Can we throw a hammer further if we increase the number of turns?
We often hear this question or athletes themselves might have this question.

We can think of hammer throwing as consisting of three parts.
1 The preliminary swings
2 Turns
3 Release

Firstly, in the preliminary swings, an athlete swings the hammer twice (some people swing three times) without turning their body. And in the turns, the body begins to rotate (the left foot is the axis for a right-handed throw similar to baseball batting or a golf swing) alternately on the heel and toes, about 180 degrees at a time. Then, finally it’s released.

ost hammer throwers now use three or four-rotation throwing. I am a four-rotation thrower and most top athletes use a four-turn throw. But the world record holder, Yuriy Sedykh, is a three-turn thrower. You can not regard a current four-rotation throw as just a three-rotation throw plus one more turn. I think it’s impossible for a three-rotation thrower to set a record with the idea that adding one more turn to a three-rotation throw gives more chance to accelerate the hammer. It is clear that a four-rotation thrower who started throwing three-rotation throws would lose his rhythm. A three-turn-throw has its own rhythm and a four-turn throw does too. In both forms, it is crucial to have the hammer moving at maximum speed at the release point. Once there was a time of transition between a two-turn form and a three-turn one. There was also a time a lot of athletes began to try the four-turn form, and people imagined that increasing the number of turns even further might improve results. It was thought that adding one more rotation to a three turn throw would require a large increase in muscle force, since the speed would increase past the third turn. But now there is a different idea. We clearly rely on rhythm and timing. It is my theory of training to develop the muscular strength used for rhythm and timing.