Hand speed?

[Mangrove Cuckoo]

I recently skimmed through an article on biomechanics and martial arts. The gist of the paper was on how black belts break boards and bricks, but do not sustain broken bones in the process.

Not really my thing. But, a major point of the paper was that hand speed was critical. Some numbers that were mentioned were 6 m/s for the usual punch, but a bit in excess of 10 m/s was the key to breaking things cleanly. There were decimals involved but I rounded the numbers to simplify and to remember them.

So... just out of curiosity... assuming 10 m/s is a maximum... is it humanly possible to exceed the limits enjoyed by a graphite flyrod?

And what about glass and bamboo? Is 6 m/s more than they like?

Once again... scratching my head about things way above it!

[John Waters]

Hi Gary,

"So... just out of curiosity... assuming 10 m/s is a maximum... is it humanly possible to exceed the limits enjoyed by a graphite flyrod? "

10 m/s is not a maximum, it is exceeded in sports and when done in fly casting it will increase the limits of any rod.

John

[John Waters]

After reading comments by both Gary and Paul about explosiveness in another thread, they both got me thinking about acceleration, specifically, do distance casters accelerate their hand at a constant rate on their delivery cast or do they increase their rate of acceleration through their stroke?

John