Anatoliy Bondarchuk’s success record as a coach can match any coach from any sport. The former hammer throw world record holder and Olympic champion has coached dozens of Olympic medalists over five decades. What is the key to his success? On this week’s podcast six of his former athletes get back together to discuss their first impressions of the coach, what made him so successful, and the role of language in coaching.
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What happens when a top sprint coach takes a hammer thrower into his training group? PJ Vazel has coached some of world’s best sprinters but more recently is known for his work in guiding Quentin Bigot to a silver medal in the hammer throw. On this week’s podcast he discusses the parallels between the events and what he learned from transitioning between them. Read more
It is easy to think about the throwing events as strength events. But in the end, the implement is often not that heavy. The bigger challenge is coordinating the whole body to add speed to the element through elasticity, as well as strength. German national discus coach René Sack joins this week’s podcast to discuss how he thinks about this element of the throw and exchange ideas about how to address it in training. Read more
Vern Gambetta’s GAIN event brings together top practitioners from around the globe in a variety of fields. While the presentations are world-class, what makes it special is the side conversations that we strike up. We tried to recreate that on this week’s podcast by interviewing three faculty members live from GAIN: Angus Ross, Greg Gatz, and John Pryor. Read more
The making of a champion starts at a young age with the athlete’s family, youth coaches, and community. The champion’s mindset then grows from there. Kevin McMahon won two US titles in the hammer throw and competed in two Olympics and four World Championships. He joins this week’s podcast to share how he started out as a thrower, the San Jose throws community he came of age in, and the inspiration he took from that. In addition, we look a bit at what it takes to be a champion in the hammer throw, and more. Read more
As an elite hammer thrower, Mattias Jons had the chance to work with coaches from a variety of countries, continents, and backgrounds. As he’s developed as a coach, his diverse background has come in handy. On this episode of the podcast he joins us to discuss some of the different approaches he’s encountered and what he has taken from Swedish, Finnish, German, Polish, American, Soviet, and other traditions. Read more
Back to our roots on this week’s podcast as we answer listener questions on throwing and training for the throws. We start off by looking at some lessons team sports can learn from throws training (and vice versa), before diving into some more specific questions like tips for short throwers, comparing different shot put technique, our favorite underrated coaches, and more. Read more
Note: The following notes were written by a junior thrower I co-coach together with Armin Spoerri. Additional thoughts from my perspective as a coach are included at the end of the article.
This spring I asked Martin Bingisser about the possibility of doing a training camp, but none of the Swiss throwers had anything planned in July. As an alternative he came up with the idea of sending me to 2008 Olympic Champion Primoz Kozmus in Slovenia. From the beginning on, it seemed pretty surreal, me, a 19 year old thrower who throws around 50 meters, is going to be coached by an Olympic Champion. But it actually happened. Read more
Coach Boo Schexnayder found an interesting situation last year: LSU had asked him to step in and help coach events he hadn’t worked with in decades. The transition was easy for him in part because his training is based on the individual, not the event. He’s used that approach to produce world-class jumpers for decades, and this year it help produced some top throwers too. On this episode of the podcast Schexnayder joins us to discuss his approach to individualization and finding the right fit for an athlete. Read more
It takes a special athlete and coach to achieve success at multiple sports, but that’s just what Wil Fleming has done. Being successful at multiple sports requires an ability to dial in training, and target programming to the specific needs of an athlete. On this episode of the podcast Fleming joins us to share the lessons he learned as a national championship competitor in both hammer throwing and weightlifting, and how that has shaped his approach to programming. Read more
