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Dane's Thoughts: Leadership in a Business
by Dane Miller
I am a fairly competitive individual with various interests. My interests range from crazy underground music to sustainable farming to sports performance and even religious studies (my collegiate degree). My thoughts throughout the day meaner in and around all of these fields of study. From a young age, it was instilled in me to think for myself, question authority and to put forth as much effort into every aspect of life as possible. Ultimately, some of these interests lead to a lack of leadership on my part within my business.
- Community
- Ghostface
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The Forgotten Snatch Variation
by Dane Miller
Often times weightlifting coaches and throws coaches alike have asked why I use close grip snatch as a variation. They want to know where the transfer can be found from the strength side and if there is even a transfer from the technical side of the movement. Then the never ending question arises….who did I learn the movement from?
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Nutrition While Traveling for Competition
by Dane Miller
Traveling for competition can present a whole host of problems. One of the largest ones is how to maintain the nutritional balance that has been struck during training while on the road.
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Not Feeling Great in Your Peak?
by Dane Miller
I think almost every athlete has been in this situation before: creeping closer to a major competition, beginning your peak, and yet things just feel slightly off. Your legs aren’t moving as fast as you thought they would, and you aren’t throwing as far or lifting as much as you thought you would. Here, I’m going to explain why this is perfectly fine--and even expected.
- discus
- peaking
- programming
- shotput
- training
- usaw
- weightlifting
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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
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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?
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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