How to make my throw stronger? by Mikko Laiho, DartsGym
Many darts players
suffer from a weak throw. Luckily there
are many ways to improve this area.
Weak throw is quite a common problem. Things you can do to strengthen your throw are for example:
Hand weights
Many top professional players were before their career as a pro IE carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plasterers and similar – so they have used their hands quite a lot. Even though this is a very personal matter, we would like to encourage you to do so as well.
No, we don’t mean body builders nor Gym bunnies, but something using your hands and getting them stronger.
The basic move you would like to get stronger would be the opposite move of your normal throw, which would be the biceps. You don’t need to build a beef cake style of a lump, but it’s always helpful if the opposing muscle group is strong.
So we recommend that you get couple of hand weights and do the series of biceps say 8 – 7 – 5 repeats (break of 30 seconds after each), thrice a week, without needing to grind like a mad, but still "feeling the force”. With someone this could mean 4-5 kilos weights, with somebody stronger 12 kilos or even more.
Six darts practice
We went through one game of six darts practice last week. If you did it, you’ll certainly know what I am talking about. It will make your hand a bit more powerful.
We recommend you to do this Mondays and Tuesdays just to get your throw back to normal before any important competitions, which are mainly held in weekends.
Rebooting throw
Whenever things get severely bad, you can always start playing around with your throw, if it’s damaged and gone totally unbalanced. Change the set for the heavier, for the lighter, just play around. This could be called "rebooting”. You can use anything up to 5-6 sets at a time and just start throwing with them almost aimlessly – for example aiming inside of the treble ring. Wear your arm totally off by tossing the darts as long as you can, say maximum 15-20 minutes.
Do this two days on the trot and then have at least 3 days off the board. Whenever you come back, you’re up for a surprise…
Stand back
This is one of the best ways to get rid of the most general weakness of the throw. Just stand back from the oche at least a metre (or yard) and try throwing as close of the bull or treble 20’s. The thing with this is that you need to give it some time. So don’t give up easily! The more you try the better is the all-round effect! Still don’t do this at a time more than half an hour.
Naturally you can combine these practices any way you wish.
Enjoy your practice!
Mikko Laiho, DartsGym
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Keep an eye out for next week’s article "Easiest way to count in darts!”