Light and Heavy Hammers (Continued)
I received a lot of feedback on my last post about using heavy and light hammers in training. One comment was from American record holder Erin Gilreath in her most recent blog post. After reading Erin’s comments, I still stand by my conclusions from the earlier post. However, I want to make a few clarifications.
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Martin,
I wasn’t trying to rip what you were saying or your coach, who I know is a prolific researcher on the subject. I understood perfectly what you were saying. I also get what you are saying about diminishing returns. I haven’t gotten much stronger since about 2004-2005 because I don’t really need to and to do so would probably just make me a wreck.
I don’t like to go into much detail on my blog about my throwing workouts, partly because I think it’s boring to people, or at least what I am doing doesn’t interest me enough to write about it. LOL But I think people are well aware of Larry’s reputation for working athletes with throwing lots and throwing lots of different weights.
I think the study that Larry is working on is probably kind of a longitudinal one of me and my progression, and how all the variables relate. And yeah, the year I threw the farthest was the year I took a ton of throws of all different weights.
Hey Erin-I know you weren’t try to rip on him. I just wanted to clarify some points for others and also share some info on women throwers. A lot of the stuff I write about comes from my experience, so it relates to male hammer throwers. It is worth noting that women can be very different. I think Larry understands the hammer better than almost anyone in America and I actually wrote an article with him a few years ago. I am definitely not saying that he doesn’t have his throwers throw different weight hammers. I just didn’t want people thinking that I was saying hammer throwers shouldn’t squat and also wanted to let them know why I buy into what Bondarchuk is saying. I look forward to reading Larry’s study.
An earlier Bio Mech study has indicated that late leaving, early landing (I.E. the longest double support measured) is not the most effective techinique relative to distance thrown in measured world class hammer throwetrs. BTW The hammer can be accelerated in single support by dropping the center of mass of the athlete against the CM of the implement.
Hi Martin!
Thank you for posting such a great article. I find the correlations very interesting and was wondering; in the case of heavier 8-10kg hammers, is there a specific wire-length that is best for 60-65m male throwers?
Keep up the great work!
P.S Training is getting hotter in Australia, 38C this week!
In our training we use a normal full-lengh wire for the 8-10kg hammers. This seems to be fine for us, but I do know a lot of people that choose to throw a shorter 10kg hammer (around 100-110cm long instead of 121.5cm).