Furey Athletics

Season Summary: Assess the Past to Change the Future

It’s that time of year the year to ask yourself important questions.

• What were your technical flaws from last season?
• What were your key performance indicators, i.e. what was going well when it flew far?
• What are the key areas for you to focus on this year?
• How will you modify training to achieve your technical and physical goals?

We are all captain of our own ship and must take ownership of our destiny. 

If you are an athlete, you are lucky if you have an experienced coach that will provide a roadmap. But in the end, it is up to you to truly understand the intent of the training and the highest priority objectives. Without this understanding your limited energy will be spread too thin. 

If you are a coach, going though these questions with your athlete will help you both refine the path forward for the coming months. It will also ensure buy-in on both sides, something that will be immensely valuable when the novelty of fall training wears off and it is the athlete’s will to achieve success that keep progress going.

I wrote the below season summary below at the end of a long 2013 season. I was very excited about the coming year and truly believe that this post season assessment process helped me, with my coaches, craft the training plan that led to my lifetime best seasons and back to back USA National Championships in 2014/ 2015. Take a look, the notes may be hard to understand at some points, but maybe you will find something that resonates with you or your athletes technique!

Tune in next week where I will talk more about the strategic process I use to help athletes turn their dreams into reality. Spoiler alert…I borrowed from my engineering background to leverage the same process used to design multibillion dollar spaceships.

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Sean Furey 2013 Season Summary

(Written 9/29/2013 by Sean Furey)

Technical Flaws

• “Problem with my head” don’t throw far when you are not recklessly hitting positions, instead you are thinking about what is going to hurt ect. Bad habit of bailing out or starting the throw early before stretch reflex takes over and adds a huge bump.  This year74-75m with no stretch reflex and 77-80m when you kept your eyes and chest up and back THROUGH block
• Built up habit of being hesitant going into block instead of accelerating to the left and flowing through the throw. Need to get back to working penultimate very aggressively
• Too high on block. Need to consistently get length between right and left legs at block. In practice it is better but as I run faster it gets shorter. If I can get my body dropped in behind a low left that is 85+M! I am getting closer but it will take a lot of focus on being able to run fast and then drop fast into a very wide base and setup and deliver the javelin behind my cg

Key Performance Indicators (What was good when it flew far)

• Confidence in my stroke- not THINKING about what position will or will not hurt –shoulder health
• Great timing in practice. Felt the ability to have a fast final right to left and leave my torso relaxed and in position and just bounce it out there. Not “throwing” for distance. Bad throwing can be seen by bailing to left or opening during/before throw, not flowing into your block and loading up taking away valuable energy, having a low release that is in front of cg. Great timing can be seen by great flow into the block looks almost reckless, no hesitation, high release behind cg with pronation at end (all the energy is squirted up and out), closed with left shoulder at block and not falling to left, you stay back up and proud and let energy come up the chain you don’t fall left and slap it.
• Felt very light on my feet and running felt strong because training base was there. If I am not that far from solid running/bike/jogging/tennis training I feel lighter on my feet and more athletic.
• Chest feels strong, taught and flexible. This was attained this year by moderate dumbbell bench and incline, 3 work sets of 6 85 to 100 for incline and 90 to 105 for bench. Similar was done with standing behind the neck military and pull overs. Never too much and never too little. Just maintained tension. 
• Legs felt “hard” and reactive, felt like you could easily jump and react and you could squat because your torso and legs were very solid. Easiest way to measure this would be shot throw 4k oh fw and bw (over 21 and 23.5) jumps (triple bound over 9m 4step running 5 bound around 18m) and squats (54321 front squat 60-90-100-110-120 easily was best this year)
• Torso and t-spine feel very supple and powerful and I am able to relax and bend and bounce out . This can be seen by:
  • 4k oh throws of 16.50 easily
  • 2k 1arm throw36m+
  • 1.5k 5 step 48m+ easily
  • 2k 5 step oh 2 arm 27m+ easily
• Every 77-80m throw this year ( I had 10 of them) I kept my momentum flowing through the block but got “low” and powerful enough to work the block. They all felt easy like I line up positions. Peak for power was probably July 20^th.
• Summary of training numbers when at my best this year:
  • Throw 65-68m with 900g full approach
  • Throw 76-78m 800g full approach
  • Throw 79-82m 700g full approach
  • 1.5kg ball 5 step 47-49.5m
  • Effortlessly throw 70-72m 800g 
  • 5X60m strides feeling very light on feet and fast
  • 9+m triple bound
  • Running 10 bound feeling very reactive off ground
  • Easily handle 95 for 6 inc db and 100 for 6 flat db
  • Easily 60kg for 6 bn military
  • 5 reps 60kg pull over up tero
  • 54321 up to 120kg for FS
  • 54321 up to 130 for clean
  • 3 reps 110kg clean feeling very easy and explosive
  • 23.5m bw oh
  • 21.3 fw 4k

Areas to focus

• Extreme lean back for very low block
• Eyes locked at focal and keeping body behind javelin and finishing high behind cg (squirt up)”money stroke”
• Torso flexibility
• Specific power
  • Elastic reflex of chest torso
  • Leg power to get big long low penultimate hold positions and hold base

Training Ideas

• Focus on the things that make you throw far
• Focus on the things that keep you healthy and balanced
• 2 harder days lifting per week and 1 more bodybuilding day
• Throw farther earlier this year
• Build high volume of effortless 78m training throws that are from reactive bounce not arm slap 
• In 2013 I had 3-5 78m+ training throws and 8-10 76m+ training throws so maybe goal is to triple that 
• Throw in a meet every 2 weeks try to hit 15-20  meets in great shape! By staying healthy and strong all year
• Try to maintain fitness even better than 2013 by maintaining more volume of running. Maintained strength and power well but to have “light feet” you need to maintain a level of fitness by jogging and low level exercise like swimming tennis easier intervals
• Get to PR levels by middle of February then compete every 2 weeks basically with some closer and some 3 weeks apart to keep base. Maybe 2 meets in march 3 in April 4 in May 1 in June (3 week training before USA’s) 4 in July 5 in August
• What prevented me from throwing 85 meters at Claremont
  • Technical- number 1 reason is bad setup behind block too high, too bailing to left and not fast enough drop. Could have had a more powerful penultimate
  • Physical- I would say that I was 93% of my top shape that is 78.76*1.07= 84m right there!
  • Answer- you were not in top shape and your technique is the best it ever has been but not good enough. This means the only way to really get better is to fix your technique by hitting those positions. I think there is 5% technically in there and then you have infinite “physical” potential. 7% to get to my PRs and then maybe improve by 3-5% by 2016. Make 2014 a technical focus year. 
• Must also be safe and not hit positions you are not ready for.

Thank you for reading!