More on Franka

Dietzsch

Here is a nice look at the technique common among female German throwers.

Notice how Franka sets up to kick her way out of the back (photo 3), how she how she turns her right foot like crazy even before it lands in the middle (photos 4 and 5) and how far she gets her right knee ahead of  the disc as she drives into the throw (photo 8).

Here is Lars displaying those same technical points:

Riedel1

4 thoughts on “More on Franka”

  1. I have a few more questions about the technique and thank you for answering all my questions and I have a couple of more. Did coach Schmidt talk about how far he likes the woman and the men to rotate their left foot out of the back of ring? Are both techniques trying to land in the center with right foot back at 12:00?

    1. Hey Justin:
      He said that at the back he wants his throwers shifting the left hip way left and then cranking the left foot/heel hard while pushing off with the right foot. I didn’t ask him at what angle the left foot should be when the athlete gets off it, but I know he thinks Franz Kruger and Sondra Perkovic have sound technique, so I’ve been looking at them models. In the women’s technique, the right foot is cranked hard as it lands so it will definitely be at 12:00, but Torsten said the ideal for men is having the right foot land around 4:00-5:00 and for it to be at 12:00 as the left foot lands in the power position.

  2. I should have reread my previous posts first sentence, but I did have my two young girls on my lap trying to type on the computer while daddy did. Two more questions. It seems that when they (the Germans) are starting their right leg sweep to the middle of the circle, the bring the inside of their right foot really low. Almost as if they are kicking a soccer ball that is on the ground and then the right foot is brought under the knee and raises for the sprint. Did he talk about that at all? Are they trying to create a path with the right leg sweep is it just more of a result of keeping the right on the ground longer in the back of the ring? Second question. It seems that as the girls are leaving their left foot out of the back of the ring, they are really rewrapping their left arm and the guys just seem to stall it out at 12:00 the back of the circle when they are landing in their power position. Was that talked about? Thank you again for the great blog. Great to talk to someone other than wife about throwing and I also suspect she just listens because she is a great and caring wife.

    1. Regarding the sweep, he said that men should sweep wide with the right toes out, then pull the fur in under the knee. I agree that the Germans seem to stay pretty close to the ground. I wonder if this is because they do not emphasize dropping the left knee low out of the back. Seems like the lower you drop that knee, the higher your right knee will lift as you run the ring. And I agree with your observation about female throwers really wrapping that left arm. Perkovic surely does. I did not ask Torsten about this, but John Smith–and he knows an awful lot about German technique–told me that the key to that style is creating tremendous wrap, and pulling that left arm back would help do that. He also said that the thrower has to be tremendously strong in the upper body to be able to pull the disc out of that wrapped position. Maybe that is why you don’t see male throwers pulling that left arm back–it is too hard to pull the 2K out of that position.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.