You made 5 good points??? About what and where. It seems you are incapable of grasping what I’ve tried to tell you.
Rock and Roll,
Lets settle it down and get back on track…my red phone just rang and we all know what that means…
Perhaps this makes more sense if you think of it in terms of differentials between the main requirement and other support activities. The support activities must decline relative to the key element (speed in your case) to allow continued intensification, and those closest in demands to the key element must decline relatively more. This is true through the training period and throughout the career.
Thoughts?
Here’s gym stats of a guy who is perhaps one of the most strength based top javelin thrower of all time:
Squat 260
Front squat 200
power clean 185
snatch (as mentioned by pierrejean) 150
bench 190
Rome -87 gold, Seoul -88 Bronze, Tokyo -91 silver, Barcelona -92 silver, Atlanta -96 Bronze.
Very interesting but somewhat counter intuitive. Can’t seem to get my head round it…
Anybody knows Zelezny’s PB in bench? Bench might be not that important for javelin like for other throwers like shot put.
He does not look so strong, but has an incredible technique (look at pic 6 (WR throw 98) - that does not look healty - gives an idae of the forces created when throwing the jav to almost 100m)…sounds weird, but there is the legend that he holds the world record in matchsticks throwing as well…
Just a couple of points that may have been missed in the discussion thus far:
- We seem to be comparing strength numbers across different throws (ie. discus and javelin) but we’re disregarding the fact that the mechanics of the throws are vastly different.
The discus throw involves powerful adduction of the humerus, a motion which heavily activates the pec major. What gym exercise strengthens the humeral adductors? The bench press. So a correlation between BP strength and discus performance might be expected. Ditto the shot put, where humeral adduction and extension at the elbow heavily involve the triceps and pec major, which are strengthened by the BP.
In contrast, the javelin throw involves simultaneous rapid shoulder rotation and forward flexion of the spine/hip. Adduction of the humerus isn’t a significant factor. Therefore the value of the BP might be more limited than for the other throws. When you also consider that the BP can in some cases cause rotator cuff damage and impede shoulder flexibility, you can see why it’s not necessarily the jav thrower’s favorite.
- Discus throwers/hammer throwers/shot putters spin in, or glide across, a small ring before explosively releasing their implement. Jav throwers run a significant distance before abruptly stopping and transferring their horizontal force to the javelin, adding rapid shoulder rotation and trunk flexion to enhance speed. The speed at which the various levers move is much more rapid in the javelin than in the other throws. While the other throws work closer to the F end of the FV curve, the jav is very clearly nearer the V end. Thus while we might expect limit strength to be highly correlated with success in the other throws, we might expect RFD to be a more critical success factor in the jav. This is part of the reason why guys like Zelezny, at 80-85kg, can be the top of the jav heap. Have you ever heard of an 80kg shotputter or discus thrower at national, much less world, level?
A question that David W might be able to help with:
I understand that one of the critical success factors in the javelin is the ability to reach high horizontal velocity in the run-up, and then decelerate almost instantly by planting one leg and throwing. What influence (if any) would tendon stiffness have on the ability to perform this rapid deceleration?
Charlie let’s make sure I get it right …does it mean that the volume (or intensity?) of the training of non specific qualities must be lowered as qualification of the athlete increases? that’s for the career scope. And do the same within the year as competitions are approaching.
confirm that?
thanks
a note on technical events:
Increases in physical preparedness in technical event has a different impact on performance. the more sound and stable the technique is the greater the importance of specific fitness (strength whatever qualities you need) and the higher the correlation between event performance and non specific test.
however this goes the other way great increase in physical fitness on an technically less than average athlete bring about close to nothing in improvement of performance.I’ve seen it many many times…
keep also in mind that different exercices or lifts correlates to a different degree with event performance depending on the qualification of the athlete( refer to Supertraining). So it does not make sense to say that you need to mirror your weightroom performance on some athlete of a different level than yours.
toughts?
The ability to decelerate rapidly is a component/property of eccentric strength. This particular manifestation of strength is not so much reliant upon connective tissue as it is skeletal muscle, although the two tend to develop concurrently.
The strengthening of connective tissue is a biproduct, not necessarily the focus, of the training methods/means which yield greater abilities to handle higher eccentric loading/force absorption.
In so far as I understand the process, tendon rigidity or laxity is a function of the training stimulus. Thus, the nature of training that a thrower is engaged in would invariably yield high tensile strength of the connective tissues due to the volume of plyometrics, strength training, etc.
James
Donm79
Point 1. agree
Point 2. “Thus while we might expect limit strength to be highly correlated with success in the other throws, we might expect RFD to be a more critical success factor in the jav.”
That seems logic but in facts that’s just don’t happen. From all the stats i have for all-time bests javelin throwers, their speed tests results remains the same or even decrease when they reach their best level.
The utlimate Javelin Thrower Uwe HOHN illustrates this very well:
YEAR / JAVELIN / flying 30m / bench press
1981 / 86m56 / 3.44 / 95kg
1982 / 91m34 / 3.31 / 120kg
1984 / 104m00 / 3.41 / 130kg
But we have to take in account that Hohn’s body weight for these years was 100kg, 107.5kg and 115kg. This may explain that in this event, speed decrease is caused by body weight progression, that phenomenon is noticable on the other cases i know, while for Felke whose BW remained the same there was an (unsteady) improvement in flying 30m during her career (best 3.38 in 1988 the year she threw 80m, that’s in Hohn’s range, an other proof that speed isn’t the main factor here).
