I am in need of help on a few things

[mikejones5]

1st of all my run up is rather long i mean i us up the track as well as the run way usually 9 strides in the carry and 5 X-overs but i am having real problems in maintaining my speed from carry into the x-overs i am slowing down considerably and i need advise on how to maintain that speed.

also i am throwin 40m's of a 5 stride but when it comes to the full run up i only improve by about 3 or 4 meters. why is that?

and again i am having trouble lockin my left leg during the plant.

can some one help me please???

[jimevs]

I'll just focus on one of your issues at the moment - the solid left leg. This is something I've worked on a lot in the last 2 years and its helped a lot, not to mention prevented injuries.

For me the reason I was very weak on the left leg was a result of the way I planted onto my foot - toe first. Without seeing you throw, I couldn't say if you do the same thing but quite often, people collapse onto their left leg as a result of not placing their foot properly. I would say the optimal way of planting the foot it to have the toes up and hit with the heel first. From planting the heel you will have no choice but to hit a flat foot and have a greater chance of holding your left leg strong than you would if you hit toes first as if you're moving forwards you won;t be able to get the left foot down flat!

Regardless of the reason you are collapsing, I would suggest some drills to help:

1. If you need to boost confidence in your left leg block try doing your run up without a jav on the long jump runway so that you run off somewhere near the board or edge of the pit and then do your last 2 steps in the pit (right-left). Try and concentrate on the position your feet land in and you will find that with soft ground under foot then you will actually be able to hold positions well. Then maybe try it, again without the jav on grass or the track and see how it works.

2. Try fixed feet throwing off short approaches. If you type "fixed feet throwing" into the search function which you can access at the top, you will find an article written by Slinger all about this. essentially you are doing 3/5/7 stride approaches and when you land with your right then left feet on the floor to throw you should keep them there and during and after the throw.

3. Make sure your upperbody weight is not too far forwards. If you are heavy over your front leg then you are making it hard for yourself to keep that leg strong. See if you can get a video or someone to watch out for this.

Hope those ideas help, sure some others will have some other and better ideas.

[mikejones5]

thanks alot mate i will certinly try what you have said and see if it works =]

i do have a problem with having most of my upper body weight over my from foot witch like you said weekens the left side so i will deffinently gove it ago..plus i will get some videos of me throw aswel

again thanks alot