The sit-to-stand test

From time to time I post something motivated by an article I found, dealing with exercise or fitness tests. Recently, I stumbled upon an article about the "sit to stand" test. In my article "Fitness for masters" I had given a battery of tests which included a "sitting-rising" test. But that test consisted in getting down on the ground and getting back up with as small a support from knees and arms as possible. In my article I was pointing out that the test in question was rather tricky. Indeed, its score is based on the appreciation of the person conducting it and, since any support subtracts one point from an initial total of just 10, even small differences in appreciation can result in a big divergence of results. 

When I read about the sit to stand test I realised that it was a much better choice: it is simpler, essentially objective and, despite the appearance, not trivially easy. In fact, I was shocked when, in some related article, I read about a study of a team of Duke University that was mentioning that 2 million persons in the US alone have trouble standing after sitting on a chair. 

So, what is the sit-to-stand test. To put it simply, it measures how many times within 30 seconds one can rise from seated to a standing position. One starts by siting in the middle of the chair. (Of roughly 45 cm height. No armrests!). The arms are crossed with the hands on the opposing shoulders. At the "go" signal one rises to a full standing position and immediately goes back to sitting again. This is repeated for 30 seconds, counting the number one did come to a standing position. (If one must use his arms to stand, the test is interrupted before the end time).

Despite its simplicity the test is a very good indicator of the lower limb muscle strength as well as the overall balance of the individual, according to a comprehensive study of a team of the University of Pusan (Korea). Used on older individuals its a good predictor of the frequency of falls, according to a study of a team of the University of Pennsylvania. It is even a good indicator of mortality risks.  The test is typically performed of senior subjects (but results on young adults and even children do exist). Below is a table with the average scores for subjects of ages from 60 to 95. 

A poor score on the test suggests that the heart may not be functioning well, which entails a higher risk for a heart attack or a stroke. A low score can also be an indication that the person is more prone to falls (which are the leading cause of accidental death and nonfatal injury in older adults). But does this mean that if one scores poorly the game is up? Not at all. Just making sure that one spends less time seated, stands up regularly, goes up and down the stairs can work miracles. Adding some stretching exercise to the daily routine will be most beneficial. And, as in all tests, re-doing regularly the test itself, will have a training effect, resulting in improved performances.

Why I don't like the Grand Slam Track

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the Grand Slam Track event created by M. Johnson where I was criticising it mainly because I don't appreciate Johnson. But not only. Somehow I could not relate with the formula proposed by the GST. Already in my previous article I had written that I found that the short-lived "Nitro", promoted by U. Bolt, had more variety. And then I stumbled upon a YouTube video by somebody under the nickname of Jumpman and it put to words what I was intuitively feeling.  

Let's take a Diamond League meeting. The main program lasts roughly two hours and comprises around 10 track and 5 field events. The whole duration of the track events does not exceed 30 minutes. So, out of the two hours only a quarter of the time is there something to watch on track. The remaining time is filled by the field events which can be held in parallel and have an additive duration exceeding the two hours. 

So, what happens when you organise an event like the GST? Since there are no field events and there is no way to compress the track events beyond some point (hurdles have to be installed and removed, judges have to move to the various start locations), the "empty" time can be quite long. Jumpman estimates that less than 10 % of the time there is something taking place on the track. So despite the presence of some of the best athletes of the world the competition can at times become boring.

Speaking about the best athletes, one can remark that money is a great incentive. The outdoor season has just started and S. McLaughlin has already raced twice (both over the hurdles and the flat 400 m) while in previous years one had to wait till the US Trials to watch her first competition. In GST, raking 100 k dollars for every win, she is willing to take the risk of starting her season unusually early. 

But of course not everything is bad about GST. Quite the opposite. It's an occasion for great performances like the fabulous 12.17 of M. Russell in the 100 m hurdles. And also the occasion to see some athletes like A. Hall (to my opinion the best "young" heptathlete out there, the one that can succeed Thiam, and also the only one that can break N. Debois' legendary 800 m heptathlon record) that we don't see often enough. (Hall ran the 400 m hurdles in Miami, with 54.43 s at just 0.01 s off her personal best).

