P.E./Health Activity | STEM Career Connection: Kinesiologist, Physical Therapist
Standards: NHES Standard 7
The mechanics of the throw matter! Use your Vikings Voyage football to experiment with the factors that influence a throw’s distance and flight.
Suggested Materials
- Footballs from the Vikings Voyage field trip
- Target area
- Arm Diagram
Predict
- What body parts or movements are most important when you throw a football?
Plan
- Look at the arm diagram sheet. How do you use different parts of the art to throw the football? Predict how your arm will move.
Play
The goal is not to see who can throw the farthest, but to notice the factors that make throwing a ball easier or harder.
- Instruct students to use their main hand for throwing the ball.
- Have their other arm hold their forearm, so it stays still.
- Just using the wrist, see how far the students can throw the ball.
- Next, have students put their hand to their shoulder and have them point their elbow forwards, level with the ground. Using their forearm and wrist, have them throw the ball.
- Finally, have the students throw normally with all of their weight.
Ponder
- Which of the three ways of throwing the ball made it the hardest to throw? Why?
- What do you think made the difference between the three throws?
Extension
- Choose one of the throwing methods, and repeat the throw with a regular football, a piece of foam, and/or a round ball. Compare the results to the throws with the foam football.
- Construct a similar experiment with a kicking motion instead of a throwing motion.
- Watch a video or read an article breaking down the optimal body motion for a football throw. What do you think makes that motion the most effective?
- Watch videos of quarterbacks with different throwing motions:
- Performance Lab of California has a Youtube Channel with videos analyzing quarterback throwing motions.
- Throwing Comparison Playlist from PLC is also a Youtube Channel comparing quarterback arm motions.
