Athletics (British Sports Library)

CHAPTER X FOR GAMES MASTERS AND COACHES WE now come to the consideration of perhaps the most difficult section of athletics. Every time the athlete goes out to train he will want to see just how brilliantly he can perform, and just so often as he does this he will inevitably impair his chances of achieving ultimate success. Apart from individual ability and aptitude, success in the field events is all a question of a-ccurate timing and the dovetailing of muscle movement. At the very commencement it should be stated that it is practically impossible for the field events man to tram alone. The best plan of all is to work under the eye of a field events expert. Failing this, one must train with a brother athlete, both having acquired book and pictorial or ocular experience of technique, so that the one may watch t~e other at work and each in turn act as finder of faults and detector of improvement in technique. The instructor of field events men must set him– self the task of seeing that his charges practise 187