Ron O'Brien's Diving for Gold by Ronald F. O'Brien
Ron O'Brien's Diving, for gold contains the comprehensive information coaches need to develop divers into champions. It takes a thorough approach that emphasizes the basic skills that divers need for the 1- and 3-metre springboards and the 5-, 7-1/2, and 10-metre platforms. The book also presents O'Brien's winning formula for constructing the forward approach. Ron O'Brien, the world's premier diving coach, teaches readers the secrets of skill development that have helped him send 12 divers to the Olympics and 12 to the World Championships. His unique approach breaks dives down into components to encourage divers to devote more time to skill development. With this solid base of fundamental skills, divers learn dives properly, instead of learning them incorrectly and then having to fix problems. Ron O'Brien's Diving for Gold contains over 700 illustrations that present the fundamentals of diving in the order the coach and diver should use them: Body alignment. Boardwork. Takeoff. Initiating rotation for basic dives. Basic dives in tuck, pike, and straight positions. Entries. Come-outs. Initiating somersault rotation and performing somersault dives. Initiating twists. Stopping twists. All of these applied to platform diving. Once divers have mastered these basics, it's easy to combine them into well-executed dives. Ron O'Brien's Diving for Gold also shows O'Brien's formula for constructing the forward approach. This formula will help divers of all sizes and abilities construct approaches like the champions.