International attention is focusing on an often-overlooked Olympic event thanks to the unique effect it had on one of its star athletes.
American Olympian Ryan Crouser, who just won his third consecutive gold medal in the shot put at the Paris Games, shocked fans when they saw the difference between his right and left hand.
The 31-year-old showed off his hands clenched into fists in a recent interview, clearly showing that his right fist was considerably larger than his left.
This is a side effect of using your right hand to throw a sixteen-pound ball at almost forty miles per hour for eighteen years.
Mr. Crouser told interviewers that his right hand had taken a “bad beating” over the years, becoming larger, stronger and less flexible than his left.
Mr. Crouser is a formidable force in the shot put world, having won a gold medal at all three Olympic Games he has competed in.
This extreme, repetitive movement strengthens the muscles in your hand, fingers, forearms, and wrists.
But it also causes swelling and reduces flexibility, all of which work together to make the right hand thicker than the left.
Shot put is an athletics sport that requires its athletes to throw a dense metal ball as far as possible from its starting point using only one hand.
They can’t let the ball drop below their shoulder, so they propel it from their neck using a pushing motion.
The balls, which are made of sand, iron, steel or brass, weigh 16 pounds for men and 8.8 pounds for women.
Because the movement performed in this event is so specialized, most shot putters, like Mr. Crouser, choose one arm to throw with and train that arm only.
This repeated throw using only one arm can create the asymmetrical look seen in Mr. Crouser by generating larger muscles and swelling in the forearm.
“My hand is obviously swollen, but a lot of that is because I’ve been throwing for years. I’ve been throwing for 18 years, so my right hand is always bigger than my left,” the Olympian said in a video on his YouTube channel.
She showed this difference to the world in an interview with TODAY after winning gold.
In it, he extended both hands and showed how little flexibility he had in his right hand, as his muscles were so developed that they restricted his range of motion. Even when he pressed hard on the tips of his fingers, his hand would not move beyond a 90-degree angle.
The other side effects of sport are a little more obvious: According to a 2023 research According to a study from the University of Tsukuba in Japan, shot put athletes develop stronger chest, abdominal and arm muscles than the average person.
In this last competition, Mr. Crouser won gold by throwing the ball more than 75 feet (22.9 meters) from where it stood in the sand.
The Oregon athlete currently holds the world record for the longest shot put, launching it 77 feet (23.56 meters) from its starting point.
She competed at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo and said she hopes to compete at the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
