I'm not sure if this has been asked before, I took a look around though, and didn't see a discussion on it so I thought I would post one.

Now this has been bothering me for a while since I started reading HP. Quidditch is described as a sport in the wizarding world, namely the sport. But what makes this sport a sport? What is the cause for players to finish a game exhausted?

I can maybe understand the Chaser, who constantly has to catch and throw a quaffle (which may weigh), but what about the Seeker, what the hell does he have to do other than dodge, duck, dip, dive, and seek?

Some Fanfiction has sought to answer this by saying that flying is a strain on the player's magic, but does anyone buy that? And if so why?

I would like to get your inputs on why, besides plot-hole and lack of explanation by JK, is Quidditch a tiring?

 

A lot of people miss the effect tenseness has on your fatigue level. I do fencing, which doesn't look really tiring, but if you are tense you will die after only half an hour. Even mental strain can lead to fatigue.

What makes this sport a sport? Uh, teams compete against each other to score goals? I've always thought the most exercised part of a Quidditch players body would be their arms, and potentially the legs, both of which have to be really tight not to fly off on high-speed turns.

Chaser's arms might get tired, but their legs would probably be more exercised (after all, they have to take their hands off to catch and throw, meaning the thighs have to do all the work of holding on.

The Seeker is probably the tensest player on the team - the whole match basically counts on him, and he has to look for a tennis-ball sized flying Snitch over a huge area.

No. Just no. Flying does not at all 'tax' your magic, because you have no 'pool' of magic to be taxed. I think the idea that only wizards can fly brooms stems from Harry's first flying lesson, when they all said 'Up!'

Has Quidditch really been shown to be tiring? In Canon? Has Harry ever felt tired?

 

Think of a broom as a horse, if you've ever ridden one you'll know that it taxes the thighs because you use them to both grip and can use them to direct the horse to an extent. I would imagine that a broom is directed mainly by the way the body is leaning, which would put a shit load of strain on the legs keeping you on the broom.

 

Fuck the cliché wherein Harry has muscles of steel from Quidditch.

However, I daresay that gripping onto a thin chunk of wood with your hands and thighs while rocketing around at high speeds would take a bit out of you. The air resistance could easily knock you right off if you aren't careful, especially during bad weather.

 

I have to say that I always saw it as fairly physical on the basis that to steer the broom you would probably have to lean/pull it to the direction you want. Considering how fast the brooms are, thus how fast paced the game is and including the bludgers which regularly attempt to thwack you, requiring powerful turns and dodges. You're looking at a very intense game that probably requires a great deal more physical power than you might think.

 

That's a good point, imagine clinging to a small piece of wood whilst travelling at 70 miles an hour or however fast the firebolt travels

 

Didn't they say something about the Firebolt going 150 miles an hour or something? Or is that just Fanon?

Either way, it's pretty damn fast and that's gonna have some affect on your body.

 

I would think that it's exhausting in the same way that Yoga and Ballet are exhausting, rather than exhausting in the way that running is. Something doesn't have to be cardiovascular exercise to count as exercise.

And yeah, Firebolt can go at 150mph. It's in POA, on the advert in the shop window.

 

*snickers*


Anyways, that brings up another point.

Human beings on broomsticks are flying at 150 MPH... how the fuck do they stay attached to the broom?

 

...magic?

Don't kill me! That was actually a serious answer, as I can't see any other way it would be possible.

 

It's the only one I can come up with too, insufficient as it sounds. Riding a naked motorcycle (that is, a motorcycle without a windscreen/fairing) gets difficult at 80 mph. So all that wind buffeting at 150 mph....wowzers.

AND keeping his fucking glasses on - sticking charm, perhaps?

 

Here's a more likely explanation: JK not having a decent knowledge of wind resistance and the laws of physics.

Look. This should be obvious, but Harry Potter is not real. If something doesn't make sense, it doesn't necessarily mean there's a reason you just haven't seen. It may be that the author didn't think about it.

