Walter...
I think your message including your bench-press analogy makes sense
As you make a stroke, several muscles are involved. Here, it isn't so much that different muscles take over as it is that there is a transition in the amount of involvement of one muscle group to another even if most of them are involved throughout the stroke.
Another analogy I like to use is that of driving a stick shift car. A really good driver can coordinate and control the combined use of the clutch and the accelerator so well that a passenger is hardly aware that shifting has occurred.
Gordy
From: WALTER/SUE SIMBIRSKI <simbirsw@xxxxxxx>
To: Gordon Hill <hillshead@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Smoothness
Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:55:07 -0700
Gordy - back to the results of the Sage casting analyzer.
After my first trial I had made the comment that I expected slowing down
my stroke would improve the smoothness of my stroke. I believe your response
indicated that they were probably unrelated issues. The results of the second
test show that bringing the speed down did improve my smoothness but certainly
didn't bring it in line with the expert caster. If keeping score was important
I have to concede that you were more right (significantly more) than I was. It
makes sense now that I have a better understanding of how the smoothness score
was/is calculated. During the stroke the smoothness score is calculated based
on sudden changes in acceleration during the stroke. Slowing down the stroke
will reduce the magnitude of these changes (improving the score somewhat) but
they still occur so until one actually works specifically on improving smoothness
it is unlikely to improve into an "ideal" range.
Harkening back to days of previous athletic endeavours I am reminded of the
concept of "sticking points" in weightlifting. A good example is the bench
press - no matter how heavy the weight is you can almost always get it a few
inches off of your chest. After that there is a zone where the lift is going
to be made or broken because if you can push the weight up through that zone
it becomes relatively easy to complete the lift and "lock out" (arm straight
position) the weight. Given your background you would have a much better
understanding of this than I do but the theory we used was that during the lift
different muscle groups came into play and the transition between muscle
groups was where the sticking points occurred. Part of training was to try
and strengthen the muscles in the sticking points (limited movement exercises)
and to reduce the sticking points (more explosion just before the sticking
point so that inertia would help carry the weight through the sticking point).
Seems to me that there is a similar analogy happening during the casting
stroke and that the goal is to work on a smooth transition through the
sticking points or, more accurately in this case, transitioning muscle groups.
Cheers
Walter