I'm coach Erik Johnson, and chances are I was more like you in high school than you know. I was a skinny, 173 foot high school discus thrower, with little coaching, and no knowledge of weight training. However, with a lot of hard work, persistence, and a strong desire to prove I could reach my goal of reaching the Olympics, I went from a skinny high school thrower to an NCAA All-American and Olympic trails finalist.

I was raised in Phoenix Arizona, and began my love of track at the age of 12 yrs old. My father drove me all over the country in a "totally 80's" van; mattresses in the back and coolers strapped to the roof. I was a successful young thrower and that fed my hunger to continue on throwing in high school.

By my senior year of high school, I was considered still undersized, and my marks were not impressive enough to get recruited to a D1 school, so I went to a Junior college track power house- Mt. SAC in Southern California. To make a long story short, I grew taller, learned some weight training, gained muscle and strength, and got recruited by several Division I schools. I chose to go to UCLA (which at the time was a throws dynasty) and was coached by Art Venagas- legendary!

Throwing for UCLA was unreal, and I’ll never forget the day I went on my recruiting trip.
At UCLA I finally learned about weight training for throwers, Olympic lifting, sports medicine, and of course throwing. I transferred to the University of Colorado for my final year of eligibility, and became an NCAA- All American, then a multi-time US championships competitor and Olympic trials finalist in 1996. I still throw today and in 2011 I was the World Masters Bronze medalist in my age group... the old guy still has it!

College was a unique experience. I went to school with future world champions, like John Godina, and once I ranked top 10 in the US, I became friends with many of the best throwers in the world; many of whom are top NCAA coaches today!

I got to train with Olympic champions, and legends, and my path lead me to become great friends with Tony Ciarelli, Olympic coach and a coach at Newport Harbor in Newport Beach Ca. Each year, Tony and I run a huge throws clinic that I have been the director of since 1997: The Tony Ciarelli Olympian Throw clinic since 1997.
Let me tell you, if I had the opportunity to go back in time and bring with me all the experience and knowledge that I have put into this site and in the Throwing Chain Reaction system, it would have fast tracked my career!

I've spent nearly 3 years to condense my 20+ years of throws experience, tens of thousands of hours training, throwing, studying, developing, testing and optimizing the most complete, proven and easy-to-use throws coaching system for generating consistent and measurable results in shot put and discus throws.

... and now I'm ready to share it! I hope you are ready to take your throws program, or your throwing results to the next level...

... and beyond!