Throw like a girl? You can do better.
Sep 12, 2012, 10:39 AM | Updated: 10:39 am
On Seattle’s Morning News today, we introduced you to the first female high school quarterback in Florida. She doesn’t “throw like a girl.” But how come most girls do? A dude who’s studied this at the University of North Texas says, “The overhand throwing gap, beginning at 4 years of age, is three times the difference of any other motor task, and it just gets bigger across age. … Nearly every boy by age 15 throws better than the best girl.”
According to this Washington Post article, “the power in an overhand throw … comes from the separate turning of hips and shoulders. The hips rotate forward and the body opens, and then the shoulders snap around. Women tend to rotate their hips and shoulders together, and even expert women throwers don’t get the differential that men get.”
That Texas expert thinks this gender difference is not just cultural or biomechanical – it’s neurological. “Men threw rocks and, if you could throw well, you got the women … Women did the gathering, and often brought a baby with them. People have speculated that [one-piece] rotation came from women having to throw while holding a baby.”
This article comes with a how-to-throw graphic!
