"The Ring" archive entries from Sep 13th 2013

These are the posts from "The Ring" archive on http://www.effortlessthrow.org/ from day Sep 13th 2013

Quote from slug

So I teach high school freshman in a humanities (english and social studies) class. We got talking about revolutionaries the other day and asked them to define what a rev was and come up with an example. Mine were Parry O'Brien and Brian Oldfield for fundamentally changing the SP.

Got me thinking: what is the next great revolution for throwing technique? Hard one to answer, of course, cause if you know, then you should be doing it......but what do you think??

Jeremy Hammond
Essex High School
Essex Junction, VT

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published at Sep 13th 2013 5:31am on http://www.effortlessthrow.org/

Quote from kphipps

Possibly Cadee and Wruck with their style of dicus tech?
One of my athletes made the switch to that style with 3 weeks left of his senior season. Went from 53m PR to over 55m. It was pretty cool to see.

Wasn't a super strong guy. About 6'0, 240 with a nice wing span. The extended sweep out of the back made a significant difference in the tempo of his throw.

Kevin

published at Sep 13th 2013 8:36am on http://www.effortlessthrow.org/

Quote from Brad Reid

Hmm? I'd go with Parry O'Brien, for sure.

I think the rotational shot put should never have been permitted, a sentiment I have shared here before. Largely, I suppose for the same reason the rotational javelin throw was not permitted, that it doesn't comport with the "intent" of the event.

The rotation turned shot putting into something else, great athletes and fun to watch for sure, but something else.

Where this 'intent fade' has been permitted in other sports, disaster often soon follows. For example, the original intent of the three powerlifts was to demonstrate torso strength (bench press), leg strength (squat) and back strength (deadlift). The contests used to be so great to watch: the squatty body would pull ahead in the bench and squat, then try to hold on in the deadlift against some lean looking dude.

Then, they started wide stance deadlifting making it correlate highly with the squat. If they could (and did) control the width of the bench grip, why didn't they control the stance width or promulgate a rule where the deadlift bar grip had to be outside the knees? This, and equipment bastardization, killed what once was a briefly televised sport with a decent following and relegated it to funny little fat, oddly pale, bald men with bench shirts. Can't sell that to . . . anyone. It's less about any revolution than it is about the end game, the death of a sport.

The same thing befell Olympic lifting when the press was so altered from its original intent that it was eliminated in 1972. Now, there are two lifts left that largely (and I mean at an astoundingly high correlation) measure the exact same strength and skill sets. It would be analogous to a contest to determine the world's fastest man where they ran a 100 meter race, then a 105 meter race.

The South African 400 meter man was just the latest in these little changes to undermine sport when the powers decided somehow that a pedestrian athlete running around the track on giant springs and, of course, not experiencing much of the grueling effects of lactic acid building up in the quads, hams and calves (since he didn't have them) that it was all 'fair.'

Oldfield was a great discus thrower out of a small ring, with a bent elbow.

Now, the discus? We can credit a nice improvement in the event to the wide leg swing perfected by L. Jay Silvester first at the highest levels.

Cheers! Brad

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published at Sep 13th 2013 10:38am on http://www.effortlessthrow.org/

Quote from slug

Wondering what you mean by "intent" of the event?

Could we then, theoretically, apply the same reasoning to Dick Fosbury? Curious....

Jeremy Hammond
Essex High School
Essex Junction, VT

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published at Sep 13th 2013 11:11am on http://www.effortlessthrow.org/

Quote from Brad Reid

Jeremy,

Each event measures "something unique" and I suppose our basic interests in these are as old as mankind, meaning you and I know that very early on, two humans contested who could run across a field the fastest, run miles and miles back to camp the quickest, who could jump across the widest gap, throw or lift a big rock.

So, anyway, the "intent" of each event is that it measures a unique talent. Within the throwing field events, the javelin is obviously representing a throw, and the discus a slinging motion . . . and putting something would be like chunking something heavier than can be "thrown" or otherwise gripped and "slung."

Mine is just a personal observation/preference and I am uncertain, even doubt, I'd be in the majority on the issue. But, the first time officials saw the spin, a rule should have been made to disallow the rotation. If the rotation was intended, we wouldn't see 6'6" men throwing out of a tiny ring that looks like they are standing on a sewer plate.

By the way, Oldfield didn't invent the rotational technique as you likely know. He first saw it at the 1968 Olympic Trials performed by John McGrath and McGrath wasn't the first either as I believe some had begun playing around with the spin in the early 1960s. McGrath may have been one of the first Americans to use it in a national caliber meet and work it well (63' range).

I seem to recall that Bill Nieder, the 1960 Olympic Gold shot medalist, told me he played around with the spin and did pretty well with it toward 1964 when he was attempting to get reinstated to compete at the '64 Games. He wasn't reinstated nor would he have used the spin but it intrigued him a bit.

I'm generally okay with equipment improvement as long as it is available to everyone, so high rim weight discs, fine, and I don't expect pole vaulters to jump with bamboo.

Rotational javelin throwing was proscribed as was high jumping where some gymnast dude runs up and vaults over the bar propelled with a back handspring approach pattern. Sport has to guard against these odd encroachments.

Cheers! Brad

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published at Sep 13th 2013 1:36pm on http://www.effortlessthrow.org/