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If pitchers improved their speeds as much as runners have, then baseball players would, statistically speaking, be able to throw at least 110 mph (assuming Walter Johnson could hit 101). Look at the sprinting field: many can finish within 3% of Usain Bolt's 9.69-s at 9.98-s. That list consists of people who didn't even qualify for the Olympics and some that might not make the finals at the NCAA Championships.
If pitching improvement was similar to sprinting, there should be a lot more people who can break the 100.9 mph plateau, much less go beyond. USA Women's sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner, who set the women's 100-m record in 1988, surpassed Don Lippincott's 1901 record by 0.11s, (roughly 1%). But are there even any women who can throw 100 mph? Why the drastic difference?
Furthermore, if pitchers improved as much as swimmers have, then baseballs should be scorching past hitters at over 130 mph! Today's baseball players have better training regiments, better nutrition, modern science and technology, so what gives? Below, although hard to see, is a graph that shows the scope of falling sprint times compared to increases in baseball pitch speeds over about the same number of years.
Human Physiology Reaches Its Limit
Noam Scheiber, a senior editor at The New Republic, dived into this question and found an easy explanation. Humans have not jumped much on the radar gun because they can't. At some point, the body's creation of torque in the arm causes tendons and ligaments to snap. According to Glenn Fleise, a biomechanical engineer who studies pitching at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, AL, the threshold for an elbow ligament to snap is about 80 Newton-meters of torque, a fact Fleise discovered after testing human cadavers. Guess how much torque it takes to throw in excess of 100 mph? Just about 80 Newton-meters.
Isn't it ironic that Joel Zumaya, history's hardest thrower by many accounts, has spent more time on the disabled list with arm problems than he has pitching for the past two years? In a recent outing where he was injured and sidelined for the season, Zumaya said that after he threw his last fastball he "felt like my arm exploded." Joel Zumaya is not alone. Many of the pitchers on the 100+ list have had major arm injuries, such as Kerry Wood, Eric Gagne, Rich Harden, and recently, Billy Wagner.
So why can athletes in other sports continue to improve? Track stars and swimmers don't put as much pressure on their bodies at any point of competition as baseball players do. In addition, they rely upon the increased strength in the ligaments and tendons of the legs. These athletes have yet to approach the maximum torque threshold for these ligaments.
How Surgery Can Actually Improve Throwing Speed – Sort Of
Tommy John Surgery, often the three worst words a pitcher can ever hear, might actually be a blessing in disguise – if it could be perfected. Replacing the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), the ligament most often damaged by throwing hard, with one from a hamstring can increase the maximum torque threshold in the arm. Theoretically, if someone ever healed 100% from T.J. surgery, that person should be able to throw faster than before. Some patients report they have increased their throwing speeds by 2-5 mph, although some therapists attribute this to a strength regiment closely followed during post-op rehabilitation.
With the exception of the occasional individual who can defy nature or has a physical abnormality that allows him (or her) to overcome the physical limitations of the normal human body, it looks like until we can engineer a better ligament or wait long enough to evolve, baseball's counterpart to the 100-m sprint, the blistering fastball, will likely stay right about where it is. Some may be able to replicate Zumaya's fireball, but they are, in turn, playing with fire.
Pitchers trying to break through the 100+ ceiling might find that the only thing they consistently break is their own arm.
Resources:
http://www.slate.com/id/2116402/
http://www.slate.com/id/2116402/sidebar/2116451/
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/fastest-pitcher-in-baseball.shtml
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/7630/news;_ylt=AitWQibWYJ0f0N3JGpQ3XCaFCLcF
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Re: Reaching the Limit of Human Performance (Part 2)
