I think most of it has has to do with training the arm to throw. For example I throw pretty well with my right arm, girly with my left which I’ve never practised much.
The difference is, if I pick up a baseball right handed to throw it(ignoring lower body mechanics), my elbow naturally goes back, loading my shoulder, then it comes around, starting with my shoulder coming forward. Then my elbow and upper arm start to move forward followed by a snap forward of my lower arm, with a last whip of my wrist.(I throw pretty sidearmed in general).
If I pick something left handed and throw it without thinking, my elbow stays in front of my shoulder my hand cocks to my ear, and I do a flimsy little throw based entirely on snapping my tricep and pivoting my forearm forward, maybe 20% of right handed power.
If I think about it, and force myself left handed I can imitate the motion of my right and probably get 50-60 of the power of my right arm. Better, but still clumsy and ill-coordinated.
Take a look at David Eckstein of the Cardinals making a hard throw to first from deep at short. He’s about 5-7, so he puts a lot more leg and torso into the throw than almost all other players, but his arm motion is smooth.
The point being that I don’t think it’s strength that changes the motion. I’m convinced it’s practice. I’ve seen guys throwing wrong, too. My church will get these Europeans coming over who have never played American football, baseball, or cricket, and they throw horribly. They never made the 10K throws as a kid that many American boys did. They still cock the arm and push the ball instead of whipping it.
My right arm throws like a male cricket-player. My left arm throws like the left-arm of a right-handed female.
I always thought the “throws like a girl” expression was a somewhat derogatory way of saying that you throw like someone who has hasn’t played much {insert sport here}. I agree with the whole “girls traditionally practice these sports less than boys” theory.
I mean, no-one says “you swim like a girl”.
I’m with you, girl; although I never could throw, in my adult life I’ve always found the main reason I can’t is because the right boob is ALWAYS in the way. This has resulted in a certain neuroticism in my blue heeler, who never knows whether to go out for a long one, or climb a tree.
Hmm, and when that poor golf guy said something about some women being at a disadvantage on the swing because of breasts, he got sacrificed to the wolves of PC,
As an artist, I’ve learned to notice that there are certain physical traits that define ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ and apart from the obvious ones, there are more subtle things also.
One of those is that the elbow is slightly turned in for females, and slightly turned out for males.
Now, this is not universal, and may not be so much a physiological difference as one caused by attitude, but it is certainly a fact and may be why most girls throw differently than most guys, and also why some guys can’t throw and why some girls can throw just like any guy.
Not all of us are cursed with enough to get in the way. But don’t even get me started on yoga poses…
“My arms are supposed to be where?!? Does yoga allow for a sufficiently enlightened state that one can bend the laws of physics? inhale There is no boob. exhale”
Are there any really tall members of the LPGA, like 6’ 1" or more? If women can’t drive a golf bar as far, I’d expect lack of height (thus shorter swing distance and lower speed) to be a major factor.
I had a go at teaching a female friend of mine to throw ‘properly’. Trying to get the elbow in the right position led to some limited improvement, but getting her to loosen her wrist and let it flex resulted in a dramatic improvement.
Hence the Amazon women- Amazon means ‘one breast,’ right?, b/c they would take off the right breast so as to have uninhibited archery (and maybe other weapons). :eek:
I also read an article on why girls, generally, ‘throw like girls,’ but it was more recent than the one you guys mentioned. The author was referring to the women’s professional softball league. She wanted to understand why women are bad throwers, so she took a friend of hers from the office to a garage to do some experiments. Basically, what you guys say is right, it’s just a matter of practice and, well, mentality; her friend, with help, was ‘bringing it,’ throwing really well really straight after a few trys.
As for catching- the author says she got the woman to imagine that she was catching her child from a burning building. And it worked!
The difference in elbow position of women’s arms turns the lower arm outwards and helps the arm avoid hitting their (generally) wider hips when the arm is swinging during walking.
There was an earlier thread on this topic which came to the conclusion that this physical difference may affect an untrained throw somewhat, but that males and females threw equally well after training and practice (and both threw poorly without it).
Yep, Michelle Wie is, IIRC, 6’1". She is also noted for having an exceptionally long drive. (Easily over 300 yards, I believe. Maybe in the 320 range.)
And I s’pose I should mention that she has a small chest.
Anecdotal evidence for the acquired-not-innate theory:
I teach in Beirut, and sometimes observe guys throwing a football around on the quad-y grass space in front of my building. I have to say that as a general rule, Arab men throw like girls. (There’s one who throws a beautiful spiral, but he grew up in New York.) The obvious explanation for this would be that boys in this part of the world grow up playing sports like soccer, not baseball, etc.
In the book, House Dreams, the author, who is building his own house (in the USA) and employs an Irish college student to assist him during the summer months, describes a scene in which he tosses a hammer to the kid. It’s a second-nature sort of thing for most of us (I threw something across the room to my 90-year-old grandfather this weekend and he caught it just fine). But this Irish kid was completely incapable of catching the hammer, and freaked out at the author–he mentioned that Irish kids play more soccer and fewer throwing/catching games.
I umpired girls’ and boys’ softball for 4 years, and I definitely agree with the consensus that it’s all a matter of training. Some of the 16-year-old girls still couldn’t throw, but there were also some excellent players, and it was obviously a matter of practise. I’d suspect that the phrase “you throw like a girl” dates back to when girls weren’t allowed to participate in sports.
But my theory is that boys are better at hand-eye coordination because we have to aim our pee from an early age.
whereas, girls just sit and don’t need to aim.
But I know my cousin, a boy, was never encouraged to play sports or even throw.
And he throws ‘like a girl’ and can’t catch a ball if his life depended on it.
Rugby and being a soccer goalkeeper are unlikely to teach you the whipping motion needed to throw a small ball well. IIRC, forward passes in rugby are illegal, and you can’t really whip a soccer ball, because you can’t actually grab it.
