If I am a 200 lb. man, what is the furthest I can fall and catch myself without yanking my shoulders out?

Question

Say if I were on 6th floor balcony and jumped and caught myself on the railing of the 3rd floor balcony?

Answer 1

Assuming one floor is 12 feet tall, you'd be falling 36 feet. Physics tells us that your velocity after falling 36 feet is 32.8 miles per hour, and your kinetic energy is 7200 foot-pounds.

You have a distance equal to the length of your arm to stop yourself, and the average force you must exert is equal to the work (energy) divided by the distance. Let's assume your arm is 2 feet long, and you can exert force along its entire travel, which is very optimistic. The average force required is thus
F = W/d
F = (7200 foot-pounds)/(2 feet)
F = 3600 pounds
This means you'd have 1800 pounds of force on each arm.

Of course, realistically you couldn't apply the force evenly through the fall, and you'd end up applying a pitifully small amount of force until your arm reached full extension, then you'd have about 1 inch of travel to absorb the rest of the energy. So, the peak force would be much higher, more like 35,000 pounds of force in each arm.

Assuming you could hold on with your hands (which you couldn't), your shoulders would certainly be dislocated, and your arms would quite probably be ripped clean off.

Answer 2

I don't know, but illustrations of medieval strappado typically depict the victim suspended only a few feet above the ground, and this was designed to dislocate shoulders. With arms in front rather than behind, you might get another couple of feet out of it. Certainly not three floors. (Note to the reader: strappado as it is practiced today is significantly more fun.)

Answer 3

It would depend on how strong you are.