today on Future Sports heavyweight boxer Ken Norton joins us what a puncher he is and our

computer analysis zeros in on world-class technique of one of America's premier shot

putters the mighty Al Fuhrbach he's going for Los Angeles gold

yes power and computers are the names of the Future Sport game today and speaking of power

we'll take an inside look at one of the great tennis serves in the game Moscow

Tanners of course all coming up on today's edition of Future Sports

welcome back to Future Sport well a lot of people have their own little crystal ball

this one you can't see through weighs 16 pounds and some people spend a lifetime

throwing it around for a living actually the man sitting next to me Al Fuhrbach glad to

have you with us buddy why have you spent so much of your life throwing a 16 pound ball

well I think the object Vic is to throw it farther than you've ever thrown it before

and this creates a challenge that it goes beyond just developing technique for throwing

it gets into the area of developing strength to make that 16 pounds feel lighter it gets into

the area of nutrition psychology and I think it's just an all-consuming challenge well you

know somebody once told me that you have a post office curriculum in the first grade but you could

also teach the post office curriculum and when you're a senior in high school and what you just

told me is you can get into physics into geometry nutrition and everything with this and so the

challenge is also just inside yourself how has science changed how people throw this 16 pound

shot well it's what it does it's made technique a much more constant factor in the event Americans

for many years were throwing on feeling and then these Germans and Russians started started rolling

the event even though we have greater talent involved in the event and the reason they did

that was because of their studies of biomechanics I think they were able to to bring an athlete to

the right positions in the throw a little more consistently but it's something that can easily

be overcome in this country science you always have to pay a price for progress somewhere when

you're doing the experimentation someone's going to take gas someone's going to be hurt now I heard

you were trying a new little project were you jumping up and off of boxes trying to get some

new strength some new technique what happened well that's called plyometrics and the Russians

have done a great deal of research in it and it's called well it's also called depth jumping

jumping from high boxes reacting very forcefully the moment you hit and I was going through about

a two-hour workout twice a week last fall and my perfect knees were suddenly ruined and at least

for the time being and I think that that was an experiment that obviously didn't turn out well

but it goes to show you that I don't believe that people of our size of our strength of our body

weight should be doing that amount of work in that particular area jumping is only slightly

important alleyway 250 pounds or more close in that area now how many calories do you have to

consume a day to keep that body weight up to make you an efficient thrower well what I'm training

hard I eat well over 6,000 sometimes up to 8,000 calories a day is that in all candy bars I don't

eat that type of item these days actually it's all in good foods and that's the difficulty in

getting that many calories is eating you know dairy products and meats and vegetables and fruits

and getting that many calories it has to be good food how the scientists are involved psychologists

are involved that we know more about the brain we know more about the athletes the athletes know

more about themselves which all boils down to someday somebody's gonna throw this thing a heck

of a lot further ten years from today how far do you think a man's gonna be able to throw this 16

pound shot I wouldn't make a fool out of myself by predicting but I'm certainly sure that that

it's gonna be farther than the present world record and it could it could well be somewhere

between 75 and 80 feet but I won't put my finger figure out of distance what are your chances for

any as far as 1984 for myself I'll be 36 years old I think in recent years people like out order

and in the throne events and a lot of these Europeans have been winning their gold medals

at a later age not out that some of the others have won their gold medals when they're 36 38

and I don't think that it's a disadvantage whatsoever I think indeed it's probably an

advantage given the athlete is healthy takes good care of himself is in good condition I think it's

an advantage yes it won't be an advantage for competitors trying to top the Olympic form of

Al Feuerbach at age 36 he's looking 284 and speaking of advantages Frank Shorter has one

for runners today's running tip is for those runners who've been entering races have been

training on a regular basis six even seven days a week and they want to improve the racing times

how do I get faster the person feels like he or she has reached a point of diminishing return in

their training well the answer is to do some speed training what are called intervals you

only need to do them about once a week and all it is is that you break down a distance of perhaps

three miles two miles to start with and run quarter miles around a track 300 yard runs

around a field run them at a pace faster than you want to run in your race and then rest as

little as possible in between each interval so for example if you're running two miles worth of

quarter miles that's eight quarters you would run eight times around the quarter mile track jog and

rest until you feel you can start the next one and still go at a pace faster than you want to

run in your race you run eight of them then maybe the next week you try it again and you run a

little faster this will improve your racing the difficulty here is that it's a very personal

thing you either have to have a coach to help you with this or you have to develop a feel for

yourself of just how much you can stand how little rest you need to do but this is what all

the good racers do to improve the nice thing about it is you can still go out and run your easy runs