I was lucky enough to be working out on the platform next to Jelezny in the month before the 2000 Olympics. The man is seriously strong and powerful. He warmed up with some effortless power snatch (can’t remember exact weight) but it was the next exercise that interested me. He put a bench into a power rack and anchored a bar at one end using 2 or the spotting bars. He lay on his back and hooked his feet under the bar. He then did STRAIGHT arm lifts back over his head (extending rather deep) with the olympic bar loaded with some serious kgs. I saw his knock out some easy reps on about 70kgs before I left the gym - and he was still warming up. Try doing that keeping your arms straight - guaranteed to rip your shoulders out of their sockets - probably helps if you want to throw the jav a seriously long way though… scary…
Wow, it must have been amazing to train next to a guy like that. The barbell pullover you describe is, from what I understand, a staple exercise for javelin throwers.
i think what charlie is saying there are different qualities, some more specific to the event(speed). So you must decrease the amount of speed stimuli in order to increase intensity in the more specific one(ie sprinting), while other qualities(max strength) can continue development ?
I suspect we’re inappropriately conflating two separate but related questions:
Question #1: What are the performance characteristics that predict success in the javelin? Here we’re looking at BETWEEN SUBJECTS differences.
Question #2: For an elite javelin thrower, which performance characteristics change as compeititve results improve? Here we’re looking at WITHIN SUBJECTS changes.
In answer to #1, I want to leave aside technical issues, lever lengths, etc. and focus purely on limit strength and RFD. I would argue that RFD is a more important performance characteristic than limit strength. If limit strength were a critical factor in determining who can be a successful jav thrower, we would expect that: a) javelin throwers would be much stronger than the general population (undoubtedly true); and b) there would be a direct correlation among elite jav throwers between limit strength and throwing results (I don’t think such a correlation would be found). I would argue, in fact, that a much greater correlation could be found between performance and some measure of RFD than between performance and limit strength.
I think that RFD is a critical success factor for the javelin and that, relative to other throwers, jav guys will in general show better RFD and poorer limit strength.
At the risk of stating the obvious, your data above is time-series data and so applies to Question #2. Here we’re already looking at an elite javelin thrower in the prime of his career. As we know, speed tends to peak earlier in an athlete’s career than does strength, so we would expect that diminishing returns to improvements in speed would set in earlier in an athlete’s career. At this point the greater gains in performance might come from improvements in limit strength, even though the relationship between limit strength and competitive performance may be weak. This has no bearing on whether RFD or limit strength is what contributes most to performance or plays the greatest role in separating the champions from also-rans. Also consider that maintaining the same speed at a heavier bodyweight indicates improved RFD (a greater force is being generated in the same amount of time)!
By the way, thanks for the data. It’s interesting stuff and it makes sure the discussion doesn’t deviate too far from the real world. Keep it coming!
Well, a lot of things to say here and it would require a lot of time.
Question #1: very hard to say, as looking at tests between national, world and all-time best levels, there are a lot of differences. And even looking differences between men and women, we notice that Ruth Fuchs was fatser than Uwe Hohn over flying 30m, and that Petra Felke was better at 3 hops than many male olympic finalists… RFD is an important criteria, but absolutely not a good performance predictor.
A link to a good predictor test:
http://www.intrex.net/klubkeihas/articles/article10/article10.htm
that’s combinaison of various tests, i have similar thing with USSR hammer with a formula based on various training tests which predicted the competition performance, i don’t have the javelin one unfortunately. GDR used also these tests, but in other purpose, they used it to check javelin technique level, if your tests results were sub-norm, you had a great technique.
“If limit strength were a critical factor in determining who can be a successful jav thrower, we would expect that: a) javelin throwers would be much stronger than the general population (undoubtedly true); and b) there would be a direct correlation among elite jav throwers between limit strength and throwing results (I don’t think such a correlation would be found).” You’re right, no corelation can be found, that’s why only a complex formula with speed, explosiveness and max strength can predict javelin performance.
On an other note, Janis Lusis was USSR champion at decathlon, Raimo Pihl was olympic finalist at both javelin and decathlon, Tessa Sanderson scored 6125p at heptathlon without focusing on it, Petra Felke and Fatima Whitbread were able to long jump +6m and run 200m in the 24-25sec range, as well as shot putting 16m and would have scored 6500p any time. Javelin Thrower are real all-round athletes, that’s rarely said. I would like to know how good can Makarov be in a decathlon!
Question #2: here were talking about career progression, and according the data i have, lifts increase all the time up to the best level, multi bounds increase and decrease just in time of best level, and sprint results decrease the first.
Backley isn’t a hammer thrower. Nuff said!
I’m thinking that the closer training elements are to each other, the more directly they compete against each other for the same physical and CNS resources. This is one of the reasons I wouldn’t switch from lifts to plyos for sprinters towards the competitive period, as is often done in classical periodization schemes, even though I’d keep both present, within limits. If you think of the need to taper the volume of speed work, it’s easier to see why you’d want to taper other competitive stressors, not just along with, but somewhat in advance of the speed taper, starting with those closest in demand.
Pierrejean mentions Petra Felke
We saw her when she was very young in 1983 in LA at the USA GDR dual meet, and she was doing effortless snatch singles with 100kg at around 135lb body weight (we were watching because she looked pretty damn good at that time)
How did that compare to the WR snatch at the time? DW?