The world record for the men's discus throw is 243 feet. This may not seem far – most major league baseball fields extend past the 400 mark – but I can assure you of one thing: it is. For one thing, a baseball weighs about thirteen times less than a discus, but also remember that players whack it with a baseball bat in order to achieve such distances. So even though a world record toss with a 2 kilogram discus will probably result in a shallow fly ball out with a baseball, there is something to be said about such a distance.
When Jurgen Schult threw this record in 1988 for what was then East Germany, the next person down the list had just barely thrown within 7 feet of him. In a sport where distance is the primary objective, 7 feet is inexplicably massive. World championships and olympic finals have been decided by fractions of an inch, so throwing 7 feet further than anyone else in history, as he did, is practically unthinkable. And while Schult's record was scared twice last decade, within mere inches the first of those times, it still stands. Twenty-one years and counting.
You'd think that with an objective so simple as distance, a record would be easier to approach. Well, my friends, it isn't. Lifting day and night is not enough to breach the kind of territory that Schult once so briefly tread upon; while strength never hurts, you have to remember that the 2 kilogram platter he threw probably could have kept up with a car on the highway, and that despite all the force he put into the throw, he still managed to stay safely inside the 8-foot concrete circle. In other words, speed and balance are ultimately the determining factors. Hence, a good thrower also performs speed training on a regular basis, and does balance exercises as well.
But even these things are not enough to make a discus fly well. Physics dictates everything, and for that reason, technique is by far the most important facet of throwing. At first glance, a full-turn discus throw - by far the most common approach - may seem simple enough to get right on the first try. This is, of course, not the case. Throwers spend their whole lives honing technique, attempting to tweak the slightest movements and positions, and to correct every ounce of misplaced body mass, all in order to maximize the conversion from potential to kinetic energy in the implement. More simply put, a thrower's greatest objective is to make sure that whatever strength they have is translated into the throw upon the implement's release. A thrower who neglects to use their legs properly (the most crucial source of energy) will end up wasting a large portion of the energy they put into the implement, and instead of that energy propelling the discus forward with greater velocity, it will be absorbed by the thrower's body and they will experience the implement pushing them back slightly as a consequence. The loss may not seem like much at first, but without incorporating the push from the legs, a 100-foot throw can be reduced to sub-50 (possibly more, depending on how bad the person's form is). This distance gap can easily be closed if the thrower simply learns the basics of incorporating leg power.
By now I trust you know that the name of the game is efficient translation from potential to kinetic energy, so it should not be hard to understand how one small error in the course of a full throw can result in a significant decrease in implement's distance. When greatness is determined by one sole factor, even the subtlest flaws carry huge consequences. I apologize for the lengthy lesson in physics, but it is, to me, a requisite in understanding the place whence each throwing event's complexity derives. The point of it all is that it will take more than brute strength to better Schult's massive throw. Technique must also be refined to the utmost, and the thrower must have strong nerves when entering competition. And, well, a lucky headwind never hurts (I believe this is the only reason Mr. Schult's discus flew as far as it did – a good headwind can add upwards of 10 feet to a throw). There are transfinite other aspects of throwing that also hold importance, but you get the idea.
Anyway, to put Schult's throw into perspective, my furthest toss in a competition is 139 feet, only modestly more than half the world record, and in Division III track and field, that ain't too shabby. Provisionally qualifying for the DIII national championship requires 15 feet more than this, a feat I hope to accomplish this spring, but even that mark (154 feet) is still a cool 89 feet below the world record. So why bother?
If throwing were about distance, as it technically is, no one would do it. Preparation for the sport requires endless hours of training, repeating similar if not the same routines as the day before at ad nauseum. In a given year, a thrower of my age and experience works for an increase of somewhere around 10 feet, and hopes for 20. Sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, training six or seven months a year hoping to extend my reach by such a simple figure. Naturally there has to be something more to discus throwing than how far you can make it go.
I was recently told by a fellow thrower that, despite its nature, throwing is one of the most difficult sports to get right. I don't often think about it, but when I do I usually get some variety of headache – something so simple as hurling a 4.5 pound frisbee down a field requires an attempt at perfection. Throwing is physics, and distance is only the shallowest of our enemies. Simple concepts like angle and velocity quickly grow into words like torque, push, position, block, and, of course, our greatest fiend of all, balance. If any one of these is varied the slightest amount, the throw suffers. And that isn't including even simpler concepts like how the discus comes out of your hand, which I've gathered to be the greatest challenge of all maturing discus throwers (I, on the other hand, am pretty good with it). It is in this way that the simplicity of a thrower's objective translates to the immense difficulty of the sport.
I don't know why I'm telling you this. To truly experience these ideas you'd have to try it out for yourself, and there is no way to describe the motions of a simple discus throw unless you have seen it up close. The least you can do is YouTube “discus throw.” Go ahead, do it now, I'll be waiting here when you come back.
The point of all this is that so much pain, frustration, and chaos comes out of throwing for a simple number, and yet we do it anyway. This is the last time I will speak in-depth about the technique of a discus thrower, as I intend to approach the greater question: why? Because I often lie awake in bed at night thinking about it and wondering why I waste so much of my time just to make a heavy plate fly. If I ever figure that out, you can be sure I'll get back to you. But for now, maybe you can help me along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment