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How Far Will Daniella Go if Meghan Pushes her off a Chair?

(As a track drill)

As a drill for long jump, we have to pull a chair back and then push it forward, acting as a sort of catapult for the athlete sitting on the chair.  In this case, I was pushing Daniella.  This drill is used to practice landings into the pit. 

After doing this drill, we decided to look at the physics behind it.  How far did Daniella really go after being pushed off the chair?  Using Logger Pro, I was able to make a lovely graph (above) showing her distance from the starting point.  Daniella moved a total of 1.2 meters.  To find this out, I subtracted the distance of 2.3 meters from 3.5 meters.  These numbers came from the graph on Logger Pro.

There are many forces also at work in this.  The force of me pushing Daniella on the chair would have to be greater than the force of friction between Daniella and the chair for her to be able to fly into the air. 

I was also able to formulate a graph of Daniella's velocity in the X direction

As well as in the Y direction


Overall, track involves many different aspects of physics, and each event is different.  For example, if runners were running a 400 m sprint on a banked track, one could figure out their acceleration, as well as their speed, the friction between the runner's foot and the track etc.  For someone who does long jump, physics could be used to figure out the maximum height of the jump versus the maximum distance.  If people really looked at the physics of their event, it could help them get much better at track.  For example, examining this long jump drill shows that without jumping, using only the force of me pushing the chair, Daniella was able to move 1.2 meters.  This is almost four feet.  This drill is supposed to help the jumper with their form precisely before they enter the pit.  Jumpers are supposed to kick their legs out in front of them to get an extra boost in the air.  Using the physics of this drill, if one executes this properly, they could jump an extra four feet, which is a very large distance, especially in women's long jump. 


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