Welcome to
A Week With... a season-long project that will give readers and followers an in-depth look into a week of training with a new event group on The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) track & field team each week. Follow along on GoUTRGV.com and on social media!
A Week With UTRGV's Throwers: April 29 through May 3
Friday, May 3: Wrapping Up The Week
Check out the Friday Feature on sophomore Hannah Hilding! Read it here.
Friday was a quick one for the throwers, both in the ring or on the runway and in the weight room. It was a low volume, super high intensity day to wrap up a week filled with heavy lifting and hard practices.
Hannah Hilding went back to discus training with
Adelaide Fleischmann and
Julian Trevino did another day of javelin drills, working on the runway with short approach work and full approach run-throughs. Shot putters
Omolola Kuponiyi and
Antoine Walker continued their work in the ring.
The Vaqueros capped Friday with a heavy lifting session that saw them doing power cleans, front and back squats, bench press and pull-ups.
"We're on that speed and power theme with our training, moving heavy weight fast so they feel explosive, fast and powerful," assistant throws coach
Jakob Degenshein said. "This week has definitely been higher intensity, but I like that because we have the whole weekend to recover. They're definitely feeling it from this week. They're feeling fast, strong, a little tired because it was a tough week, but they're feeling good."
Throughout the week the throwers pushed each other and motivated each other with thoughtful feedback and energetic cheers. They've expressed confidence during the final full week of practice before the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Outdoor Championships and put in the work to have a big meet Thursday through Saturday in Utah.
"Everyone is ready. They're very, very excited, which is always good to hear that they have that positive mindset," Degenshein said. "The environment they've been training in, especially in these last couple of weeks, has been fantastic. It's fostering that feeling of, we're ready to go for conference, but we're treating it like any other meet. We're going to show up, do what got us here, handle our business and we're going to be fine."
Thursday, May 2: What Did You Feel There?
As the Vaqueros throwers go about their training sessions, there's one question assistant throws coach
Jakob Degenshein asks consistently: What did you feel there?
Whether they're going through drills or executing full throws, the student-athletes are tuned in to their bodies and their routines and communicate honestly with their coach. Sometimes they like what they did, other times they don't. But every time Degenshein asks what they felt, the Vaqueros have some kind of answer that sparks a constructive conversation.
"There are a couple of reasons I ask that question. The biggest reason is because I want them to become a good student of the sport. I want them to feel everything that they're doing in the circle or on the runway so they know the cue that I'm going to give them before I even give it to them," Degenshein explained. "But also, I want to get their opinions on things. That's my way of checking in on them physically and mentally."
Open communication and positive reinforcement have turned the throws area into a great environment to grow for the young group. Of the five throwers heading to the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Outdoor Championships next week, three are freshmen, one is a sophomore, and one is a graduate student. Degenshein, too, is a relative youngster, just three years removed from his final collegiate season at the University of Lynchburg.
Because he so recently was going through the demands of being a student-athlete, Degenshein relates to his Vaqueros and understands the importance of mental health to a modern day competitor. It's why he asks the Vaqueros so often how they're feeling, what they're feeling, and never delivers a critique without also pointing out something good.
"Something I try to focus on a lot with them is mental health and the mental preparation to their competition because it's tough out there," Degenshein said. "When you're throwing around heavy weights it's really easy to have a bad throw and focus on the negatives. What I try to show them all the time is, yeah, we might have a bad throw, but we can find something good from it. I try to reinforce positivity in everything we're doing, like, 'Hey, this might not have been perfect, but at least we know what we can work on. We did this right.'"
The throwers have adapted quickly to the coaching style Degenshein brought when he joined the program in January. Take freshman McAllen High alum
Adelaide Fleischmann, for example. Early on, she might answer her coach's question with, 'I don't know what I'm feeling,' or take a guess with a questioning tone. But now, she knows when something falters in her footwork or her body angles aren't correct and can have a more helpful conversation with Degenshein to make corrections.
Thursday the throwers go through another day of drilling. They alternate between days in the "deep end of the pool," doing more complex workouts with full throws on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and days in the shallow end as they do fundamentals through drills on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There's a lot of back-and-forth as Degenshein goes from the ring, where Fleischmann works discus and sophomore
Hannah Hilding works hammer, to the shot put area with freshmen
Omolola Kuponiyi and
Antoine Walker. They talk through rotations, finishes, pushing speed and other cues.
"I love that they're understanding the sport and understanding their bodies better in that way," the coach praises.
As their feel improves, so do the marks, and as the student-athletes work on their craft they're not shy about sharing how confident they are heading to the conference meet. They've all hit personal bests recently and are becoming more consistent, hitting their strides at just the right time.
