Two new books complement English literature on handball

Two recently published books add to the amount of English literature available on handball.

"Handball: From beginner to top player" is a 200-page strong publication written by Slovenian handball expert and former international Nikola Radic.

"The book from Nikola Radic comes at a time when there is a void in the field of handball literature," reviews Lino Cervar, current coach of VELUX EHF Champions League participants HC Metalurg and long-time coach of the Croatian men’s national team.

"He was not only a special player, he left his mark especially as a teacher and a coach. That is why his words have significant importance, particularly when it comes to designing training methods and developing different didactic approaches in handball.

"His book is an encyclopedia of positional and situational exercises for developing feint and shot techniques used to support the movements in various situations on the handball court.

"This book is trying to teach us how to take advantage of the player's inertia in the moment of a shot or a feint, because this is, in addition to successfully dodging defenders and playing fluidly, one of the key lessons every handball coach must know."

Primoz Pori, former women’s national team coach for Slovenia and currently working at the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Sport, writes in his review: "The wide range of topics described in this book means that the book is meant for everyone who is interested in handball.

"Not only coaches who would like to expand their knowledge, but players of all ages will find something useful or helpful by reading it."

In-depth handball research

The second book being published is "Science in handball" (353 pages) by Dinko Vuleta, a former international and advisor to Croatia’s junior and youth national teams, and Dragan Milanovic from the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Kinesiology.

Based on the collected scientific research about handball done by Croatian and Slovenian authors the book presents

• studies of basic and specific anthropological characteristics of male and female handball players,
• studies dealing with relationships among characteristics, abilities and motor knowledge (skills), as well as with relations between indicators of preparedness and performance,
• Studies dealing with influence of carefully designed training programmes, applied in various cycles of sports preparation, on changes in abilities, characteristics and motor knowledge (skills) of handball players and many more.

Copies of the books can be ordered by sending an email to Zeljka Ferencic (z.ferencic@gmail.com), stating your name, address and contact details.

The price is 29 euro per copy for both books. Shipping costs and a discount of 10 per cent if 10 or more books are ordered apply.