Why do girls throw like girls?

And why does my left arm throw like a girl?

Because girls (in general) and your left arm (in particular) haven’t been trained to throw properly. Boys throw like girls too until they learn how.

This is probably total bs, but I was told in high school that it has to do with the slightly different angle at which a female humerus hangs in the roatator cuff, as well as the looser ligaments.

Which is why, if properly taught, a pre-pubescent girl will not throw “like a girl,” but things will go wonky for her at puberty, and she’ll need to work extra hard to overcome her body’s increasing tendancy to throw “like a girl.”

I’m very much with This Year’s Model on this. If you don’t know how to throw, you typically face the direction you’re throwing and the arm motion is awkward. The counterintuitive idea of facing sideways to the throwing direction and rotating your body basically has to be learned.

I went thru something like this when I learned handball. No probs right handed but left handed was just weird. I observed my right handed motion and then a “ah ha” moment. Soon hitting the ball left handed became pretty good.

After I had shoulder surgery to repair a series of dislocations, my throwing motion changed to that of a girl. I don’t know why.

James Fallows wrote an article on this topic in the Atlantic several years back.

I’ve been to Japan on vacation a few times and I go to baseball games there all the time. Before one game, there was a promotion where fans could come on the field and throw from the mound. The women who were picked all threw very well.

This leads me to be that Japanese girls are encouraged to participate in more throwing games as youngster.

And before one game, a very tiny woman, who was a soap opera star I believe, was throwing out the first pitch. She rifled in a nice peg to the catcher from the mound.

I think you’re suspicion of this bit of wisdom is well-placed. It’s hard for me to accept that Jennie Finch or Lisa Fernandez had to work harder as young teens to hone their throwing motions as Jason Schmidt or Jake Peavy.

I’ve known my share of female softball players, many of whom participated in pick-up games of baseball, cabbageball, etc. with boys as elementary-school students. I’m strongly inclined to accept that throwing “like a boy” is a learned behavior.

This is just a WAG, but I understand that women’s lower body strength is comparable to that of a man’s, whereas their upper body strength doesn’t even come close.

Given that muscular differences do exist, it would be interesting to see if relative muscular differences do exist within the upper body to explain the differences in throwing technique.

The figures I’ve generally heard is that, given an untrained man and an untrained woman of the same height, her upper body strength will be 50% of his, and her lower body strength will be about 75% of his.

The primaryy difference is in the amount of muscle. Other than that, the male and female musculoskeletal systems are pretty much identical.

I play in a co-ed softball league.

I have seen girls who throw like girls, and I’ve seen girls who throw like Cal Ripken. When umpiring the lower-division games, I’ve seen GUYS who throw like girls. The difference is always experience. It’s a learned skill.

My brother isn’t a great thrower, because he just wasn’t interested in baseball as a kid. (he played soccer until his allergies made that impossible).

I’m a great thrower, because I played softball for 10 years as a kid. We had a few girls on our team taught by mothers, who weren’t taught by their fathers. They were the hardest to train to throw with accuracy and power. I played outfield, not because I could run, but because I could throw.

I’m in the “it’s a learned skill” camp.

There’s certainly a difference in the hips, which they always mention when determining sex from bones, which makes girls run differently. Maybe the shoulders are also slightly different?

I completely agree with this. I play in a very low-level intramural softball league in the summer, and there are some women who throw very well and some guys who “throw like girls.”

What i’ve wondered, though, is how we might teach the poor throwers to throw better. I mean, can it actually be taught, or is it just a matter of long practice? I know what it feels like to whip my arm around in a strong throw, but i can’t really describe the mechanics of it to someone else.

I also have two different throwing styles, depending on the situation—one is with a vertical action, where my arm is over my shoulder, and the other is more of a side-arm whipping action. I use the former for long throws, and the latter for shorter, fast throws. But again, i wouldn’t know where to begin describing the action to someone who didn’t get it naturally.

It seems to me that many poor throwers actually experience their biggest problems not just in the arm action itself, but in the positioning of their whole body. They appear to have no concept of how to “step into” a throw. They often sort of leap in the air as they throw, and try to do all the work with their elbow extension rather than with their shoulder and from their hips. That’s just my observation, anyway.

I grew up as a “tomboy” and have always had a “good arm”. Lots of baseball and softball and football in my life. Throwing “efficiently” is no more a male monopoly than pants are.

However, now that I’m a bit older and a bit chunkier and gravity has had some effect on certain parts of my anatomy, I find that my right breast is constantly at odds with my weekend-warrior desires to throw someone out at third from right field.

Now I have three indicators of a good throw: A) Whether or not the runner is called out B) How much my right tit smarts, and C) Whether or not I have to wrestle my right tit back into my bra.

You can teach just about anything by breaking it down into small enough steps. I’m sure you could do it for throwing. There must be steps that have to be done simultaneously and others that have to be done seamlessly in quick succession, and there practice is the only way to become proficient. But if you don’t know what the steps are, you’re basically working blind.

I had asthma as a kid and never played sports or paid much attention to them, so I throw “like a girl”. But ftg above has given me a bit of information I never realized: “The counterintuitive idea of facing sideways to the throwing direction and rotating your body basically has to be learned.”

(One physical thing I can’t think how to teach is the balance necessary for riding a bicycle (which I can) or skating (which I can’t). There are some things to avoid and others to try, but the final balance needed to do so is basically a “Eureka!” moment.)

Girl here-don’t throw like one. Never have.

Benefitted from older brother and many boys on the street where I grew up.

Seems to me that if anyone is inclined towards athletics (and I don’t mean just organized youth sports) that the skill is easily learned. Others (both male and female) may have a harder time learning the body language of a decent throw.

It also needs to be practiced alot.

While I’m sure that the proper throwing motion can be taught and learned, my particular case suggests that there may be something else at work here. I’m a guy, grew up playing sports, and threw like a guy. In my early thirties I had surgery on my right (throwing) shoulder, and ever since I’ve thrown like a girl. Not entirely “girl like”, but my stance and motion is much more straight on.

I’ve never given it a lot of thought since throwing was never my strong suit, but something definitely changed. The surgery involved tightening up the ligaments, muscles, and all that other stuff that helps to hold the sholder in its socket. I don’t think tighter ligaments has anything to do with the female anatomy, though.

Sounds like the surgery changed the physics and mechanics of your throw, arguably decreasing or at least altering your range of motion. I’d guess that you could again throw efficiently once you re-train yourself in light of these changes, or the changes were signifigant enough to be prohibitive to an efficient throw with that arm.

The Fallows article said that to get an idea of what it means to “throw like a girl” is to try throwing with your other arm. You likely won’t be able to get your arm and wrist in to the proper positions to cock and throw unless you practice a lot.

Testicles

When one throws a ball, before releasing, men draw into their bodies their testicles. Since woman lack them…