"I think that Rice meet was a great indicator that we're ready to peak at conference. That's what we've been training for all year. We really want to have a big outdoor meet," Degenshein said. "I'm telling them – and this is something head track & field/cross country coach
Shareese Hicks really hammers home, which I love – do what got you here. If we can be consistent in what we're doing and do what got us here we're going to be prepared and we're going to throw really well."
Wednesday, May 1: Strength and Commitment
It goes without saying that to be capable of launching heavy objects a long way, a thrower has to be strong.
At this time of the year, with the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Outdoor Championships one week away, the Vaqueros throwers are bringing their high-intensity approach to the weight room. The lift three times a week, executing detailed weight training programs designed by assistant coach
Jakob Degenshein with input from assistant strength & conditioning coach
Dan Park.
Wednesday's weight room session saw the Vaqueros do programs specific to their event styles. Everything focused on two main elements of a throw: speed and power.
"Summer through fall we're focused on more of what I consider to be general training, so helping them to become better overall athletes, working on higher volume, lower load, but really stressing the fundamentals," Degenshein said. "As we progress, we focus more on strength building, so the intensity and load of the weight goes up and the volume goes down. At this point of the year, in our competition training cycle, we're focused on really high intensity and lower volume. Anything they've built up throughout the year we're trying to maintain and continue to feel strong, explosive and move heavy weight pretty fast."
Wednesday saw the shot putters do heavy-loaded power cleans, or Olympic lifts, and dumbbell jumps along with isometric rack pulls. The discus and javelin throwers did French contrast training – they followed isometric rack pulls with a quick plyometric exercise consisting of hurdle hops into a box jump and a drop-step jump to work lower body, then hit another series starting with isometric bench press into medicine ball chest passes to work upper body.
The exercises are meant to trigger the neuromuscular system, getting the body used to the routine of a static start to explosive, dynamic movements and a reactionary release. The Vaqueros can take a lot of what they do in the weight room and apply it specifically to their events. UTRGV closes the hour with recovery exercises, doing a variety of stretches and low-impact work to cool down the body and help with mobility and tightness.
Degenshein praised the commitment he has seen from the throwers since his first day with the program. They've put in the work and have been reaping the rewards come meet day.
"The buy-in for the weight room has been there since the start, which is great," Degenshein said. "After about a four-week cycle, they were like, 'I'm feeling stronger.' We started to hear that a lot from a lot of different throwers. That means things are working for us and we're getting the adaptations that we're looking for. With a small group it's very intimate so I can give them more one-on-one attention, they can hype each other up a lot. I think we're seeing that translate to how they're throwing."
Tuesday, April 30: Drilling the Fundamentals
After Monday's high-intensity practice, the Vaqueros focused more on quality over quantity on Tuesday, doing event and athlete-specific drills as they worked their way to a few full throws.
Assistant throws coach
Jakob Degenshein rotated from the ring, where he talked through hammer practice with multi-thrower
Hannah Hilding and discus with
Adelaide Fleischmann, to the shot put circle to work with
Omolola Kuponiyi and
Antoine Walker, to the javelin runway to train
Julian Trevino. Again, the work was intentional and detailed. Degenshein and his student-athletes talked about body positioning, footwork, angles and more as they repeated drills designed to hone-in on different areas of each throw.
The Vaqueros start their drills with implement-replacements like medicine balls, small rubber balls of various weights, and even bowling pins. Even for the pair of shot putters in Kuponiyi and Walker, their sessions and those of their teammates are unique to each student-athlete. Kuponiyi is a glider whereas Walker is a rotational thrower, so they do specific drills with the medicine balls to build up to a full toss. Fleischmann drills by launching the bowling pin, away from the ring before settling in to focus on her discipline.
"We're taking a little of that pounding, a little of that stress off their bodies from the intensity and volume of yesterday," Degenshein said. "We're reinforcing the fundamentals of their throws, their basics, the technique. When you're doing drills with med balls or bowling pins, you can get more reps in because it's less on your body. We exaggerate a lot with the drills that we do so it helps them to feel out those little things."
Hilding worked on discus to start the week, but solely does hammer during Tuesday's session. Since last weekend was a restful one with no meet, the sophomore stuck to working with the competition weight to get back into the swing of things, literally and figuratively. In other parts of the season, her hammer sessions involve a variety of weighted implements – heavier equipment to slow her down for technical work and event strength, lighter equipment to build speed.
"Hannah started with overhead winds, worked on a couple of turns to work on feet positioning, and worked on the orbit of her throw as well," Degenshein explained. "She'll push over 20 full throws, which is a lot for most people, but Hannah is the type of athlete who can handle that kind of volume and intensity."
For Trevino, the javelin specialist, Monday and Wednesday are his heavy throwing days. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, he works on drills. This session was dedicated to approach drills, resistance training and overspeed training to prepare for the impact of competition without the wear-and-tear of the discipline.