Besides Grand Slam Track there is another event organised recently by the great R. Crouser. It is called the World Shot Put Series and was held at the end of April. And, while it comprised just one event, I found the formula more interesting than the one of GST. 

Here is how the WSPS works. Before proceeding I must say that the whole thing is US-centric to a point that it feels gross: measures in feet, referees dressed and using hand signals as in baseball, measures using a chain as in football (the american one) and so on. If Crouser wishes to make his World Series a real international event he must abandon this US-kowtowing rigmarole. But the basic idea is great.

The athletes must throw beyond a fixed mark. They have two attempts at each distance (and one "challenge" to be used once for an extra attempt). Target distances advance by 10 ft (~3 m) increments up to 60 ft (~18 m). (Probably that's where the competition starts at high level). Beyond 60 ft, the increments are of 2 ft (~60 cm) up to 70 ft (~21 m) and beyond this the increments are of just 1 foot. (And there is also a proviso for the tie-breaks). There is nothing in these rules that cannot be made metric. And reducing the increments to 50 an 25 cm will give the athletes the opportunity to "throw more". In fact this is a major appeal of the WSPS formula. While in a "normal" competition an athlete can hope to throw six times, here an athlete starting at 18 m and going to 22 m will have thrown more than 10 times, probably close to 15 with a reasonable number of misses.

I don't know the financial details of the World Shot Put Series. But perhaps nothing was fixed in this year's competition, which was, in Crouser's words, intended as a "soft launch" of the event. In any case, the winner, R. Steen, went home with a championship belt, just like boxing champions do. Next year's competition (provided it materialises) will have two groups, an "open field", for "ordinary" throwers and a professional field with eight among the best world throwers. I will keep an eye open and report here.

On "wind doping" stupidity

I was not planning to write an article following the superb performances of Allman and Denny and the new world record of Alekna in Ramona. But then I stumbled upon an article in Insidethegames where they were reporting the comments of swedish journalists and coaches. Commentator Mats Wennerholm had apparently stated "Weather doping should be added to the banned list". I was infuriated by this statement. This is not journalism; it's pure clickbait. Somebody should point out to Mr. Wennerholm that there is a capital difference between doping and weather. Doping is something that you do to give you an unfair advantage over the other competitors. Weather is the same for all the athletes participating in the same competition. (Pilpul-oriented readers will point out that the wind intensity may vary throughout an horizontal jump competition, but they should agree that my distinction between doping and weather is valid).

It is not by happenstance that the negative comments came from Sweden, the country of World and Olympic champion D. Stahl. At least Stahl's coach was less insulting in his comment: "it's a different sport". But I am convinced that, had Stahl participated in the Oklahoma Throws Series, he would have been happy with a 70+ m throw. 

V. Allman throwing in Ramona

So, what is my point of view concerning the effect of wind, in particular in discus throw. I will state it clearly: forget about wind-speed limits. Already the wind-speed limits of sprints and horizontal jumps are iffy, but introduce one for the discus would be downright preposterous. Not everybody agrees with me. Just before writing this article I was enjoying a coffee with my Décapassion friends Frédéric and Pierre Gousset in a parisian café, and they are of the opinion that there should be limitations to the wind speed allowed in discus throw competitions. Although I agree with them that a strong head-wind does offer an advantage, I maintain that there is no simple way to quantify it.

