 to glide or rotate. That is the question, which one is better? What are the pros and cons of both? We are gonna talk about it in this video, so check it out. Hey, everybody, it's Eric Johnson from Airtave Throws Nation. In today's video, we are gonna talk about the glide versus the rotational shot. We get a lot of questions. People ask, which one's better? Which one should I do? And so what I thought I would do is a simple pros and cons of each. And then at the end, we will kind of vote on which one we think is best. So that said, let's look at, kick this off. We're looking and talking about the glide versus the rotational. Obviously, I get a lot of questions. People submit those all the time and say, hey, should I do this? Should I make the switch? I'm gonna get to what that answer is. I thought I would kick it off with looking at the top four women at the Tokyo Olympics, right? So we have Gong of China. We have Raven Saunders of the US, Valerie Adams of New Zealand and Ariel Dongmo of Portugal. So first, third and fourth were gliders and our silver medalist was Raven, who's a rotation. Now that said, one of the things I wanted to look at, let's, as we kind of go through that, let's talk about the glide. Let's look at pros of the glide. It's super linear, right? So it's simpler technique. And because of that, there's another plus of it that you can kind of self-learn it a little better. You can get close. Now it may not be good technique. And because it's a simpler technique does not necessarily mean it's easier. So one of the cons is it's harder to execute at a high level. So as we were talking about, one of the pros, again, is the good thing about the glide is it really does teach that linear connection and how to connect to the throw. And I think the shot put does that in general. But I think when you're thinking more linear like the glide, it kind of teaches the blocking elements definitely a little bit easier because you're rotating in the shot and that timing of stopping the block, whereas when you're just kind of turning and throwing it the direction of the throw, you can kind of learn that connection. Now you still have a little bit of a rotational component to the glide with the lower body, but the upper body is really more linear, which is why when we stop and we look at these delivery positions of all these different ladies, you can see this is one of the things we've talked about in another video, how you kind of come down. You have a more linear delivery. And this is why I think Dong Mo, I think was a little rotated out of that finish a little bit, whereas you can see Adams and Gong were more linear. Now you look at the rotational throw and you see that she's really squared up to the shot and that's going to be something we're going to talk about and when we get to the rotation. So another pro of the glide is that when you're kind of learning, this is why I think you see a lot of multi event athletes working on the glide instead of rotating because it's simpler and it's more consistent. So in big meets, especially, I think you're going to run into less file trouble. So that's another pro. More consistent allows you to avoid fouls. Now another reason why I think a pro of the glide is that if you have a hard time rotating, then the glide is again, another good way for you to connect. And sometimes if you're throwing the discus, sometimes that change in rhythm, if you don't have a clear understanding of the two, sometimes that's where I think the glide is a good shift. Now the other side of that is that if you're throwing both, now you're working on two different techniques, but you're still working on two different techniques, but they're very similar and there's key changes that you can make. So that can be its own challenge when we talk about that in the rotation. So cons of the glide, we already kind of mentioned, hard to execute at a high level. One success is usually, I think a good indicator of glide success is how big your stand throw is. So if you don't have a naturally a really big stand throw, the odds of you being successful, I think, with the glide are much more limited. Now that said, you probably, to be a really good glider, I think you have to be a complete savage. You have to be incredibly strong, fast and explosive. It does benefit longer, taller throwers, so that's a con. If you're not super tall, then it's not quite as advantageous. I think you're gonna have a better opportunity with the rotational shot, which I will discuss. So one in the beginning I said it's a little bit simpler technique. I did kind of usually always add the following in terms of a con. The glide is unforgiving. That means if you miss a couple of things right, especially we talk about inside throwing chain reaction, if we get those first couple of pillars are set up and our chain reaction set up incorrect, it's over. The glide is a less complex, fast, quick technique. The ball moves on a shorter path. That's another con. So that means if you get a couple of things wrong, I think it's over. Your potential on that particular throw decreases significantly. And again, if you're not tall, if you're not super explosive and you're not super strong, this is where I really think the glide is going to be limited. Now, here's an argument. On the women's side, seven of the 12 Olympic finalists, were gliders, five, obviously rotational. So here's the other thing what I said before, if you're not the biggest thrower, that isn't gonna be a good advantage for you. So now on the men's side, zero of the top 12 were gliders. So that says a lot about the competitiveness and what's required. Now, there's been tons of great gliders. There's been some big and tall, most of them tall, but on the men's side and the women's side. But most of now what you're seeing in recent years, especially on the men's side, there's no elite. We're not any current in the last world championships or the Olympics, any gliders on the men's side. Now, let's look at the rotational shot. Throws, I think the