Trevino trained the launch portion of his event by throwing various weighted balls into the net around the throwing ring, hitting his final position and getting his lines adjusted by Degenshein. He took that to the next level with help of a resistance band wrapped around his waist. Degenshein jumped into the final drill with Trevino, pulling against a resistance band as the graduate student did his approach down the runway.
The Vaqueros throwers will be back in action Wednesday with a tough session in the weight room scheduled to close the day.
Monday, April 29: Starting With Intensity
This is the final full week of home practices for The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley's (UTRGV) track & field program ahead of the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) Outdoor Championships, happening next week in Orem, Utah.
It's a week that will be full of intentional work and focused training for the Vaqueros, who are hopeful to have a strong outing at the conference meet. UTRGV's throwers wasted no time setting the tone for the week on Monday, getting things started with a high-intensity, high-volume practice session.
"Today's session is our technical session. They're getting more reps in and they get one-on-one attention," assistant throws coach
Jakob Degenshein said. "How many reps they get depends on what we're trying to work on, but today is our higher intensity day, so they'll get a little bit more volume in."
With conference coming up quick, the Vaqueros are dedicating their days to the throws they'll be competing in at the big show. Sophomore
Hannah Hilding and freshman McAllen High alum
Adelaide Fleischmann worked discus on Monday, while freshmen
Omolola Kuponiyi and
Antoine Walker dedicated their practice to shot put. Graduate student
Julian Trevino kept his attention on javelin.
The discus throwers and shot putters did progressions to hone-in on technique and work up to full throws. They started with a set of standing throws – in the discus ring, Hilding and Fleischmann did two throws each, then retrieved their discs, and came back to do it again; Kuponiyi and Walker did one launch each, talked through their rep, then repeated the actions. Next up came half throws, with one step added to each routine. Then they did "souths," short for South African drills, which has the throwers starting a little outside of the circle and going into the half throw and on, keeping a foot on the ground. Finally, the Vaqueros do a series of full throws.
As they make their way through the progressions, Degenshein offers advice and encouragement. There's constant communication between coach and student-athlete, and between the teammates as well as they constructively critique or motivate each other. Reminders about quick hips, footwork and body positions ring throughout the practice.
"Total throws, they'll probably get closer to 50 as they work through their stand throw, their half throw, their south. We're building into that full throw to force them to be as technical as possible, feel their positions," Degenshein said. "If we have any issues with our technique they can feel it out early on, so when we get to our full throws, they know the technical cues to focus on today and how to apply it to the full throw."
Though they don't measure the throws throughout Monday's session, the Vaqueros know when one was good or bad or just OK. In fact, they're so adept at feeling the routine, they'll often remark about a throw before the equipment has even left their hand, knowing immediately if they didn't have a good angle or made a mistake during buildup.
"We have a couple of markers out there, so we have a general idea of how far things are going. But I try not to have them get too bogged down with numbers, because when we start chasing numbers we forget about the technical side of things and just want to throw 60 meters or whatever it is instead of focusing on, like, getting our hips in the right spot, because if we get our hips in the right spot, then we can throw that distance with a little more ease," Degensheiin said.
As the Vaqueros make their way through their progressions, the energy starts to pick up. The session demonstrates the season as a whole, having the throwers focus on specifics and slowly build to putting everything together and seeing the rewards. The student-athletes tell each other and Coach Deg how close they feel to hitting that big mark, and they express their excitement at feeling like they're peeking at just the right time.
When you look at the WAC performance list, you can see why they're excited and why they work so hard in the full heat of the day, starting practice at 12:30 p.m.
The mighty women's trio of Hilding, Kuponiyi and Fleischmann are all ranked in scoring, and even medaling, position as of Monday. Hilding is third in the conference in discus and shot put with her career-best marks of 49.42 meters and 14.80 meters, respectively. She's also fourth in hammer throw with a mark of 57.55 meters, good for No. 9 in program history. Kuponiyi is ranked second with her shot put career-best mark of 15.25 meters, and Fleischmann sits at No. 4 in discus with a mark of 46.08 meters.
Walker is 14
th in men's shot put with a mark of 15.25 meters and 19
th in discus at 42.10 meters – both marks he hit recently at the Cactus Cup. Trevino tabbed a personal-best 57.73 meters in men's javelin at UTRGV's last non-conference meet, putting himself at 13
th in the WAC.
Not only are all the throwers confident they can produce and score for UTRGV at the conference meet, but they're looking beyond, too. Hilding's hammer mark and Kuponiyi's shot put mark have them ranked 48
thand 49
th, respectively, on the NCAA West Preliminary performance list, making them contenders for the postseason.
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