system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why do people swing their arms backwards when they're falling?
gpt
Take the advice of a boxer, the arms extending away from the body have a dramatic effect on balance, especially in "emergency" situations like this one. When you swing your arms, the shoulder uses the body to resist against the arm to create the actual motion, but you unconsciously adjust your weight for it 99.9% of the time when you're not falling. So if you throw your arms backward with 100 newtons of force, 100 newtons of force is reciprocally applied to your torso... *forward*. Hopefully that's enough to get your balance back over your feet. If it doesn't happen in the first swing, then it usually won't unless you're teetering right on the edge.