The optimal angle of Release in Shot Put

摘要

We determine the optimal angle of release in shot put. The simplest model -mostly used in textbooks - gives a value of $45^\circ$, while measurements oftop athletes cluster around $37 - 38^\circ$. Including simply the height of theathlete the theory prediction goes down to about $42^\circ$ for typicalparameters of top athletes. Taking further the correlations of the initialvelocity of the shot, the angle of release and the height of release intoaccount we predict values around $37 - 38^\circ$, which coincide perfectly withthe measurements.