Garage Blog

Filter by

Mobility Series Part I: Ankle
by Dane Miller
Stiff or immobile ankles can show up in a lot of ways, but are very easy to spot when an individual is performing a squatting movement. The type of posture required for Olympic-style squats demands good ankle mobility in order to keep the upper body as upright as possible. I can see that an athlete has bad ankles if they squat and their knees can’t push forward very far, and their chest is dumping forward to compensate. Athletes snatching with immobile ankles will often dump their chest forward and miss the bar behind them as a result.
- olympic weightlifting
- Sports Performance
- Read more
- 1 comment
Pan Ams Part II: Hayley's Meet, and Where to Go from Here?
by Dane Miller
As we saw with Hayley, nerves and the mental aspect were the weakest point of her competition in Santo Domingo. Even with this weakness, she was still able to post a fourth place finish in clean and jerk and an 8th place finish overall, contributing to the point system system for next year’s Pan Am Games. So...where can we go with her training?
- Read more
Pan Ams Part I: Pan Am Criticism
by Dane Miller
It is very difficult to approach this meet with high expectations and impressive results. Basically, every athlete involved with the competition should not be focused on this meet as their priority for the yearly block of training. Just about everyone should be focused long term preparation for Junior Worlds or Senior Worlds. On top of those factors, it is very well known that Pan Am competitions are poorly managed, hot, not the greatest living conditions, and generally a poorly executed competition which makes it very difficult to set up for a strong peak.
- clean and jerk
- Pan Ams
- snatch
- training
- usaw
- weightlifting
- Read more
Should High School Athletes Take Creatine?
by Dane Miller
This article will be a quick reaction to a question I get a lot, which is whether or not high school athletes should supplement with creatine. First off, for those who don’t know, creatine is just an amino acid that helps individual cells regenerate their supply of energy faster. This leads to improvements in force production, as well as lean muscle mass. Creatine is probably the most researched and safest supplement available on the market today.
- Read more
- 1 comment
Do Female Throwers Have to Be Big?
by Dane Miller
There are many successful women on the world stage who coaches look to for inspiration. I think many coaches lose sight of the fact that these athletes are throwing, at the heaviest, a 4 kilogram implement (in the case of shot and hammer). The women’s discus only weighs 2.2 pounds! Yet I hear high school coaches telling female athletes things like, “you gotta go to McDonald’s, you gotta put on weight.” This is exactly the wrong attitude to take. Women don’t NEED to be huge to throw far. You can take one of a number of examples of excellent female throwers who are muscular, but not terribly overweight: Maggie Ewen, Valarie Allman, Whitney Ashley, Sandra Perkovic, the list goes on. Perkovic is easily the most dominant female discus thrower alive right now. Ewen is the most well rounded thrower, female or male, on the planet.
- discus
- nutrition
- programming
- shotput
- throwing
- training
- weight gain
- Read more
Training Frequency Questions
by Dane Miller
Many people see elite athletes training with a lot of frequency. Nine, ten, eleven times per week sometimes. I want to address some of my thoughts on training frequency, and some of the important considerations when a coach or athlete is deciding how much frequency is enough.
- discus
- frequency
- progamming
- shotput
- throwing
- Training
- usaw
- weightlifting
- Read more
Start Benching With a Fat Bar
by Dane Miller
A lot of people point out that when you see my athletes benching on Youtube or Instagram, you primarily see them benching with a fat bar. I want to address some common questions I get about why my athletes use a fat bar to bench with, and why I see it as much more beneficial than benching with a standard 45lb bar. For the purposes of this article, we’ll assume a fat bar is any bar with a diameter larger than that of a standard bar. Although, ideally, I’d have athletes use a bar with a 2” diameter. So, let’s start.
- discus
- fat bar
- football
- programming
- shotput
- training
- Read more
Midseason Technical Slump
by Dane Miller
We’ve all been there before. The season is a few meets old, you feel like everything is moving pretty well, and then suddenly it feels like you have no idea what you’re doing in the circle. This sort of midseason technical slump can really impact an athlete’s season, so I wanted to address why it happens and what you can do to combat it.
- Read more
Getting Ready for Meet Day
by Dane Miller
A lot of people ask me for meet day tips, so I thought it would be helpful to write out a guide for meet day preparation. I’m going to cover quite a bit of ground, so I’ll organize this article into a couple of sections: Pre-meet (night before), day of the meet, and during the meet. Within those sections, I’ll also be covering tips for mental and physical prep, so read closely.
- Read more
Weightlifting is Unbeatable for Sports Performance
by Dane Miller
Those of you who are familiar with my coaching style know that I base almost all of my programming around the Olympic weightlifting movements--and not just for my weightlifters and throwers. The majority of the clients at my gym will learn to perform the snatch, clean, and jerk during their time here. I thought it might be helpful to outline some of the “why’s” behind using weightlifting as the basis for athletic development here at Garage Strength.
- olympic weightlifting
- Sports Performance
- Read more
Throwers and Deadlifts Part 2: When To Use Deadlifts
by Dane Miller
For those of you who haven’t read my article on why I tend not to program deadlifts for my throwers, check it out here. Since I try not to completely write-off any movement, I wanted to write a quick follow-up that would address a situation where I might program deadlifts for a thrower.
- deadlift
- discus
- programming
- shotput
- throwers
- training
- Read more
Why My Throwers Don't Deadlift
by Dane Miller
First, I just want to address what some people have probably already decided based on the title: no, I don’t hate deadlifts. Deadlifts can be an extremely effective tool for increasing strength. I really like deadlifts for a sport like wrestling, where more brute strength is required, and the sport itself is more of a grind. But for now, let’s dig deeper into why I don’t have my athletes deadlift in general.
- clean
- clean and jerk
- discus
- programming
- shotput
- snatch
- training
- Read more