But let us start at the beginning. More than 10 years ago I wrote an article entitled "Wind effects". It's one of the most popular posts of my blog with close to 3 k visits since its publication. I introduced the article with a quote from a 1980 post of Track & Field editor Bert Nelson: "The philosophy behind the official approval of sprint records is absurdly primitive. Permitting a record with a tailwind of 2 m/s was an arbitrary decision". (And he went on to suggest that the registered sprint times should be adjusted so as to take into account the assistance of the wind, a suggestion I am 100 % in favour of). But where does this "magic" number of 2 m/s come from? Like many things in Athletics it is a heritage from the olden days, based on (borderline-pseudo)scientific studies, just like the 100 milliseconds limit for the false starts. In the 1930's a supposedly scientific study showed that the tail-wind velocity should be below 1 m/s so as not to offer a performance gain greater than 0.1 second. That was the era when the times were homologated with 0.1 second precision, and so the 1 m/s speed limit did make sense. And the IAAF seeking, as always, not to rock many boats, opted for a compromise of 2 m/s. There you have it: the putatively scientific foundation of the wind-speed limit is a pure compromise. Five years ago I wrote a series of articles under the general heading "Imperative changes". One article of the series was devoted to wind measurements where, among others, I present the results of a study of P.N. Linthorne on the accuracy of wind measurements. (I suggest that you go read that article if you are really interested in the effects of wind in Athletics).

But let us go back to the discus throw. Does a strong head-wind present an advantage? Undoubtedly! (I remember an article of P.J. Vazel on ex-world recordman Y. Dumchev, a 70+ m thrower, who confided to Vazel that once in training under strongly windy conditions he threw close to 80 m). The recent competition in Ramona was a perfect proof of the head-wind advantage. V. Allman and L. Tausaga threw personal bests at 73.52 m and 70.72 m respectively. Y. Perez, could not get a good throw and finished fourth (behind V. Fraley, 68.72 m), with 66.96 m. But last year, in Ramona, she had thrown a huge 73.09 m. The men's results were even more impressive. M. Alekna and M. Denny threw beyond the existing world record with 75.56 and 74.78 m respectively. Three more athletes were beyond 70 m: S. Mattis, 71.27 m, C. Prufer 71.01 m and L. Okoye 70.76 m. (and we should not forget M. Sosna who threw 70.75 m the previous day of the Continental Tour competition, to say nothing of A. Rose who threw 70.42 m in 2023). Among the 2500 men's best performances (including ancillary marks) 75(!) were obtained in Ramona. (Also 26 among women's 4000 best performances, but one should keep in mind that for a long time the event was eastern-Europe dominated. In fact  Neubrandenburg has 85 entries in the women's all-time bests list).

Are we able to quantify the effect of wind on discus throw? Are there serious aerodynamic studies that would offer a clear answer on what is the advantage offered by a head-wind as a function of velocity and direction with respect to the throw? Unfortunately, no. And even if such studies were available, how do we get to measure the wind in the case of a discus trajectory? In a 70 m throw a discus can reach a height of more than 10 m. Measuring the wind-speed at ground level is clearly useless. But then, which height do we choose for the measurement? And at which point of the trajectory? And how do we account for varying wind direction? All these questions can be answered, in principle. But I don't think a practical implementation is feasible. So, instead of some absurd and arbitrary decision, it is best to promote the Oklahoma Throws Continental Tour event and make sure that the best world throwers go there to profit from the favourable windy conditions. 

Two funny remarks are in order before concluding. The article of Insidethegames comments that Ramona has earned the nickname "Throw Town" and adds "the local weather provides wind conditions favourable to big throws and unlike track events, there is no limit on maximum permissible tail-winds in the field". Reading these lines I am afraid that the journalist who wrote this does not understand that discus, just like airplanes, fare better in strong head-winds. And in some other article I ran across the  term "gale-force" wind. It was definitely used to cause a sensation, but I decided to check. Force 7 in the Beaufort scale is a "near gale" and you need force 8 in order to have real gale, with wind speeds of around 20 m/s. During the competition in Ramona the wind speed was reported as 5 m/s, and according to the Beaufort scale it is just a force 3 gentle breeze.

So, please, stop using the words "Wind or Weather Doping". It's a disgusting yellow journalism practice and, if nothing else, insulting for the athletes. 

Revisiting the javelin controversy

The very first year of the existence of the blog I wrote an article entitled "the javelin controversy" which was motivated by the short-lived spanish style of the 50s. That article was going to become the most popular one of the 470+ posts of my blog. What did help was that at some point there had been a discussion in the Athletics Weekly forum on the Spanish Style Javelin Technique and somebody gave the link to my post. My blog was mostly unknown at that time and this helped to increase the audience. But that was years ago, the discussion in AW does not exist for many years now but the "javelin controversy" continues to attract readers. As of this writing it has 12.6 k views, out of a total of 320 k for the blog, close to 4 %.

