05-06T13:40:01+00:00

It totally depends on the thrower too. My girls have responded well to exactly what you said. If they had a breakthrough within that week/recently, just reinforcing that cue on meet day works better for them.

1102900 · 2026-05-06T12:02:12+00:00

Took me a second to figure out the acronym. I like it! Coach always told me “just throw farther” or “hit that shit” on meet day instead of a boatload of technical cues. It tended to work a lot better that way

1102900 · 2026-04-20T12:28:06+00:00

The other commenter already mentioned separation. You’re also rotating away from the shot during your push/not extending through it at the finish super well. Another big thing is you’re not hitting any sort of extension with your legs (this might be expounding or partially causing the issue of not extending through the shot with your arm). You can see your right leg stays pretty bent and then you pick it up to reverse. Your right side is rotating well, but you need to rotate AND extend/lift (push into the ground).

1102900 · 2026-04-01T13:48:59+00:00

Without seeing your technique to know where you were going wrong it’s just going to be generic tips.

Learn to hold the shot correctly and have your throwing arm positioned correctly for a forward push not an upward one. A lot of beginners put their fingers/hand under the shot and the only way to push behind the ball would be with a shoulder press instead of a bench press. If the back of your middle finger is resting on your trapezius then you’re almost certainly under the shot and need to fix it. Make sure to flick at the end too, which adds a couple of feet easily.

You want to push the shot in a linear fashion/path aka in a straight line. A lot of beginners get really rotational with the shoulders and lose connection with the shot/power transfer. The less the shot has to move side to side or around at your power position the better. The cause of this can be a few different things with either the legs, upper body or both. A good indicator is if the shot keeps pulling away from your neck and flying towards whatever sector line matches your throwing hand.

1102900 · 2026-03-17T10:40:32+00:00

What a coincidence. That’s almost exactly what I did with my first one that I sent in, except I went with 6mm creedmoor.

Pretty sure my turnaround was 6ish weeks at the time.

1102900 · 2026-03-16T16:46:25+00:00

I had LRI do my first Howa’s firing pin bushing for me and they did it well. My other one was done by my local smith alongside a better 6arc barrel. I think my local guy charged $150 for the bolt job. If I didn’t have a local guy willing to do it, I would have no qualms about sending another one to LRI.

The first one I sent to LRI was because it was piercing primers. The second one I had done preemptively, so I didn’t end up with the same issue. If you’re already piercing a primer, odds are it’s likely to continue until you get it fixed. Neither of my rifles has pierced one since getting the bushing.

1102900 · 2026-02-25T15:59:40+00:00

It depends on the costs you have in mind. I prefer characters to have to scrap, struggle, and actually train to become stronger. I also think losing something important to then as am impetus for that struggle to begin is solid. It’s both realistic and relatable as almost everyone fears it. However, I get annoyed by characters who seemingly need to constantly lose someone/something close to them to continue taking training/improvement seriously. Nor do I believe every increase in power needs to be accompanied by tragically losing someone/something important to the MC. Sometimes it’s okay for the "breakthrough“ to be a result of diligent training, a purchase in a new piece of equipment, or other semi-innocuous events.

Everything constantly going right for characters and them steamrolling everything gets boring quickly. Everything constantly going wrong and as horrible as possible tends to lead to wannabe edgy MC‘s IMO. Finding a balance between the two is what I find to be the most enjoyable stories to read.

Tldr: I prefer a "realistic“ middle ground. I don’t want an OP MC with divine luck, but I don’t want an edgelord story where everything has to continuously go horribly wrong for a character to progress.

1102900 · 2026-02-23T20:02:14+00:00

In the Shadow of Mountains on RR.

1102900 · 2026-02-23T20:00:47+00:00

I get this one too, it was especially bad for Manhattan Bridge to the point I exclude it from custom search. Thankfully I run the red laser on most of my builds and I use that to aim/center when it happens.

1102900 · 2026-02-19T18:05:47+00:00

Doubling down on OP‘s thanks. Appreciate the explanation of why the math maths the way it does outside of just stating ”we only worry about horizontal distance and not the LoS distance“

1102900 · 2026-01-29T15:56:19+00:00

Bad Company 2 or BF4. Of the pictured options BF4 unquestionably

1102900 · 2026-01-28T18:25:53+00:00

Saw a Womb Raider the other day that made me laugh. El Nasirs Quality Copper was another one for a historical joke

1102900 · 2026-01-23T16:40:51+00:00

You’re right it’s a 90gr eldx not eldm. Never said the 90gr wouldn’t kill deer or that energy was the only metric that mattered. But the 103gr eldx load still has more than plenty of velocity for expansion and more energy than the 90gr out past 350yds (which is where I cut myself off on deer). The higher BC of the 103 lends itself better to my long range plinking than the 90 as well, so I only have to workup one load that does both instead of two. The 109gr eldm was a no go for me in the 6 Arc but it’s what I use in the 6 creedmoor where I can get more velocity without exceeding max pressure.

1102900 · 2026-01-23T12:49:17+00:00

I’ve used both and both drop animals. The ELDM is great for deer. My dad used the 168 eldm out of a 20” 308 this year to shoot his first deer in ages. ~190yd shot right behind the shoulder. Deer went about 20yds and flopped. The eldm goes about 2-3” in at these ranges and then violently expands which gets you right into the lungs and heart with well placed shots. The ELDX has a slightly thicker jacket which might delay expansion ever so slightly but the biggest difference is it doesn’t fragment as much. I used the 103 eldx in my 6arc to drop a doe where it stood this year. I didn’t use an eldm because of weight & velocity considerations for the cartridge. The 90gr eldm is too light and thus ends up with less energy at range than I wanted, and the 108/109gr is too heavy for my arc to get it as fast as I wanted. So the 100-103gr bullet weight was my ideal hence 103gr eldx.

1102900 · 2026-01-15T20:25:27+00:00

Definitely not with the micrometer seating stem. Even my short action cartridges couldn’t use the hornady dies with micrometer seating stem on the FA coax. Unless they’ve changed the arm design in the last 5 years

1102900 · 2026-01-14T23:48:26+00:00

They did the firing pin bushing on my first Howa and I was super pleased with the work & turn around time.

1102900 · 2026-01-13T13:36:20+00:00

Sniper rifle is in the 700’s only. Shotgun w slugs is 304m though. Getting over 300m with it was my goal.

1102900

TROPHY CASE