Question: I understand throwing 8- and 9-kilogram hammers, but why do you throw full length 10-kilogram hammers in training? -Robert

Many people are surprised when I tell them we throw the 10-kilogram hammer in training. Their jaw then starts to drop when I tell them we throw it on a full-length wire. For some, deviating too far from the competition weight hammer is a big no-no. But for us, it is just another tool to use in our arsenal. The more tools you have, the better chance that one of them will help you improve. Heavy hamemrs play an essential role in developing special strength, which is more useful and important than general strength for hammer throwers.

Of course, there is always the worry that costs outweigh the benefits. The potential gained strength, some argue, is outweighed by bad technical habits picked up by throwing the heavy hammer. This does not have to be the case. When throwing heavy hammers, it is important to focus first on technique. While the hammer is heavy, it is not impossible to throw with good technique. Take a look at the video comparison below of Kibwé’s throws with the 6- and 12-kilogram hammer. Despite being twice the weight of the lighter implement, Kibwé maintains his form while throwing the 12-kilogram hammer. A thank you goes to Kevin Becker for producing the video.

Question: What puzzles me is why no one ever gives a definitive statement about how to achieve hammer acceleration. If it is pushing with the right hand, driving with the right foot, dropping onto the right foot early, lowering the left shoulder on the entry, etc. Why not just say so plainly!! It seems to me that someone needs to step-up to the plate and say: this is how you make the hammer go faster, and this is how you best counter the forces that you produce. -Ray

I know you were hoping for a response from Dr. B, but my answer will have to suffice. The reason it is so hard to describe how to accelerate the hammer is because accelerating the hammer isn’t just something that you do. If it were just a few simple steps, then it would be easy to write down and pass along to others. Instead, it is something that you do with the hammer. In this way, accelerating the hammer is very similar to a dance. And you can read as much as you want about dancing, but you will never truly be able to do it until you hear and feel the music (and like dancing, sometimes not even then either). To make matters worse, the hammer actually plays the lead during most of the throw, so it is hard to know what to do until you feel what it is giving you. When we are training, Dr. B will tell us when we are pushing the hammer and when we aren’t. This way we learn the feeling of pushing the hammer and our coach reinforces that feeling by letting us know when we are doing things right.

Not working much in the offseason gave me a chance to spend more time on this site and also work on a few projects that I’ve had on the shelf for years. One of those projects was to write a primer on Bondarchuk’s training. I originally wrote an article along those lines in 2004 after doing years of research, reading, and talking with other coaches about Bondarchuk’s ideas on training. However, as I was about to publish that article, I actually met Bondarchuk and it made me realize I still had a bit more to learn. Then I began law school and my free time vanished..

I still posted the original article on Hal’s Hammerthrow.com site, but I’ve wanted to update it with some new insight and finally had the time to do so this past winter. Thanks to some great feedback by my training partner Ryan Jensen, Zach Hazen, my girlfriend, and others, I was able to get the article published in the April edition of Modern Athlete and Coach. Modern Athlete and Coach is published by the Australian Track and Field Coaches Association. Their organization has done a lot for Bondarchuk (they published his first book in English) and I think they are perhaps the best athletics coaching magazine in the world. They are also very nice to work with and have been kind enough to let me republish the article here.

I’ve learned many things from coach Bondarchuk about training, technique, and life. But, as I’ve said before, one of the things I respect the most about him is his openness. In my first few weeks working with him he told me that the more you share, the more you’ll learn. In a local newspaper article last summer, he repeated his mantra, saying “If you don’t share your secrets, your information, you can’t improve … If you don’t learn from each other, there is no progress.” That philosophy is one of the reasons I started to write so often about our training methods on this site.

While I think I do a good job describing how we train, I don’t often go into the specifics of how many reps or sets we do of each exercise. The main reason for this is that the big picture is more important than the details and I’m worried someone would try to replicate my training program without first understanding it. Our training programs are all individualized and knowing the athlete exact demands is essential to getting results through the program. Recently, however, I was asked to do a training journal for the training site EliteFTS. This seemed like it would be a great chance to finally get into the nitty gritty details of my training. My journal, which is online now, lays out every throw I took and exercise I did in the month leading up to Mt. SAC this year.

Happy mother’s day! Like most other throwers I know, my mother has been very supportive of my throwing career as well as my schooling and professional career. Without her support and help I know I wouldn’t be able to pursue as much as I have or even possess the confidence to try.

Despite that introduction, today’s post isn’t just about mothers. One of the best parts about writing on this site is that I get a lot of e-mails from throwers across the world. Whether it is a high school athlete or masters thrower, I try to take the time to answer every question and help people learn about the hammer throw. My mother has reluctantly convinced me over the years that I do not have all the answers, but I do have some unique experience that I think can help others.

Most of the questions I get relate to technique or are follow ups to posts I do. Starting now, I’d like to start posting the questions that I think everyone might be interested in hearing. Here are a few to questions from hammer thrower Thomas DiCiaccio to start things off. If you have a question, please send it my way. I’ll answer almost anything, including tax questions if you are so inclined.

It’d be cool to know what Dr. B is like as a person and his coaching style. We all know about his amazing success as an athlete and a coach, but what’s the guy like in every day conversation and what would you say his coaching style is?

To put it in one word, Dr. B is very blunt in his coaching style. If we are doing something wrong, he tell us. And tell us again. And tell us again like a broken record until we start doing it correctly.