Pushing instead of Dragging Hammer or WFD

IT IS SIMILAR TO THE OLYMPIC HAMMER CONCEPT VS THE DISCUS.  MOST PEOPLE THROW THE DISCUS BY KEEPING IT WAY BACK AND PULLING ON IT THROUGH THE RELEASE.  THE OLY. HAMMER IS MUCH MORE OF A PUSH IN THAT YOU MUST LET THE BALL DO THE WORK AND MOVE WITH IT.  RYAN IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST AT THIS.  IT IS NOT A COINCIDENCE THAT HE WAS A GREAT OLY. HAMMER THROWER.  IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE DOING ALL THE WORK YOU ARE PULLING INSTEAD OF PUSHING.  IT HAS TAKEN ME A VERY LONG TIME TO UNDERSTAND THIS CONCEPT AND MAYBE ONE DAY I WILL BE ABLE TO DO IT.

Hold your hands together, arms straight, directly in front of you. The point of the triangle is your centerline (perpendicular to your shoulders). Dragging the ball is when the ball is well off to the right of your centerline. To push the ball you are trying to keep the ball as close to the centerline as possible. Why? If you drag then the radius is shortened and this takes velocity away from the ball. Radius is KING! Why do they call it pushing? I can't speak authoritatively but I can say that when you drag it feels like you are pulling (dragging) with your left shoulder. When you push, it feels like you are pushing the ball around with both shoulders, it feels much more balanced.

Incidentally, back in the glory days of US wire hammer (Connolly and company) the preferred technique was to drag. It wasn't until the Russians started to dominate (Sedykh, Litvinov, etc.) that the push became the dominant technique.

Maximizing the radius is the goal.  Doing it with speed is the trick.  I first lit on this after talking to a friend of mine in the weight room who throws wire hammer.  He's been in clinics taught by Sedykh and throws with some others in the SF bay area.  I tried throwing the light weight while thinking about keeping the ball as far away from me as possible and keeping the whole motion smooth.  After a couple of throws, I was hitting in the range of my PR, but it seemed almost effortless.  With good technique, PR's will come with more trunk rotation speed, but you must maintain that radius.  If you try be too aggressive, it's easy to get the ball behind you too far and then you are dragging/pulling.

I'm no expert, but that's how it feels when I throw.

 

 

Coming from a T&F background this is my perspective of “Pushing” Vs. “Dragging”:

Pushing comes from taking your fully extended arms & hands from the right side to the left side and not moving your left side until the implement is past you (past center line and heading to your left side). From here you can move your feet and turn. The push is derived from your right hand, hip, and foot. These are the engines. The left side stays relaxed and free to allow the implement to accelerate through the centerline and just ahead of your right side. The idea is to let the implement do most of the work and you only need to stay in the middle and keep pushing your hand(s) past you. Hence the effortless throw.

Dragging is when the implement is behind the centerline and usually stays stuck on your right hip. The head, hips, and feet turn well ahead of the implement leaving it behind the body. This shortens your radius and you wind up dragging the implement around with you. The only way to accelerate the implement is to turn faster. Your grip is strained as well as other parts of your body because of your body position relative to the implement.

 

The discus can be put behind an athlete and thrown very far because of how light it is. The Olympic hammer needs to be pushed rather than dragged because of the forces exerted and the ball speed required to throw far. In highland games the implements are much heavier and require more patience with a deliberate start to setting the implement up for the throw. The weights for distance can be pushed in to the start, followed by the feet catching back up, to push again through the rest of the trig leading to the release. If you continue to push the ball with your hand, hip, and foot you will continue to accelerate the weight through out the throw into the release where you want to push up and out. The key is patience and waiting for the weight to work for you.

The hammer can still be pushed but it is the thought of using your hand, hip, and foot to push the ball through the centerline and past even though you are using two hands. There should be a big long arm sweep through the middle and past, catch it again and push it through. The trick is to not “hold on” to the hammer and slow it down but to let it run around you keeping a long radius. “Holding on” is when you pull in with your arms and unintentionally slow the hammer down because it is moving so quickly. Let it run and run fast!

I’m not saying this is easy but it is a conceptual approach to the throws. Either way a long radius, good body position, and acceleration will make for long throws and fewer injuries.

 

Steve D wrote: I'm actually waiting for Ryan V. to chime in and break down the WFD and Hammer tech that goes on in his mind....

I think I can answer that one. Ryan is thinking "The sooner I throw this thing over the fence and into the horse pasture, the sooner I can get to Hermana's and have a 5lb burrito."

Simon Stewart - 2002 Amatuer A and U of I Shot and Hammer Thrower - explained this to me a few years back.  He wasn't specifically addresses push verse pull, but what he said makes sense.

Remember that the majority of power in the hammer - as with all throws - comes from your hips, back and legs, especially the rotation of the hips.  Your hips should be outpacing the hammer being ahead of your upper body as you turn.  This is the case with all throws.

Your arms are really only extensions of you body that allow you to hold onto the hammer itself.  Simon pointed out that when he throws hammer he actively pulls on the downstroke only.  His goal in this is to hit the sweet spot at the bottom of the rotation.  On the upstroke he is not pulling, but letting his hips do all the work.

If you look at it in these terms then what you realize is that your body is pushing the hammer.  Your upper body is controlling the path of the ball, while your hips are producing the power, pushing the ball through space.

Now, Simon is no slouch.  He hit 122 ft. that year using no spikes and having to throw lefty because he tore some cartiledge in his right hip.  Simon is over 6' and weighed in at close to 300 lbs. - all muscle - but, he prizes technique over power.  Technique allows you to utilize power.  Applying this method keeps you from over rotating and keeps the ball in the proper path.

I hope this is helpful.  Then again, I hope I'm right.

using the "figure 8" arm swing when starting the first turn in the weights has an incredible amount of push to start the first turn with speed and then gives you the whole second spin catch up and get the weight in drag so you can yank the crap out of it. Kinda like a hybrid push / pull. That is how Matt Sandford set the world record with the 28. Its also how I added 2-4 feet to my weights...in like a week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF03ElP2Mdk

here is a video of it perfectly smooth. Watch the right arm and what it does to the weight. This is not a casting start. It is essentially a push of the handle forward - but by first turning the hand away from the right butt cheek on the back swing - the ball shifts to behind the handle and stays behind the hip - I don't really know how to describe the motion. But done correctly it really makes the throw much smoother while keeping the speed of the first spin up.

What I guess it really does is take all the slack out of the caste and turn method.

my brain hurts.

For the technology challenged - is it possible to make those videos into slow motion?  It's just too quick for these old eyes to catch everything that is going on.

Will, ill be honest.  Everytime you cast i cringe a little because you always get slack in the chain and it jerks as you come around.  Works for you though....so i can't say much.

no, i can even see it there, but it's more pronouced with the 56.  come to think of it, you both do it.

i think i see it on the sanford vid now, turning the hand away creating some seperation between your hand and your butt cheek??