Technical Articles
Selected technical articles
Bio-mechanics, strength and conditioning in Wheelchair Curling: Part 1
Wheelchair curling made its Paralympic debut at the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games. As of February 2015, there were athletes in 21 countries around the world actively competing in wheelchair curling. Because of the sport’s infancy …
The Gauntlet Drill
A long-standing line of delivery (LOD) drill used in curling is one where the athlete delivers a stone by sliding between a series of markers (cones, cups, or stones) to practice line of delivery. We …
Dryland Training for Open Brushing Footwork
This article is joint work with Dr. John Newhook, Dean of Engineering, Dalhousie University. In a previous article, entitled “Dryland Training for Closed Brushing Footwork”, we described a simple, wheeled apparatus that an athlete could …
Applying toe-dip to a curling shoe
During a curling delivery the trailing (hack) leg can produce such significant drag that it can impact the ability of the curler to achieve what coach Bill Tschirhart calls an optimal “window of velocity” during …
Setup – the importance of the slide foot position
In curling, as in golf, the hallmark of an accomplished and successful player is consistency: simply the ability to execute repeatedly the act of throwing a curling stone correctly, that is on the line of …
Blocked, Distributed and Random Practice as it Relates to Skill Acquisition in Curling
An age-old question in sport is what practice structure yields the best results in relation to effective skill acquisition. This article will define three different practice structures that are referred to as Blocked, Distributed and …