What muscle contributes to throwing a football farther?
Dec.08, 2009 in
Muscle Building Tips
Im just wondering what muscle is the main one to throw a football really far. I heard from my friend that its your shoulder muscles. I am much stronger than my friend but he can throw the ball farther. Whaz up with that?
December 8th, 2009 at 11:54 am
consist of the shouldars biceps adn triceps bench press
December 8th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
he probably has had a lot of practice. just keep practicing and lifting and you will be able to throw it farther
December 8th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
The main throwing muscle would have to be the pectoralis major (pecs), but there are many muscles involved in that action. Also, strength is not the only thing that determines how far a ball can be thrown. Maybe your friend has longer arms than you so maybe he gets more power on the ball by moving it through a longer motion. Or maybe his technique is better which enables him to get more power on the ball through a longer motion. Both of these would result in the ball going further even if he was weaker.
However, there is another thing to consider. Strength does not always = power. You may be able to bench press twice as much (this is muscle generating force) but that doesn’t mean your muscles are more powerful (force*distance/time). Power is what ultimately results in more ball acceleration.
I’ll try to make it as simple as I can. There are lots of fibers in your muscles, and there are neurons which tell your muscles to contract. These neurons only connect to a few fibers, so there’s a lot of neurons. When you lift weights and work out you’re increasing the size of those fibers but your not really “exercising” your neurons. You need to work on plyometrics to you increase your motor recruitment. The perfect end result would be all of your fibers contracting at the same time when you told them to. Rather than how it is now, you tell you muscle to contract and several neurons fire and a portion of your muscle starts to contract. As time goes on (and we’re talking milliseconds here) and you keep telling your muscle to contract eventually more and more of your neurons fire and eventually all of your fibers contract.
When you do plyometrics it helps your muscles coordinate and contract simultaneously. This is why basketball players, like Kobe Bryant, who have pretty skinny legs, can jump incredibly high. When he wants to jump all of his muscles work at once to create huge power which catapults him into the air. He might only be able to squat twice his weight but can jump much higher than a linebacker who can squat 3-4 times his weight.
A way to do plyometrics while bench pressing is take about half of your max, push it out and let it down pretty fast, not free fall, but not too slow either, and then explode all the way up with it BEFORE it hits your chest. Do 10 reps then repeat with more and more weight until you can’t do a full 10 any more. For safety sake don’t go over 3/4 of your max.
December 8th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The main muscle that you are going to use is your triceps. But the main way to get the ball to go longer is to keep practicing.