Martin roy training log

[o1d_dude]

Finished off with cutting a caber - 16'8" eucalyptus, needs to dry out but it should be a good stick.

"You-keys" make the best ugly sticks.

Take a trip up into the hills and find yourself a doug fir about 8" in diameter with a nice straight taper. Cut it off about 2 feet above the ground to avoid "bent sprout" base. It's easier to de-bark it in the woods and you will be recycling the bark back to where it comes from. The resulting caber blank will be substantially less heavy without the bark but it will still be a challenging load. It may eventually lose 1/2 to 2/3 of its original wet weight so an 80 lb caber may weigh as much as 250 lbs when freshly cut and de-barked. Plan accordingly.

[Alan H]

"You-keys" make the best ugly sticks.

Take a trip up into the hills and find yourself a doug fir about 8" in diameter with a nice straight taper. Cut it off about 2 feet above the ground to avoid "bent sprout" base. It's easier to de-bark it in the woods and you will be recycling the bark back to where it comes from. The resulting caber blank will be substantially less heavy without the bark but it will still be a challenging load. It may eventually lose 1/2 to 2/3 of its original wet weight so an 80 lb caber may weigh as much as 250 lbs when freshly cut and de-barked. Plan accordingly.

We may acquire a couple or cedars and/or doug firs at Woodland. My friend Bob lives in Forestville, not far from Auburn and he's clearing a couple of trees off his land. Apparently a commercial service took them down, but he saved "the tops" for cabers. Also the commercial tree guy was apparently interested in helping us out. If there are 3-4, I think I'll schlepp one down to Shaffer Field.

The thing about Shaffer Field is that the hillsides around the property are chockablock with eucalyptus. That's bad, as they're non-natives, but good because they're an easy source of cabers. This one is pretty straight, really. It weighs a ton, now, but if it loses half it's weight it'll be something like 65-70 pounds when it's dry.

16' 8", 70 pounds and no taper at all when dry That will do just fine!

[RogerWS76]

Alan! Make sure to let me know when you go to Auburn!!! You'll have to stop by the Rattlesnake Glen too! It's VERY close!

[o1d_dude]

Alan! Make sure to let me know when you go to Auburn!!! You'll have to stop by the Rattlesnake Glen too! It's VERY close!

Probably less than a mile from I-80, less than a 10 minute drive, and only one turn to make.

[Martin Roy]

Woodland prep is done except for resting until Sunday. After that last big throw on Sunday I've done light work all week -stretching and dynamic recovery lifting to make sure everything is firing on full power when it counts. Also, I went out to Shaffer on Tuesday for footwork drills and stretching out hammer winds - not too much though because I was still feeling Sunday's work.

Thus, Garrett and I will be heading over this evening to stay at the Best Western in Dixon (if anyone's in the neighborhood) so that Gman will be ready to roll with the lightweights on Saturday morning. I'm looking forward to filming his events and checking out the pros. Originally, I had planned to drive over on Saturday morning, about a 2.5 hour drive, and stay over on Saturday, but when Gman realized that we weren't staying Friday night as well he very pointedly made the case that his performance would suck if he didn't get enough sleep; my wife agreed with him and my notion of saving some money evaporated. He is increasingly focused on improving and hitting bigger numbers after I told him about the invitational lightweight championship at Ventura in October. Dustin Scott got an invite last year and Gman now has that as a goal. Realistically, he's probably a year or two away because he needs about 20-30 more pounds to put his weight in the 175-185 range. But when he gets there, he should be competitive in that group.

[o1d_dude]

Motivation is a wonderful thing.

[Martin Roy]

I sucked across the board at Woodland. Worst. Game. Ever. 2-3ft down on both stones. 8-10ft down on both hammers. Both weights don't even ask. WOB ditto. Caber was okay.

After all the work I did on weights and the encouraging showing at Bakersfield, that event was the biggest disappointment. However, disappointment is a passive term and I'm feeling more pi$$ed-off than disappointed. I'm going back to work with a vengeance between now and Santa Cruz in mid-June.

Despite my performance woes, it was, as always, great to be out with the gang throwing again. And, by far, the highlight of the weekend was the Monster Day Garrett had on Saturday in the lightweights. He hit significant PR's in both hammers and hwfd. Got his second best throw ever in lwfd, and, after checking past numbers in the stones when we got home, he discovered that he'd gotten PR's in both stones. He was stoked to say the very least. It's a day he won't forget.

[Alan H]

You know, everybody was off.

Steve Elliott had a serious case of the ups and downs in WOB, and his LWFD throws were something like 36 feet. He almost always goes over 40. He didn't turn the Lion caber, either and he turns that stick pretty regularly.

Roger missed WOB at 15, and it's been a while since he did that. His weights for distance were dismal...well, heavy was OK, light was bad. Hammers weren't bad, but not what he wanted.

My stones were so-so..not bad, but nothing to write home about. Hammers turned out OK, but only because I pulled one good one out of three, the other two were meh. My weights were HORRIBLE, the final numbers of the best throws do not reflect the overall suckiness of my technique on Sunday. WOB, I got 13, but *barely* and this is after dropping the weight back down on the bar 2, 3x at heights where I should get it, easily..

Jim Walkers weights were WAY off his usual. Weights? We *all* sucked. I was talking to Kirk Taylor, he was seven+ feet off from his usual. So was Russ Smith. The only people to nail weights were Kel and Dennis, but then Dennis doesn't know how to throw weights. I think the heat messed with us all, as the day wore on.

Your hammers looked fine, completely fine, I honestly don't know why they didn't fly.

[o1d_dude]

I watched quite a few of the WFD throws of the the 55-59 group and noticed a lot of guys were releasing the weight while moving or falling backward away from the trig. This is caused by an early pull due to trying to "arm" the throw instead using the entire body to accelerate the weight. At normal throwing velocity the rotational "weight" of the implement goes from 42 lbs or 28 lbs to around 400-450 lbs. Ain't none of us strong enough to reach behind our back while spinning around and yank that. That's what causes the throw from the back foot.

"Wait on the weight" is a funny sounding mantra but it can help. You have to wait until the weight rotates far enough around where you are in a good solid double support position and can generate sufficient force to add a little more oomph to the implement with your hips. If you fall out of the trig to the right, you're still pulling a little bit early but even more importantly you're probably not driving your hips forward to accelerate the weight, i.e. still arming the weight.

Ah, the physics of the throws.

I don't want to think about how far Dennis would be throwing if he had any technique at all. Dude is freaky strong.

[Martin Roy]

Thanks for the comments, Kit. Surprisingly enough after reviewing the film of both wfd, I noticed the same thing. In a nutshell I was beginning my pull at about 7:30 on the clock which caused me to be too high as it came around and made it an arm throw over the top. Despite being upset about the distances, the film showed me the basic thing I need to focus on between now and Santa Cruz. My feet were okay for now, but my upper body was out of sync with my lower body, and both were out of sync with the orbit of the weight. The main reason for this was the high/low points were roughly 1:30/7:30. If I adjust the obit to 11:00/5:00 the rest of my body should line up better as well. That is the first thing I'll work on, then I'll focus on my legs.