Fascia in Spear Throwing

Professor Martin S. Fischer, Holder of the Chair for Special Zoology and Evolutionary Biology at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and Thomas Röhler, The Rio de Janeiro Olympic gold medalist in Javelin throw recently spoke at the “Moving evening for movement” in Jena gymnasium (April 2017).

One of the questions raised was why does Röhler’s body able to be so elastic? The answer, according to Professor Fischer, is in the structure of the materials left at the end of meat production and is sold as gummy stuff. The gummy can be pushed and pulled and yet it returned to the initial state again. And this is exactly the “suppleness”, it’s the power of its power. The “fascia”, the ligaments and the connective tissue, are the reason why Thomas Röhler is so fascinatingly well-trained, which make him so extremely mobile.

“If he had more upper body muscles, he could not throw so far,” said the professor. If Röhler could bend further backwards at the drop, it could even give the spear more thrust. A few millimeters could already make a difference, the professor said.

Abridged from: http://jena.otz.de/web/lokal/sport/detail/-/specific/Faszination-Faszie-1210338307

Photo By TRJavelin – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24363755