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SerCiddy t1_j118tkr wrote

Reply to comment by Traditional-Pair1946 in TIL that in 1968 Bob Beamon broke the world record for the long jump by nearly 2 feet. His jump exceeded the limits of the measuring equipment that had been installed and his jump had to be measured manually. by Lagavulin16_neat

I'm unsure of what maths are involved, anyone smarter than me know what the line look like in terms of feet thrown/energy required?

Does it get exponentially more difficult to throw the ball? I wonder how much more energy would have been required of Ryan to throw the ball the extra ~4 feet needed to break the record.

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liammo32 t1_j11ansi wrote

as an average thrower from high school to a year in college- one of the coolest things about throwing is it’s all physics. think of it like a cannon, throwing hard doesn’t exactly move the weight far effectively. moving the weight quickly is what matters a lot more to the distance. the abrupt stop at the end, finish, block, etc. is where the weight gets sped up a LOT for a big throw. ryan crousers instagram has a lot of great representation of this in action. being a great thrower like michael carter or ryan crouser takes doing a lot of very small things right and accelerating through the end of your throw at the right time.

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SoySauceSyringe t1_j11wjya wrote

Yeah, I play disc golf and this is super true for drives. You can “muscle” a disc out there about 300’, but you’re going to hit your limit around there unless you develop good technique. The best throwers don’t throw with any more force, but they whip that thing at the end of the motion. People smaller and weaker than I am can throw hundreds of feet further than me.

The Mountain of Game of Thrones fame plays. I love that he’s into it and posts videos of his rounds, but he’s clearly not a pro player and it’s plain to see that his immense strength isn’t helping him to throw his drives any farther. Paige Pierce could throw farther than him all day without getting tired even though he could probably bench press her all day long without getting tired.

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Tartalacame t1_j13uq3h wrote

It's a quadratic (x^2 ) function. Back-of-the-enveloppe math: 81' is 5% further than 77', it means you'd need (1.05)^2 =1.10, so 10% more energy.

There are definitely a bunch of other factor, but that gives you a ballpark estimate.

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