Martin Bingisser is a Swiss hammer thrower and coach.
His blog http://www.mbingisser.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.”
