Randall Munroe published some relevant calculations recently on the ability of humans to throw things high: http://what-if.xkcd.com/44/ http://what-if.xkcd.com

Randall Munroe published some relevant calculations recently on the ability of humans to throw things high: http://what-if.xkcd.com/44/ http://what-if.xkcd.com/44/ Summary: a professional baseball pitcher might be able to reach fifty metres but the human arm is optimised for throwing horizontally.