Food for Thought From Martin Bingisser

Martin Bingisser is a Swiss hammer thrower and coach. His blog http://www.hmmrmedia.com/ is on my must read list. I think Martin is one of the bright young minds in track & field. I find his ideas informative, stimulating and challenging. Here he is talking about his coach Anatoly Bondarchuk, a true coaching legend:

“Dr. Bondarchuk’s coaching method: our focus is always on the speed of the hammer and not the speed of our body. It is easy to read the data, but much more difficult to put it into practice. Data only measures the effects of a throw, not the causes. Finding the cause is a long process that often involves counter-intuitive changes like slowing down to maintain radius and throw farther (as was seen in the Pars example). This transfer from theory to practice requires a coach, not just a biomechanist. Coaches can learn from experience what the cause might be. (Emphasis mine – VG) Many biomechanists lack this experience or background. Therefore it is often the best to take their data findings and use them as goals rather than relying on them for all technical matters as more and more biomechanists are advocating.”