Y'know, for a forum that spends so much time bashing JK for the last book or two, we seem oddly predispositioned to granting her omniscience when it comes to the mechanics of magic...

 

I see what you mean, but at the same time, this forum is filled with people who literally comb through all-things HP and point out canon facts that many of us miss. I remember Taure pointing out that Rowling had said the power behind the locked door being nothing more than an extremely powerful love potion spouting out of a fountain.

 

So point out potential explanations for those looking to plug holes in their own fanfic. I've seen entire pages of posts debating which of several explanations were more likely to be the one used by the all-knowing JK.

Looking back, it seems this probably doesn't apply to you, but people putting so much faith in JK gets to me. She's so fucking desperate for any limelight that by now there's exactly zero explanations for apparent plot-holes that she hasn't broken out to take up an interview or two. I remember a thread pondering a potential DLP interview with JK being filled with rather pointed questions about plot holes people were able to list right off the top of their heads.

 

Ok maybe asking why its a sport wasn't fair since there are many sports which aren't necessarily physically demanding.

Back to the original thought though I still don't see it. The horse analogy doesn't work for me because of the cushion charms that the brooms tend to have. Since brooms are narrow

I don't think the strain on your thighs would be too much, and the cushion charms, I think, would account for any discomfort having a rod slammed between your legs would cause (especially for the males on the team).

Again because of the narrowness of the brooms I don't think steering is done with the legs, but more with the arms, and tilting of weight. While doing this on land activities, where for example in skiing this is done (the shifting of body weight), tires a person I don't think the same can be applied for flying.

I'll use skiing as the body-weight shifting example. In skiing to shift from right to left and vice versa, a person needs to shift his weight onto the opposite side of his body that he wants to go. So if I want to go left you put weight on your right side. This causes you to shift and slowly turn. The exhaustion in skiing, in my experience comes from this shifting of body weight.

Now while I'm not sure on this, I would guess that in the air it would be much easier to shift your weight around than it is on the ground. My reasoning lies the fact that when shifting weight your met with pressure/resistance that comes from being on a surface (i.e the ground). So when you shift your weight to the right, you apply more pressure between that leg and the ground, causing a strain. The more shift the pressure.

In the air I would imagine it is similar to when you are in a bungee harness, bouncing up and down. While in the air its a lot easier to shift your weight and do flips and such.

Because of this I imagine broom flying something similar to riding an ATV. You steer by using your hands to turn, and when you turn you shift your weight along with the vehicle.
That's why I don't think flying on the broom is exhausting, perhaps it's a fair argument that keepers, beaters, and chasers get a good upper body workout in that beaters need to constantly bat a heavy and fast ball, chasers need to constantly catch and throw (with one hand most likely) what I imagine to be a football (American) sized ball, and keepers I see like soccer goalies.

But I just don't see any reason for the seeker to be tired, and I don't see a reason for broom flying to be something of an exercise.

On a side-note is it ever said how fast Quidditch players travel on their brooms?

 

Apparently the firebolt has a top speed of 150mph.

As to your question, I think the amount of brute force that you would need to manoeuvre quickly at speeds of ~100mph would give you a fairly good workout, even if the majority of the work is done by magic.

 

It would be physically tiring as others have said and it must feel like shit to have a skinny piece of wood crammed between your cheeks for 3 hours.

 

All this talk about the Firebolt's speed reminds me of that Daniel Tosh video where he wonders "How does superman fly faster?". Same thing applies here

There are two approaches to discussing Harry Potter. The first is external, in which you approach the books as they are - books. In this situation, "JKR fucked up" is an okay explanation for problems.

The second approach, however, is an internal approach, and tries to answer the question "Ignoring the fact that these are books, if the Harry Potter universe were real, how would X work?". In this second approach a problem cannot be solved by authorial error - thus all the massive threads debating the details of HP that are contested and unclear. We're not granting the author omniscience, we're ignoring the fact that there's an author at all and assuming the world to be real.