Joshua Bradford

I'm in my 3rd year of coaching within the Falmouth Schools Systems, and my 2nd year of private coaching. Over my time at Falmouth, I've coached the throws for the Falmouth Summer Track League and I am the active throws coach of Falmouth High School. That being said my athlete base is made up of primarily elementary, middle schoolers, and high schoolers. Over summers I coach mostly high schoolers and a few college level throwers via private coaching. In my short time as a coach at Falmouth I've had 3 Division 1 college commitments, two of which involved an NLI and subsequent signing for a substantial scholarship for track and field throwing. I also have a USATF Coaching Certification for Track and Field.

I competed as a thrower, primarily shot put, from middle school up through college. In high school I was able to throw a personal best of 18.65m which was the #1 throw in the nation early in my senior season. I was able to finish out the regular competition season as #8 in the nation and #5 all time in Maine. In college, I was able to break into the top 10 all time at the University of Maine with a throw of ~16.20m as a true sophomore. Within the first semester of my junior year of college I was redshirted and threw a personal best at practice of 18.56m. The awards I earned as an athlete included; Rookie of the Year - Indoor Track (2017), Coaches Award - Indoor Track (2018), Most Valuable Player - Indoor Track (2019), Most Improved - Outdoor Track (2019), SMAA Southwestern's John Corcoran Award, Outstanding Field Event Athlete (2020), SMAA Southwestern's Ralph A. Levitt Award, Senior Shot Put (2020), Alexander Skillin Award, Outstanding Male Athlete (2020), Stymiest, Emerson A & Lila C. Track Scholarship (2020-2021). Multi time all conference and all state team.

In a typical session, I have my athletes perform a basic general warmup which moves into a sports specific warm up working on stretch reflex, joint angles and movement timing. I'll then prescribe a drill progression and implement weight that I believe the athlete will best benefit from in regards to any technical or strength issues I've noticed in the previous session. As they perform the drills, I will give active feedback and describe what I'm seeing, what I approve of, and what I dislike about their throw. From there I partner the criticism with a proprioceptive cue, or a physical prop, or walk through the positions to show them the change to help stimulate the proper technical correction. Finally, I always have the athletes finish off the session with some sort of rate of force production or rapid coordination work and cool down.