Going the Distance 26th May 2014

Session 9

Andrew Luck, A 70 yard throw 

Arm strength is a key component of a succesful QB, especially if the coach wants to run a hail mary play. A hail mary is a forward pass,  typicaly thrown out of desperation or if the team is trailing in the final moments of a game. A hail mary travels a long distance from the line of scrimmage and is typically a low percentage play, the QB needs to have a strong arm to make sure they can throw the distance (Sporting Charts, 2014).

Because of my training I currently already do for my own sport I already do 3x weight sessions a week and two of them already involve using my shoulders, chest and back and more importantly my rotator cuff muscles (Smart Football, 2011) . 

The muscles involved in the acceleration phase of the throw and pivotal for generating force for a long throw

After doing some research I found some key exercises that are known for improving a QB throwing strength

1. Internal rotation
2. External rotation
3. The Follow through

 These exercises all help generate force and help improve shoulder rotation during the acceleration phase. In doing so will improve distance of my throws (Fischer, 2013)

1. Internal rotation

 2.External rotation

3. The Follow through

Session

This session involved long distance throwing to see how many times I could hit a target at a far distance both stationary and moving, the pass had to be at least over 20 meters

10 warm up throws from knees to partner
15 throws to stationary person
15 throws to moving person running a post pattern

This session was a new challenge as in my previous sessions I had not been throwing as deep as in this session. I found that my warm up was not sufficient enough to go straight into long passing, as you have to throw hard to try and hit the target. This meant that I tweaked my shoulder in one of my early throws but this did not become to much of an issue until the following morning. The targets were hard to hit, I found that the more tired my arm became the more effort I had to but into my throws. This turned into an intensity/quality trade off, the harder I tried to throw, the worse quality of my throws became.

References

Sporting Charts (2014). What is Hail Mary (pass)? Definition from SportingCharts.com. Retrieved from http://www.sportingcharts.com/dictionary/nfl/hail-mary-(pass).aspx

Smart Football (2011). Can a quarterback’s throwing motion be improved? | Smart Football. Retrieved from http://smartfootball.com/quarterbacking/can-a-quarterbacks-throwing-motion-be-improved#sthash.TyHPJQEO.dpbs

Fischer, B. (2013, December 6). Three exercises to strengthen your throwing shoulder - NFL.com. Retrieved from http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000292312/article/three-exercises-to-strengthen-your-throwing-shoulder