The history of the javelin event has seen the javelin reach 104.80m in 1984 (Uwe Hohn) beating Tom Petranoff's (USA) magnificent 99.72m. The IAAF then decided to change the event by altering the center of gravity and hence the dynamics of the implement. The result saw a drop in distance with the first world record being 78.62m, a drop of 26m. With the refinement of javelins and the emphasis on adjusting the technical model, we have seen the world record move to 98.48m by Jan Zelezny Czech Republic. The frequency of 90m male javelin throwers has diminished since the change in center of gravity. It seems to be increasingly more difficult for throwers to produce 90m throws using the standard techniques being coached throughout the world. One possible cause is the prevalence of the linear technique being employed by most coaches world-wide. But why the linear technique? Is it that most senior coaches are still employing the same successful coaching methods used for many years and stick with what has worked in the past? Or is it that there are few new coaches with success at the elite level and coaching linear technique is simply a safe approach towards high performance? Why aren't coaches around the world trying to use Rotational Technique? It may be that the technical model seems too hard to control, too difficult to teach and there are few validated references to go by. Whatever the reason many coaches are reluctant to bring into their teaching model elements of rotational throwing or to adapt to full rotational technique. Linear throwing in its purest form has its limitations. The seemingly unbeatable Andreas Thorkildsen with a near-perfect linear model is still seven meters behind Zelezny's World Best. The successful throwers in recent times who have employed rotational concepts have been Jan Zelezny, Sergey Makarov, Kostadinos Gatsioudis, Aleksandr Ivanov, Jarrod Bannister, Tero Pitkamaki, Petr Frydrych, Gavin Lovegrove to name a few. The pre-1986 era has shown Miklos Nemeth, Ferenc Paragi, Hanu Siitonen, Uwe Hohn with three being world record set- ters. Many of these throwers use only aspects of rotational throwing but nonetheless have phenomenal results. The most difficult rotational model to master is to start from the feet upwards. The best male throwers employing this method are Miklos Nemeth 94.58m and Jan Zelezny 98.48m. Tiina Lillak (Finland) and Joanna Stone (Australia) were arguably the best female throwers of rotational technique from the feet upwards. The majority of rotational throwers mainly rotate through the shoulders and secondarily the hips.
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