With the end of the 2024-2025 school year coming very quickly, athletes may be considering new sports to try for next year. Track and Field is a sport that on paper seems simple, but in practice can be very nuanced and technical.
One common method of throwing a shot put or discus is called the rotation technique. Marshall Benney, a sophmore and Woodgrove shot put/discus thrower explained, “The rotation technique is a series of movements that cause the implement to gain speed upon the point of release. There are four different steps of the movement. You have the starting position, the South African position, the half turn, and then you have the finish.” For any curious, the South African is the part of the rotation movement where one is entering the middle of the shot-put circle.
Shot put is a sport that can be daunting technique wise, and warming up before starting to throw can be a good idea. Benny explained, “Don’t so much think about how far the implement is going. Think of making the movement pretty and precise. A good warm up routine is doing dynamic and static stretches.”
Hurdling is a very daunting event to run, as one wrong step can cause you to be out of the race. Brienza Marraccini, a senior and Woodgrove hurdler, explained a common mistake that many hurdlers make, “Stutter stepping is when you hesitate to go over the hurdle so that you can go over the hurdle using your favoring leg. Sometimes new hurdlers have a “favorite leg”, as they call it. So they’ll stutter steps and then they can hurdle over the leg that they prefer, and if you stutter a step, that’s going to make you go slower.”
Like shot put, hurdling too can seem daunting at first glance. Marraccini advised, “It goes down to practice. The more you practice, the more it just becomes mental, like just muscle memory.”
Long jump is a sport that may look easy at first, but can be very challenging. Sky Stone, a senior and Woodgrove jumper explained many early mistakes made by jumpers, “When you extend your leg to try to hit the long jump board, this can cause you to lose your speed and your power for your jump, and so you end up jumping a lot worse. Another common mistake is looking down while jumping, because, if you look down, you kind of tilt your chest down and your body will kind of naturally go downwards into the sand earlier.”
A key way to maximise distance while jumping is to have a good landing. Stone stated, “First, you jump then do a knee drive, then when in the air, what you want to do is bring your knees and legs forward. And if you can, you want to bring them up, and then you want to extend your legs. And so you’re almost in like a pike position midair, and then ideally, your heels of your feet will hit the sand first and then you crouch down into the sand from your feet, and that will maximize your distance.”
This advice given by former Woodgrove athletes will hopefully be useful if you are considering any of these events. From shot put to hurdling to long jump, many things are different, but one thing stays the same, technique is very important.