Today’s episode features javelin coach and athlete Kevin Foster. Kevin is a former Division I javelin thrower for the University of Connecticut. He is currently training to compete post-collegiately as an athlete for the 2020 Olympic Trials in the javelin event. Kevin works as a private trainer and consultant, specializing in javelin.
A young coaching prodigy, Kevin is one of the brightest and holistic young minds in the field. He has been a prolific writer for Just Fly Sports in the last couple of years, and owns the popular Instagram page @javelin.anatomy. Kevin is integrating ideas from many great minds in training, such as former podcast guests such as David Weck, Ben Patrick and Adarian Barr. He is also familiar with ideas from DNS (Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization) and Ido Portal, alongside many others.
This episode is all about getting to the core of what it means to be athletic. Kevin clearly asks the question of what are we missing out on by just thinking about force from a quantitative perspective, and ignoring the total design and abilities of the body in respect to movement. The more we know and understand about what makes the best athletes in the world the best, the more we can infuse this into our own coaching process.
On today’s show, Kevin talks about some technical aspects of the javelin throw and throwing in general from a perspective of the feet, elbows and hands. He gets deep into the elastic potential of the body from a perspective of waveforms and body segments, essentially, things that make an elite athlete able to transfer energy properly. Of a particular focus on this show is Kevin’s take on the feet, hips and spine in making the ultimate elastic athlete. If you don’t care about javelin throw, or throwing concepts skills in general for that matter, you may want to skip to around 20-25 minutes into the talk.
Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, supplier of high-end athletic development tools, such as the Freelap timing system, kBox, Sprint 1080, and more.
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View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage.Key Points
- How coiling the body shows up in Kevin’s training for javelin
- How “pistol finger” works to lock the front big toe in throwing
- How the tongue works to direction tension to different parts of the body in athletics
- Examples of how Kevin trains throws from the perspective of the feet
- The importance of spinal segmentation in athletic performance and practical training
- What inspired Kevin to consider training on the level of energy and waveforms
- How to unlock the bodies elastic potential and why it is important to do so before optimizing other forms of training
Kevin Foster Quotes
“How you conceptualize the throw matters, if you just view the throw as a series of body parts moving you are going to set yourself up for very thinking brain, very rigid movement”
“With the opposite hand when you are throwing, you need to be thinking about pronation in the hand of the reaching arm”
“The tongue can direct tension to different parts of the body, so if you look at pictures of Jan Zelezny on his javelin release, you’ll see his tongue pushing into different parts of his mouth”
“Movement is more than muscle… focusing on (squat routines and VBT) is focusing on the 1% compared to the 99%”
“The feet and the hips and the spine are all connected in a much bigger way than we normally give credit for, so getting strong arches and capsular hip internal rotation, those are two ways to take slack out of system, so that’s how become fascially dominant as an athlete, to get that slack out of the system, it’s that neurofascial remodeling that takes place”
“You need spinal segmentation, you need to be able to move every vertebrae to transfer energy optimally”
“In order to unlock fascia driven movement, you need to strengthen the arches, you need to develop the ability to internally rotate your hips, and you need the ability to segment your spine”
“First we’re humans, second we’re movers, third we’re specialists (Ido Portal quote). Humans first is the idea that we all have feet, knee, hips, spine, shoulders whatever. Optimize that movement ability before anything else, because if you can’t segment your spine anymore, it’s not a spine, it’s a tree trunk. If you can’t internally rotate your hips, they aren’t hips anymore, they are an elbow”
“A lot of people don’t have the ability to control their head behind them, and that’s the anterior core’s job to control that. You need it all the way up to optimize energy transfer”
Show Notes
It’s tough to really see the greatest javelin thrower of all time, Jan Zelezny’s tongue moving inside his cheek (a distinguishing feature of his throwing ability), but you can if you look closely, as well as how his head steers movement in the frontal plane.
About Kevin Foster
Kevin is a former Division I javelin thrower for the University of Connecticut. He is currently training to compete post-collegiately for the 2020 Olympic trials while working as a private trainer and consultant.
He runs the Javelin Anatomy Instagram page whose mission is to break down and simplify the anatomy and physics that go into the javelin throw in a logical, critical, and holistic manner. Follow the page @javelin.anatomy to learn more about the science of javelin throwing and training. For any questions or feedback, email javelin.anatomy@gmail.com.
Want to apply for Javelin training with Kevin? This option is now in our store: Online Javelin Training. So apply today for this tremendous opportunity.
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