How Golf and Physics Are Raising the Limits in Shot-Put
Imagine standing at the free-throw line on one side of a basketball court and heaving a 16-pound metal ball through the net at the other end.
That still would not cover the astonishing world-record distance of 77 feet 3 ¾ inches (23.56 meters) that the shot-putter Ryan Crouser has achieved. On Saturday, despite being limited this season by nerve damage in his right elbow, on his throwing arm, and a torn pectoral muscle, he will try to win an unprecedented third consecutive Olympic gold medal in the event.
With the four longest shot-puts in history, and seven of the top 10, Crouser at his healthiest might be the most dominant American athlete at the Paris Games. His authority is optimized by multiple factors, including radar technology borrowed from golf and the physics of an innovative technique.
Always a tinkerer, with a background in engineering at the University of Texas before switching to economics, Crouser, 31, eagerly began in 2015 to embrace technology used to track the angle, velocity and distance of golf shots.
The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee repurposed that technology, known as Trackman, for use in the shot put, discus and hammer throw. Accompanying video allows athletes to check the biomechanics of their motion in real time. (Ever wonder what the prime launch angle for the shot put is? Thirty-six to 38 degrees.)
“They can go back and look at the video, look at the data and see if they need to make changes right there,” said Mike Levine, director of business operations for the Olympic and Paralympic committee’s performance innovation team. “Versus leaving practice, waiting until tomorrow, getting a report and making changes, maybe we forget.”
Crouser continues to use the golf-related technology as needed while training and during some competitions below the national level. Elite shot-putters are mostly concerned with three variables: the height, angle and velocity of their release. Since they have mastered the optimum range for release height and angle, Crouser said, release velocity becomes the most important factor for winning and record shot-puts.
Essentially, the faster you release the metal ball, the farther it goes.
“Speed is king in the shot put,” Crouser said.
Yet, he said, he faced a mental barrier to breaking a world record set in 1990 by Randy Barnes of the United States. Barnes, the 1996 Olympic champion, was permanently barred from the sport in 1998 after testing positive for an illicit substance for the second time. Still, his record, 75-10 ¼, had by 2021 stood for 31 years.
Crouser did not feel an inferiority complex, he said. But in trying to break a record that someone else held, he doubted himself: “He did it; I don’t know if I can.”
At the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials, ahead of the Tokyo Games, Crouser finally broke the decades-old record with a put of 76-8 ¼. He won his second Olympic gold medal weeks later. But his technique remained inconsistent. “It was like a swing for the fences on every one,” Crouser said, “but it wasn’t repeatable.”
Finally, he had what he described as a “lightbulb moment” in December 2022 while training in his indoor facility, a barn in Fayetteville, Ark. Standing at the back of the throwing circle, facing away from the direction of his release, Crouser added about 60 degrees of rotation to his windup by moving his right foot clockwise, from the 12 o’clock position to the two o’clock position, and by placing his left foot just beyond one o’clock.
Then he took a slide step to his left and began to spin toward the front of the circle, his right leg sweeping wide. In essence, the technique gave Crouser a longer runway to accelerate before launch, allowing him to gain greater speed and ballistic power upon releasing the metal ball. At the same time, he felt more comfortable fitting his 6-foot-7, 325-pound frame inside a throwing circle only seven feet in diameter.
On May 27, 2023, with a put that was explosive and balletic, Crouser shattered his own world record by more than seven inches, breaking the 77-foot barrier with a distance of 77-3 ¾ at a meet in Los Angeles. He yelled, “Yeah” upon releasing the shot, knowing it was flying far. As it one-hopped off a retaining wall like a baseball bouncing off the fence in deep center field, Crouser clapped, a cloud of chalk rising from his hands.
Breaking his own record, instead of someone else’s, seemed somehow less prohibitive.
“When you’re trying to do something that no one else has ever done, it’s like you don’t have that sense of pressure,” Crouser said.
He starts each morning with 10 to 15 minutes of meditation, keeping his phone in the kitchen and out of the bedroom. Then he begins his routine — one of up to five meals totaling roughly 5,000 calories to maintain his weight, sprints, weight lifting, box-jumping plyometrics and putting the shot.
That routine has been disrupted this season by injury. As the Olympic shot-put competition arrives, Crouser acknowledges both renewed pressure and inviting possibility in seeking a third gold medal. He has likened himself to a plane on a short runway, uncertain whether he is ready for a smooth liftoff but also curious to see if “I can surprise myself.”
A third gold medal and a return to full health would allow him to resume considering something more esoteric — the outer limits of human performance.
Eighty feet, Crouser says of the shot put. “I think that is kind of like the Holy Grail of what is possible for 99.999 percent of humans.”
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