Mathematical Connections to Wrestling

Preface: I have been working on this article for some time now and have put a lot of thought and effort into it, so I hope it makes for enjoyable reading.

If anyone reading this has any mathematical understanding, feel free to comment on whether you think what I have written makes sense. If you don't know too much about mathematics then don't worry, I hope you will follow anyway.

Following the relative success of this article I began a series, next examining Biology and Philosophy. So if you enjoyed this, I have created links so you can find the others.

I have studied mathematics for quite some time now, and wondered if I could blend my knowledge of it with my passion for wrestling and discover some mechanical undertones embedded in the wrestling world.

I remain undecided on whether or not this article will work, as most will see no direct link between mathematics and wrestling, but I hope you find my connections interesting.

Surviving the fall

I will start off easy, with hopefully something a few of you may have noticed already.

Ever wondered how a wrestler falls from such great heights and remains comparatively unharmed? The answer lies in mathematics.

Two key tactics are employed by a wrestler when falling to ensure that they keep the impact sustained by their body to a minimum:

The first is to equally distribute as much impact over their body, without risking injury to vital areas.

When a wrestler lands from a high-impact move, they try to make their arms, legs, and entire back hit the mat at the same time, reducing the force exerted on one area.

Think of what would happen if you applied a certain force to your skin using a pin. The pin has a small surface area on its head, and could easily break the skin.

Apply the same force but using a bottle top and there is seemingly no affect. Due to the comparatively large surface area, it can easily dissipate the force.

This stems from the definition of pressure: P = F / A (P = pressure, F = force, A = area.)

For a given force of an impact it is reasonably easy to see that as the area increases, the pressure decreases (as the denominator in the equation is increasing, it would be like going from a half to a third, for example.)

The second tactic is to increase the amount of time the wrestler has force applied to their body, to reduce the force applied at a given time. This can either apply when falling onto another wrestler, or going through an object.

When a wrestler falls from a high height, they gain momentum due to gravity, and this unavoidably is going to be stopped by something.

The equation F x t = Δp

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