Right foot placement (right handed throwers)

[sam]

How important is the final right foot placement?

lets discuss the best way to execute the getting on and off it into the block.

heel toe or land on the toe?

concentrate on turning the heel out or work more on throwing hte right knee forwards?

over to you lot!


if you can please try and upload stills of what you are talking about

[Mack]

Morning all,

Been a while since I last posted (properly anyway)

I have watched a number of top throwers from around the word and one thing that seems to always happen is as soon as the right foot lands, the right knee is moving. The right foot is in a position normally between 1 & 2 o'clock and you need to land on the toe. If the heel drops you have more of a chance for your weight moving forward too soon.

Andreas actually points his foot forward in the run off stride and lands foot forward allowing a natural knee bend forward pushing the hip through as well.

This is very difficult, not the actual putting the foot forward, but keeping every thing closed while the foot is forward. If you can do it and keep your hip across and look over your shoulder then you may have a chance.

If you look at Andrea's last vid on his website at the end you can see he lands foot forward and a knee bend.

web.mac.com/a_thorkildsen/iWeb/www.andreasthorkildsen.com/Blog/CD0A60F3-1581-4269-9CB7-4519594B4798.html

Hope this make sense.

Mack

[slinger]

this is taken form one of my very first posts 18 months ago or so.......

it's in the "final right foot contact - very important" thread here in this board - just scroll back some pages......

what happens at final right foot contact is for me one of the most important aspect of the throwing sequence.

when i was 15 as i've said before i watched endless throws on video tape, various grand prix meets and of course that year 1996 the olympics.

i noticed in particular what athletes did with there right foot as the throw commenced. the common skill was that after the impulse stride at the moment of the right foot contacting the ground the left foot would already be in an advanced position i.e ahead of the right. what happened next differed between athletes, some athletes would land very flat footed before the right would eventually start to work, others would land very much toe oriented and their right would work immediately. examples are mick hill would land very flat footed, even his left wasn't past his right at right foot contact, but jan zelezny's left was well advanced of his right at final right foot contact and would land very much on the ball of his right foot and would work immediately. those who landed and struck almost immediately threw further.

what this means is that if the right foot works immediately or as soon as possible then then this drives the right hip forward and you on to your left leg, this gives you a distinct separation of the hip and shoulder axis and gives you that famous "bow" position leaving your throwing arm well back still yet to come into play with your upper body still side on, thus creating a stretch up through the body from the right thigh through the hip up to the right side of the chest and shoulder, as the phrase goes "make a bow, let it go!"

how do we achieve this? firstly you must give yourself the chance to do it, and of course have the ability too. After the impulse stride your right foot must land ahead of your bodies center of mass with the left already advanced, this gives you time, it's impossible for it to work if it lands behind you with your weight past your right foot, try it and see. next the actual position of the right foot in relation to the angle it is, is more important than most realise. if it lands at right angles to the throw it's very difficult to work it, athletes who wrap do tend to have the right foot angled towards right angles, but even jan's isn't quite at right angles [it is on impulse, but not at final right foot contact btw..] if though it lands pointing at 2 o clock..ish with your momentum going forward it will be much easier to use it, linked to this should be a point about the what the right foot and leg position is like before it lands, i said that the right should land toe or ball oriented, so most will assume they should land with their toes.........this is a mistake your muscles in your calve are too short you will only collapse, during the impulse stride your foot must be in a neutral position [toes up] and then work to the ground, look at the photos of jan and also watch how a top class sprinter's feet work and you'll see what i mean. Before i said about having the ability to perform this essential skill, lot's of foot drills are necessary to build up strength in your calves, ankles and feet. [we call them zelezny drills and no doubt you'll have been doing them for years] i also mentioned earlier about what the right leg should be doing before it makes final contact, it must not land straight your muscles won't be ready for impact and you'll just sink and collapse which means lost time, just watch a zelezny throw or look at the pics in the sequence and see how his leg is flexed ready for impact and how his right foot is neutral and then works down to the ground, also note how his foot doesn't sag once, his heel is no-where near the ground, an important observation is that his hips stay the same level. The time it takes between his right foot to land and be active fully takes less than a tenth of a second, which is probably the quickest in the world, backley's right foot strike, along with most in the world however takes almost twice as long.....

another important point to make is about the right hip strike and how we make it happen. i've just explained about feet and leg positioning, but what makes the hip drive? landing on the ball of your foot with favorable leg positioning is merely giving you the opportunity to perform the skill, take two examples of excellent right foot strike in early backley or for me '98 backley and compare with zelezny. both achieve excellent results but with different styles. Backley lands on his right and thinks about driving his right hip forward ie in and and up. Zelezny thinks about something very different when asked he said he thinks about landing on his right softly, even though his leg is flexed, he thinks about his knee dropping to the ground, both very different ways of achieving basically the same thing, one works for one, the other for the other.

at the end of the day, it should happen smoothly and fluid, with no pausing, the aim is to get as much of the run up speed you have gained against the blocking leg so you can hopefully transfer it up into the javelin, so this should be beared in mind.

here's a pretty good viewing angle of jan's feet during impulse and more importantly what they do at final right foot contact and it's thereafter actions through delivery.......



jan's feet are the best in the buisness by miles imo....

here is a video of jan - i keep posting this vid, as it's superb and because of it being slowed so much you can see the timing of the thing easier.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_oA5p5d25I

watch from 1.45mins through to about 2.00mins

and look particular about how much space the right hip eats up when striking, his right foot's "gliding" contact must cover 40cm or so from actual final right foot contact through to release - note too, how his righ hip goes "in" and then "up" as it reacts off his block.

that's to me is very sexy!

[Administrator]

Take a look at the right foot of Vasilevskis in the videos section. He lands on the inside of his shoe - it would appear barely on the sole of his foot and rapidly rotates over in what is a very soft step - seemed to be effective in his case.

[slinger]

if anyone is a member of throwers.org website have a look at terje pedersen - the first man ever to throw 90m [91.72m actually!] and does exactly like jim said above........and that was 1964 btw, the fundamentals of the event haven't changed have they....

on a more to home note, me and lasher discussed this point a while back and certainly where the actual centre of pressure is as the right foot contacts the ground is crucial, many people including myself land on the outside of the right foot - so little toe side, this immediately means the centre of pressure is wrong and not condusive to getting the right foot to work early, as just imagine it - all your body weight is backward and not going forward, the very same effect happens if the right foot lands at right angles to the throw at final right foot contact - a position which is akin to 2 o clock is more desirable, yeah of course the hips are a little more opne so will perhaps create a little less body torque, but not so if the left shoulder remains tight and shut [but we digress here from the feet and we could talk about the upper body more at a later time]........infact it's the way my right foot actual contacts the ground at final right foot contact is the single focus i have in technique training right now - i can manage to achieve what i want off shorter stuff but off a full 100% intensity throw i can't do it - so learning new stuff is very tough......and if anyone questions whether the right should land at 3 o clock or 2 o clock then i will say from my experience you get the right to land at 2 o clock [especially if it's a ball orientated landing and reamins ball orientated ie doesn't sink to go flat] then the right foot strike will happen much quicker than if the right foot was to land at right angles ie 3 o clock.