Before writing about, what I like to refer to as, the "jabalina española" I would like to state clearly that I am in favour of rotational techniques. In the case of the hammer throw the rotations were facilitated by the replacement of the traditional wooden handle by a wire one (although a hammer throw involving a wooden handle is still in use in the Scottish Highland Games). In the case of the discus, the rotational technique allowed to reach distances that were unthinkable with the un-natural and arbitrarily fixed technique of the "greek style" (as if anybody knew how the ancients threw the discus). And in the shot put everybody is slowly moving towards the spinning technique, which allowed the current performances to be on par with the ones registered in the pre-doping-control era. But in the case of the javelin, the International Federation decided to kill the new technique in the crib instead of thinking of other methods that would have made the event safe. 

I have always been in admiration of the spanish style, although I know that there is some mythology concerning the performances. I have been referring to it from time to time in my blog. But what did decide me to write this article is that I found, by chance, a short video where Miguel de la Quadra Salcedo is telling succinctly the story of the style and makes a demo (but bear in mind that the video is from the 90s when de la Quadra was over 60 years old). You can watch the video (I hardcoded english subtitles) and then go on with reading the article.

I knew that the jabalina española evolved from the barra vasca but that was as far as my knowledge went. When I saw the video of de la Quadra I decided to dig deeper and learn something about this traditional basque throw. The first surprise was when I consulted the Wikipedia and I found that the weight for the barra was 7 kg (standardised to 7.257 kg, just as for the shot put) for men and 4 kg for women. There was no way people could throw such a heavy implement at 50 m. The answer is that the article was talking about the barra española of which there exist several local variants. I found the details in some blog post and all became clear. The barras aragonesa and castellana are heavy and the record with the heavy barra is just shy of 20 m. But the basque is different, longer and with a weight of just 3.5 kg. It is made of steel with a "head" of a diameter of (roughly) 3 cm and an overall length of 40 cm, tapering towards the "tail". The latter has a diameter of (roughly) 1.5 cm and  length of 110 cm. Thus the overall length of the barra is 1.5 m. The relatively lighter barra makes possible underhand throws with a run-up consisting of three turns. The movie below shows Manuel Clavero who still holds the record of the barra vasca with 56.39 m, established in 1960. (The women's record is just 36.96m, Karmele Olaizola from 1990, which makes one think that the women were throwing the same weight barra as men).  

The barra vasca was part of the Spanish National Championships from the 30s till 1963 but then disappeared only to survive in some regional competitions of "rural" sports. There are some efforts for its revival but I am afraid that the die is cast. The barra vasca could have left a fabulous legacy to the international athletics if World Athletics (it was called IAAF at that time) were less timorous but, alas, that was not to be. 

Félix Erauskín was a spanish thrower, with national titles in shot put, discus throw, javelin and also the barra vasca (with a personal best of 49.09 m). He participated in the 1948, London, Olympics in the discus throw and, in his interview, de la Quadra says that, in London, Erauskín made an exhibition of barra vasca throw. It is not clear whether that indeed happened but, on the other hand, the barra vasca was supposed to be a demonstration sport in the Berlin, 1936, Olympics (although, in the end that did not materialise). Erauskín was a great sportsman with a 50+ years career. He was master world champion in the 70+ category in 1979, just 8 years before his demise. But the most important moment in his career came in 1956. At 48 years of age he presented a new style for the javelin throw inspired by the barra vasca throwing technique. And he beat the national record. 

Erauskín throwing the javelin

The barra vasca specialists understood that the new technique could allow huge throws and they started experimenting with it. J.A. Iguarán (the first to throw over 50 m with the barra with a 52.61 record), de la Quadra (with a personal best of 48.29 m at the barra) and Clavero himself. Iguarán threw 77 m and de la Quadra reached 82.80 m at less than a metre from the world record. 

