Perfect height/weight for a sprinter?!?

[993125002]

My understanding is that the taller you are, the faster you are overall (stride length overcompensates for stride rate). But what about weight? Assuming that your muscles is distributed in all the right places and only fast-twitch muscles exist, your pound for pound strength is still determined by a few other factors. Seeing how fast-twitch muscle can generate much more power than its own weight, it would only make sense that more fast-muscle= more pound per pound strength (up to some crazy high extent since muscle has a contractile limit)= more speed.

If your muscles are too small, the amount of power they can generate doesn't match well with the rest of their "dead weight" (organs, bones etc.). Assuming that one has built the right muscles in the right places, how is it possible to build too much muscle?
I am assuming that its because very few people, if any, were born with the genetics needed to naturally have large fast twitch-muscles (from having short tendons) seeing how sarcoplasmic hypertrophy muscle gains are faster and greater than myofibrillated hypertrophy.

I think how much you should weight depends only on how tall, wide, and your CNS strength.

[bill1156]

I'd look up his statistics.

[Rob Drewry]

You don't see too many 7 foot sprinters, which is why I don't think that height is that much of a factor for being speedy (so long as we're talking average height ranges). I personally believe that turnover is every bit as important as stride length. The faster you can take the next stride, the faster you go.

[DrJAG2]

Originally Posted by bill1156

I'd look up his statistics.

Fair enough for the 100 and 200m sprints. What about the 60? 40? Bolt is best when he gets upright annd strokes. Nobody on earth is better. But shorter distances? My guess is a smaller guy who can get upright and into his stride faster.

[993125002]

I guess the inertia of a bigger guy will bring him to a disadvantage in shorter distances. I thought that height was better if you had more of it because if I was 60 feet tall I would run faster than if I was 6 feet tall, so why would I be faster at 6 feet than at 7 feet?

[SSGGLASS]

Originally Posted by 993125002

My understanding is that the taller you are, the faster you are overall (stride length overcompensates for stride rate). But what about weight? Assuming that your muscles is distributed in all the right places and only fast-twitch muscles exist, your pound for pound strength is still determined by a few other factors. Seeing how fast-twitch muscle can generate much more power than its own weight, it would only make sense that more fast-muscle= more pound per pound strength (up to some crazy high extent since muscle has a contractile limit)= more speed.

If your muscles are too small, the amount of power they can generate doesn't match well with the rest of their "dead weight" (organs, bones etc.). Assuming that one has built the right muscles in the right places, how is it possible to build too much muscle?
I am assuming that its because very few people, if any, were born with the genetics needed to naturally have large fast twitch-muscles (from having short tendons) seeing how sarcoplasmic hypertrophy muscle gains are faster and greater than myofibrillated hypertrophy.

I think how much you should weight depends only on how tall, wide, and your CNS strength.

Garbage in, Garbage out. What is the basis of these conclusions?

[MikeTheBear]

This is an interesting article.

Height and Running

BTW, Usain Bolt is listed as 6'5". Carl Lewis is listed as 6'2", Maurice Green is listed as 6'2". Based on these three samples, it appears that sprinters tend to be tall, but this is only a sample size of three.

Marathoners are also a bit all over the place as there are a few tall ones. However, most of the elite Kenyans are around 5'5".

[tyciol]

Height isn't necessarily an asset, this really does vary on numerous factors. With different bone designs and lifestyles, even the human species are different kinds of animals entirely.

Just looking at an animal basis, the fastest animal (cheetah?) isn't exactly the tallest or longest animal. Maybe dinosaurs were faster though, like the T-rex, not many bipedals nowadays besides the bouncing roo.

[zeppelin6601]

Height may be an advantage to a certain extent, but you have to remember that there are other factors. A key one is the fact that gravity is constant, so the bigger you are the more it places a toll on you (which is why ants can carry an absurd amount of weight relative to their body weights that most larger creatures couldn't dream of doing). So I guess height is advantageous to a certain extent. I guess it would be something of a bell shape curve if you were to graph it.

I personally know Dave Sime, former fastest man back in the 60's, and he's a good 6'3-6'4. But that being said, he is a physical phenomenon. I heard a story about him when he was 69, he got into a fight with these two young Cubans. He knocked out the first guy holding a wrench (at this point the other guy started to run, which is pretty funny in itself), and then he chased down the other guy and beat the crap out of him... at age 69. So I guess you can say that genetics takes a huge role too into the equation.

[powerlifter54]

About 4.2 for the forty yards and 9.7 for the 100 meters.