Well, it’s official…. I signed up with Ottawa Lions Club this week to be coached by Bill Heikkila. I had my first INDOOR training session on Tuesday night andt it was so interesting to be in that environment !!! It was great to see Dominique Biladeau again too. She is the 6 time National Women’s Champion and I think our personalities work well together. Thomas Scholossmacher, a grade 12 student was also there to train. He has a lot of experience and was good at showing me some new drills. It’s great to meet some really nice yet serious athletes who work hard on their skills. Since it’s an individual sport it’s so important that we are all self-disciplined to train and improve but it will be so much more fun when there are others doing the same thing. A lot of the drills work better when you have a partner. I think that circuit training is probably my favourite thing to do no matter what sport/drill I’m doing it for. Plus it’s just fun to motivate each other. It’s very similar to Taekwon-Do in that sense. You get out, when you put into it.
I had a chance to throw the javelin with Bill and if felt great! It’s nice that you don’t have to think about the weather or the wind when you throw indoors. The indoor javelins are really cool with a rubber tip at the end so it doesn’t jab into the turf. There is also the running strip and a huge net that you can throw the javelin into so you can keep your form even in the winter months.
The three of us did a lot of work using weights, disks and medicine balls for core strengthening. They also have stationary bikes and different apparatuses for training. All this strength training is only going to help with all my other sports as well. I love cross training and I truly believe that is what helps keep you injury free!!!!
At the end of the session Bill made me do a standing long jump test. Apparently according to all the research done in Finland there is a direct correlation between how far you can jump and how far you can throw. He will be helping me improve on my jumping to improve my throwing. Bill keeps the most detailed records of everything. He can remember facts and dates like no one else I’ve ever met. He is so passionate about Javelin.
As I looked around the dome I got so excited seeing all the different athletes and what they were doing. Everyone was working so hard and doing really cool stuff. I just wanted to try everything 🙂
I went directly to taekwon-do afterwards since it’s right up the street and its a good thing I did! My body needed to do the activities that it was used to again and to also have a really good stretch. We used so many different muscles in the javelin training and I didn’t want to be too sore the next day.
I also did a lot of yoga when I got home at 11:00 pm to help stretch everything out and slow me down so I could sleep.