The disaster struck when de la Quadra, who was training in Paris, participated in a competition, on September 23rd, where, throwing in the rotational style, he managed, with 66.25 m, to beat Michel Macquet who held the french national record. (Macquet obtained his first french record with 64 m in 1954 but in 1956 he had already thrown 79 m). The world became aware of the new technique. In the meantime the progression in Spain was dazzling. Erauskín threw 74.32 on October 7th and 83.40 m on the 12th (at just 26 cm from the world record of J. Sidlo). Clavero threw 82.94 m on October 21st and on the 28th he reached 89.66 m, beating de la Quadra who was second with 83.80 m.

With de la Quadra throwing in spanish style in Paris, the cat was out of the bag. It was something so spectacular that the news agencies all over the world talked about this. At that time a short movie with the most interesting world news was usually shown in cinemas before the main attraction and the "spanish javelin" was shown everywhere. There is a funny story involving the 1932 olympic champion M. Järvinen (and world record holder from 1930 to 1936 with a 77.23 m personal best). In October 1956 he was alerted by a friend that there was a short movie from a competition in Barcelona where (practically) unknown  spaniards were throwing over 80 m with their new style. Järvinen went to the cinema and watched the short clip (twice) and exiting he called his friend T. Rautavaara (the 1948 olympic champion and a 75+ thrower) and asked him to meet him the next day. (Järvinen was 47 years old and Rautavaara 41). And the next morning, Järvinen, positioning himself at just ten metres from the throwing line, spinned and threw the javelin at over 80 m. Rautavaara was impressed and became converted to the spanish style. But it was too late for the Finns to go after the olympic medals in Melbourne. (It is really astonishing that S. Nikkinen who had improved the world record in June with a throw of 83.56 m was not selected for the Melbourne Olympics, held in late November, the motive being that he was out of shape). 

It is said that Rautavaara reached 84 m with the spanish style 

On October 24th, the IAAF took the decision to ban the "spanish style", invoking safety reasons, forbidding the athlete to turn his back to the landing sector until the throw is completed. (Had the spanish athletes remained discreet, presenting themselves in Melbourne and winning the olympic event in their revolutionary style, the history might have been different. But Franco had decided to boycott the Olympics so as to spite the Soviets and thus the whole matter is moot). In Spain things took some time before settling down. So, in the 1957 national championships the "spanish style" was still allowed and Erauskín won with a 81.76 m throw. 

Erauskín did not let himself become disheartened by the IAAF decision. He modified his style removing the turns but keeping the underhand throwing style. A few days after the IAAF decision he threw 72.76 m with his new style. But the IAAF would not have it, they banned this style also, requiring that throughout the entire process of the throw the javelin be kept at an overhand position. It was game over for the "jabalina española", victim of the International Federation timorousness. All the more so, since the underhand technique without turns was definitely not dangerous as the thrower could control the trajectory of the implement.

If you followed the clip with de la Quadra you must have noticed that he talks about Danielsen holding the world record with 81.30 m which is simply wrong. In 1955 it was Bud Held who had the world record with 81.75 m, a record broken by Nikkinen as we saw above. Danielsen became world record holder after his winning throw of 85.71 m in the Melbourne Olympics in November 1956. But this may be just a memory lapse of de la Quadra. What is somewhat more intriguing are the references to exceptional throws. This is unfortunately part of a certain mythology developed around the jabalina española. We find thus a reference to Erauskín throwing 94.50 m during en exhibition on April 1957 (using the rotational style). As for de la Quadra, he went to Puerto Rico to perfect his underhand style, working with the coach of the University of Puerto Rico, surpassing 89 m. But de la Quadra himself is talking about 94 m in the clip. Is this because we have a tendency to embellish the past? Anyhow there are hearsay's that Erauskín threw over 100 m and de la Quadra reached a mythical 112.30 m. Nobody knows whether these throws were indeed true. (The longest, more or less, documented throw is  a "mere" 99.52 m by P. Saarikoski). E. Danielsen, writing one year after his olympic victory, speculated that with the rotational style throws of over 120 m would have been possible. Unfortunately we will never see them.