Projectile in Sports

Projectile in Sports

A projectile is an object that, once thrown or dropped, keeps moving by its own inertia and is acted upon by only one real force — the downward pull of gravity (with air resistance also at work in practice). Without gravity a projectile would simply carry on in a straight line; because of gravity it instead follows a curved, parabolic trajectory. Projectile motion is one of the most visible pieces of biomechanics in the CBSE Class 12 Physical Education course.

Defining Projectiles

A projectile is any object on which the only force acting is gravity. There are several everyday examples (provided air resistance is negligible in each case): an object dropped from rest, an object thrown vertically upward, and an object thrown upward at an angle to the horizontal. In simple words, an object in flight after being thrown is in projectile motion.

Examples from sport:

• Objects that act as projectiles: the basketball, football, shot-put, hammer, discus, javelin, golf ball, volleyball and tennis ball.
• The body itself acts as a projectile in the high jump, long jump, gymnastics, diving, figure skating and ski jumping.

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