80% of your running can be at a very slow pace thank you Frank later today on Future Sport will

almost trade punches with Ken Norton but coming up next a scientific look at tennis with a tip

for you players on how to improve the serve serving master himself Lasko Tanner

welcome back to Future Sport now it's time to meet the man who's finished in the top 10 in the

world for 10 consecutive years with us today on Future Sport fastest gun in the West that's

fastest serve in the world Lasko Tanner Lasko nice having you with us thanks it's great to be here

how'd you get started in tennis Roscoe well when I was six years old my dad wanted me to be able

to learn how to play tennis just so that I could play like if I became a lawyer or something like

that to do after work as a social game and there was about four or five of us that started taking

lessons together in tennis we did little league baseball we played football together and everything

else and we were very competitive and we just started playing tennis together and and really

enjoyed it and played all the time you go all over the world the first thing people ask you

serve when I want to see that 150 mile an hour serve or whatever does that put a little pressure

on you because it's kind of nice to be noted for foreigns backhand volleys and other things

but to me anytime anybody notices you as having something that's the best in the world or near the

best in the world I can't complain so just the fact that in my business if they're talking about

me that's good and the fact that they're saying it's the best I really get a great deal of

satisfaction of that because I spent a lot of time working on it and also I know that you can't win

with the serve alone and so I'll let my my ranking say whether I can do some of the other things

article was printed in one of the major newspapers magazine magazine saying hey I can predict this

man said if Roscoe Tanner plays on this particular surface he will win and automatically if he goes

on another surface he will lose in a major event in the semis or finals is that true I don't think

so I think probably my record has been inconsistent so it's hard to say to make those sort of

predictions on me because most people say that I can't play on clay and yet I've won tournaments

on clay over players they're supposed to be specialists on that surface that played one

tournament Cincinnati on clay where I beat Solomon and dips and I'm not supposed to be able to play

on clay so I think for me it's more a thing of my mental attitude when I go on the court if it's if

it's on clay am I going to be patient enough to not make the errors my natural tendencies are when

I see a shot that I can go for to be a winner I'll go for it and as a result I'll make some errors

that I shouldn't make maybe a low margin of error but but also that's the way I enjoy the game and

to me I play the game for enjoyment first I feel very fortunate because I've made a lot of money

at it you know when you serve and everybody's throwing that big cannonball at least saying

you're throwing the cannonball they want to know how much power that body is putting into the ball

we have a way in our laboratory of measuring precisely how much power is going into that

thing by measuring the forces going through the ground so we're gonna go in right now and take a

look at how you serve and how many forces go through the ground with dr. Gideon area

all right Roscoe what we want to do now is to measure how much force you're able to throw

into that serving dr. arrows inside on his magic machine all you got to do is come up hit your

regular serve stand on this force plate whatever goes through the ground is going into the serve

anytime you're ready all right let's take a look get in well Vic this is amazing look on Roscoe

then how much force it generate on the ground 349 pounds well some people might say why 349 pounds

on the ground I am generated on the rocket well anything you generate on the ground has to come

to the rocket and vice versa Newton knew that long time ago action reaction 349 pounds Roscoe

Tanner weigh only 175 175 pounds so all the force is going down has to come up 349 pounds that's

amazing man how much you wait 170 Gideon's right on them so that's two times body weight so you put

your foot against the force plate you dig in and you hit the ball you hit the ball 130 140 miles an

hour that's amazing to me you generate 349 pounds as Gideon says you shoot your cannonball by

keeping your foot on the ground and that's why because you can't shoot a cannon out of canoe

anyway Roscoe great having you with the Sun Future Sport thanks great to be here from hard serving

Roscoe Tanner to our computer scientist Gideon Ariel the most common injury in athletics and

also in common life is the lower back pain the question is why why the athletes help the lower

back pain we have shot putters a gymnast and discus tourists and runners a lot of them great

percentage of them say we have a problem with our lower back pain what is the reason well obviously

if you carry your body mass the whole trunk and the hip and you're from the other side pounding

with the legs and believe it or not when you are running you're pounding about three to four times

your body weight so if you weigh 200 pounds you you're creating about six seven hundred pounds of

force where all this force sum up the first sum up right at the lower back now with the general

public it's a little bit different story the problem is that when people stop exercising they

have a terrible abdominal strength in fact they all try to develop a little belly and when you

have a very very weak abdominal you start sinking and when you start sinking all the pressure again

is on the back so the reason is the same for the general public the reason is for weakness for the

is because the pounding and hitting the ground really hard in order to perform well and all

these forces are sum up right at the lower back that's why the most common injury in athletics

and with the general public is the lower back pain thank you get in well this man is all too

familiar with pain a heavyweight boxing champion who battled Muhammad Ali three times his career

like that of all boxers ordered the fine line between sport and combat one wrong reaction

or lack of reaction can spell the difference between glory and pain you'll meet Ken Norton