rotational shot is a little bit more forgiving. I think you can be a little out of position once you're generally throwing right and still kinda hit pretty good consistent throws. I think you can take a smaller athlete and that athlete can compete with bigger athletes. So you look at Raven Saunders, she is short by a lot shorter than these other three women and you saw that she is a savage and crushed it. So she's about five, six, Adams is like six, four, Dongmo's over six foot and I'm not exactly sure the height of Gong, I wanna say she's five, 10-ish. So I could be wrong. So again, with the rotational shot, you have a greater distance that the shot is moving. So this gives you a greater opportunity to increase the speed and more speed and more distance is going to typically add to more distance, right? The path of the shot is moving. So this is why I say it's a little more forgiving cause you have a little bit more opportunity and a smidge more time on the ball, not much. Both of these things take, you know, well under just under two seconds and that's a big deal. So again, one of the other pros is the rotational shot. Typically you see that rotational shot putters have a much bigger conversion from a stand throw to a full throw. I in my own experience have seen most of my athletes, you know, 12 feet, 10 feet would be kind of, I would say a sub par conversion and pretty average is 12 and is up to as much as 15 feet. And where with the glide, I think if you can get seven or eight feet, that's exceptional. Most kids are gonna get anywhere from two to three feet and, you know, five on average and seven to eight is exceptional. So I think that's another pro of the rotation. I think you annually, you see much bigger jumps in the rotational, in your distance as a rotational shot putter because as you're learning the technique and it's getting better and better, you're still increasing, you're seeing those bigger jumps every year. What are the cons of the rotational shot? It's harder to self-learn. It definitely can lead to foul trouble and bigger meats and it's technically more complex, but when you have something like a system like we offer with the throwing chain reaction, we're firm believers, we've seen it over and over, we can get kids in literally a matter of four and a half, five hours and they're doing a pretty respectable full throw and throwing distances that are on par with their glide already after maybe a day or pretty close. That's one of the kind of indicators we talk about too, about switching. If you're within a few feet, you should probably definitely make the switch. If you lose something like 10 feet on your throw, give it a little bit, but after about three, four weeks, if you're not seeing that you're throwing close to that glide distance, it's probably not gonna be a good switch. Like I said earlier, five of the 12 women's Olympic finalists were rotational throwers and on the men's side, we see that all of the 12 finalists are rotational shoppers. So it says a lot. Now, here's the thing, both events no matter what, whether you're choosing to be a glider or a rotational thrower, they're gonna expose strength and strength needs and strength imbalances and stuff like that. So whereas I think the discus, there's some room for cheating and that kind of thing, but with the shot, you're definitely gonna see where you have strength because there's so much more power required and both I think are good to utilize in any capacity to train and improve your discus. Now, where that all being said, who do I give the nod to? It goes to the rotational shot. I think when, you know, I think that's the preferred technique. We teach, when we teach the discus, we teach those key differences to the rotational shot. I think when you look and you see something like Raven Saunders, again, you see that she's like five, six, super explosive, she has the opportunity to move that ball on a much longer path, whereas these taller, super explosive athletes, right? I don't think if we were, if Raven was gliding, I don't think she's throwing the same type of distances. I bet she's still really successful. I bet she's throwing, you know, 60, 61 feet, but instead she's throwing, you know, 65 feet, 66 feet kind of range. And, you know, there's more there as she continues to improve and whatnot, second Olympics already. She's still an athlete, has got a lot of prime years left. So these are the things that why we say at the end of the day, the rotation gets the nod and gets the win and gets the recommendation, but you are going to need to learn the technique. And that's the key. Like I said, we are able to do this over and over a club record. You know, single season is 17 foot PR. We, last year we had one of our athletes who comes in for private training camps and we had switched them from the glide to the rotation. We had a kid named Peyton, he came in, he went from about 43, 44 feet to 60 feet. So really close on that kind of level. So we keep seeing this, we've converted tons of throwers from the glide to the rotation. And I think your overall potential for bigger distances goes to the rotational shot. So again, if you would like to learn more about how to improve your glide or how to improve your rotational shot, please do not hesitate to check out our throwing chain reaction system. Again, we take that throw, both of these throws are happening under two seconds. They're super quick. You can't train, if you're just training the throw you're leaving results on the table and you're working the slowest way possible to get better. We show you how to break that down, understand the throw, how to find your specific weaknesses and train those so that you improve and throw farther faster. That's the goal. So thank you guys so much for watching. Hopefully this helped and do us a favor to keep this channel really going, how we're able to put these videos out, that like, those comments, that makes a huge difference. So please take the time to do that for us. And we will see you guys on the next video.