Fitts’ law and the speed accuracy trade off: A football throw

The Definition of Fitts Law in its simplest form

The bigger an object and the closer it is to us, the easier it is to move to. Individual who is performing a skill will sacrifice speed for accuracy or vice versa has been termed the speed accuracy tradeoff.

Fitts’ law is centered around a mathematical equation that is used to illustrate the time it takes to reach a target object. Named the Index of difficulty, D is the distance from the starting point to the center of the target. W is the width of the target. The width (w) and index of difficulty have an indirect relationship. which means as the width decreases, the index of difficulty increases. So therefore, as the width increases, the level of difficulty decreases. That's why you want a 6’5 receiver at the wide out position; he can cover more space with his frame and athletic ability.

Football Pass -- Football, if i'm a quarterback and i need to get the ball to my Wide receiver fast because the alignment of the defender I sacrifice accuracy (speed accuracy trade off). Rather than if  i need to throw the ball over the defender and my wide receiver's shoulder I sacrifices speed of the throw to put just enough sauce on that pig.

Learning basic movement skills is the first step toward learning sport-specific skills for athletic performance. Understanding these basic movements helps coaches make good training decisions for proficiency as well as for fitness and strength and conditioning.

References

1. Goldfarb, S., Leonard, N. E., Simen, P., Caicedo-Nez, C. H., and Holmes, P. (2014). A comparative study of drift diffusion and linear ballistic accumulator models in a reward maximization perceptual choice task. Front. Neurosci. 8:148. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2014.00148

2. de Grosbois J, Heath M and Tremblay L (2015) Augmented feedback influences upper limb reaching movement times but does not explain violations of Fitts' Law. Front. Psychol. 6:800. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00800