when we come back I've been around some pretty famous people in my life but always wanted to

get a chance to be around Ken Norton great opportunity for me great opportunity for you

the viewer Ken great having you with us buddy good being here now I want to ask you some questions

about yourself who are you what's your background and how'd you get into boxing assistant well

basically I got involved in the boxing when I was about 23 years old in the Marine Corps it's very

late age to start but then again in high school and college I was not introduced to boxing because

in the city I lived in which is a very small town in Illinois Jacksonville there was no boxing all

we had was basketball football track baseball and tennis I was very fortunate that I had good

training in the other sports and the coordination from those sports helped me in boxing my hand

eye coordination was fairly good my hand speed was fairly good and there were many things that

in football basketball and track and baseball that I could bring to boxing in the the positive

attitude the preparation of there were so many ways I could call it to both of all three of them

to boxing if you hadn't gone into boxing which one of those sports baseball football

baseball so on what track what would you have been in I don't know I probably would have been

a policeman because after the Marine Corps I went back home I thought about going back home

if I went back home I would have been I would have been stuck at home probably as as a policeman and

the reason I stayed in California the reason I got involved in boxing was so that I figured hey if

I'm not good in boxing I can't open up doors no doors that ultimately wouldn't be open so I felt

that by staying here and by doing things by boxing I would meet more people I would find something

that I would like to do well Ken you've been out of boxing for about a year but I know you're still

fast I know you're still powerful and earlier this week we've got a chance to take a look at you

just how powerful and how much speed you have even with a one-year layup let's take a look

well as Ken punched the heavy bag while standing on the force plate Dr. Gideon Ariel was able to

measure the forces he exerted with the jab remembers in every other sport power comes

from the ground up so let's check in with Dr. Gideon Ariel look at this week with his left jab

Ken Norton was producing 275 pounds this is on one leg on the front leg

this is over 500 pounds of force going right at the back you know Ken I I really appreciate how

much force you get out of those legs buddy but while I'm tickled to death you're at the research

centers because I always wanted to monitor how a big guy like you can make that blinding speed

coming with your arms have you ever up to this point had any electronic measurement

ah to this point I have never tried it before all right now you're going to get a chance to see what

the measurement showed here at the research center on this one Ken we checked you not only

for power but for hand speed this is the kinetic data for Ken Norton again we look on the force

Kevin what we're finding out here that every time Ken Norton hit this bag he can reach a force which

is approximately 250 sometimes a little bit more sometimes a little bit less but every time he hit

the bag it's 250 pounds on one leg also he can do it quite fast we're finding out that he can do it

almost as 10 times a second anybody can do that 10 times a second with 250 pounds every hit should be

in a great shape so buddy you've been pulling my leg Gideon says you're still like a 20 year old

looks can be deceiving but let me tell you Ken if you had had this machinery before

would that have changed your life the way the style or anything about your boxing career

I feel that this machinery and and what you're doing here is very sophisticated

so therefore having the sophistication that I had along with my regular training

having the science uh scientific data along with my regular training I thought I could have been

about 50 better at least I would have had to improve oh buddy now I'm going to put you on

the hot seat because you're a television commentator you watch boxing name me four

things that you watch for as a commentator that you can throw back to the viewer

number one is the generalship of the individual in the ring of the opponents in the ring

number two is how the guy is thinking in the ring is he setting traps is he going straight in

uh number three the hand speed of the individual and the power of the individual

number four the guy gets hit with a very good shot is the reacting to it what does he do to react

does his legs buckle does it do his knees move a bit all right let's do it well and encounter

you know on Future Sport we talk a lot about the Future Sports what about the future ken

norton well at the present time I'm going to acting school I've learned how to manage my

own affairs and that with investments that I made prior to quitting becoming a citizen

I am now having that business also so I've been I've been very lucky very fortunate

thanks for being listed on Future Sport I'm coming to you for a loan

well that's good Future Sport we'll be right back

so that wraps up another edition of Future Sport we hope you'll join us next week

and in the meantime we hope you'll learn to relax a little bit because if you're going to enjoy our

show with all that energy people jumping and running and all kinds of sweating then you got

to get yourself ready and there's nothing better than just take a little bit of that scientific

data which tells us about keeping your body cool you're going to relax you've got to get some kind

of refreshment that's going to increase the number of fast twitch slow twitch fibers and if you're

going to get your head together you're going to need some tv always remember some of those little

ancillary things because you got to see that set out there when it's sunny and if it's too

sunny for you then I suggest you just get yourself a sun who can keep you out of the sun you got to

learn to enjoy life if you're going to join us again on Future Sport we want you to be ready

full of energy I'm Vic Braden for Gideon Ariel who's down working hard in the lab see you next

week