The Headache of the “Entry” Vladimir Strelnitski
T
he entry into the first turn is the most technically challenging and the most consequential phase of hammer throwing. The use of a rotating reference frame helps us understand the complex mechanics of this phase and derive technical recommendations for its execution. The byproduct of the article is the exoneration of the centrifugal force and other inertial forces from the unjust claims that they are “fictitious” and thus nonexistent. Introduction A hammer throw consists of two parts, in which the hammer is accelerated differently: the winds and the turns. Every thrower knows how demanding and how important the transition between the two parts, the entry into the first turn, is. A technical error committed during the entry tends to amplify in the subsequent phases, jeopardizing the whole throw. Two errors in the entry are especially serious and, unfortunately, quite frequent: letting the hammer outrun the thrower, and not finding a good balance while sitting back for the turns. If the hammer outruns the thrower during the entry, the grave mistake of crashing on the right foot after the single support phase is practically unavoidable. If the “neutral” position (the position the thrower assumes when the hammer is passing through its low point) is not mechanically balanced, keeping a good balance in the subsequent phases is problematic. Although most of the solutions of technical challenges in throws are
AUGUST 2019 techniques
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