From the Archives, pt.5---Sport's New Fundamentalists

It's interesting how every sport has its fundamentals for learning and training. These fundamentals are basic to their respective sports and have been for ages. In running and other sports like weightlifting, stress is added to workouts progressively as the athlete becomes fitter. In sports such as basketball,baseball and football, how you throw,hit,catch and shoot has remained the same for decades.These fundamentals have not changed because they take into account the basics of anatomy and physiology. What follows was written sometime in the early '90's and inspired by some of the people of that time who believed they had a new and better way to train distance runners. The name of the author mentioned in the article you are about to read was changed around yet may still be familiar to some despite the change.

Sport's New Fundamentalists

" So you thought running was the only sport where advocates of new training systems and techniques existed? Wrong! Combing through coaching journals I found what I call the new fundamentalists existing in America's most popular sports,basketball,baseball and football. This month we'll profile a gentleman whose revolutionary approach to basketball is changing the sport as we know it.

Dr. Andy Owenson M.S.,P.H.D. is heralding a new way of dribbling the basketball, and that is by using both hands. Dr. Owenson believes the time for players from grade school to the pro ranks to adopt his technique is now. He says: 'studies have shown that utilizing just one arm in dribbling creates unnecessary wear and tear on the player's rotator cuff, using the Owenson technique avoids this plus athletes can actually maintain greater control of the ball.' After initial skepticism, Dr Owenson is beginning to receive wider acceptance of his technique. Two-hand Junior and Muny basketball leagues are cropping up all over the country. The good Doctor and his associates are going full-time with seminars and promotion of his book, A New Path Two Success."

 I have found over the years that the introduction of a "new and revolutionary" way to distance training is always accompanied by the selling of books and seminars.It's interesting how these "new fundamentalists" make an initial splash,get the coverage in the running mags,sell alot of books,then a decade or so later they are pretty much forgotten.