Progression of World Records seems to be screeching to a holt.

Steve Holt!

not to mention no one ever breaks 1:43 anymore, let alone 1:41 low...

Terry Holt!

The Long Wait wrote:

Since the beginning of IAAF (back in the early 1900s) there has been a steady progress of records. But it seems that we are having to wait longer and longer for the next world records.

Duh. Did you really expect a linear improvement?

No, I didn't. But, as it turns out, until the last ten years or so records continued to be bested on a fairly regular basis. If you look at the mile progression from 1912 to 1999 it is nearly a linear progression, however the 10 year gap in this record seems to indicate a sudden leveling out.

drugs allowed for the linear progression from 1980-2000s.

Maybe the problem is that shoe companies and track surface makers have stopped innovating.

Drug testing starting to catch up to the athletes ... they don't take the really good drugs anymore, just the OK drugs that don't come up positive.

The really good drugs would get us 9.45, 18.99, 42.66, 1:39.77, 3:23, 3:39, 7:15, 12:24, and 25:58.

Most of the women's "records" will never be touched for that reason.

shoes and tracks wrote:

Maybe the problem is that shoe companies and track surface makers have stopped innovating.

that is a good answer

the iaaf have mandated 65% energy return for tracks for at least before '91, so getting faster tracks thru better, more "feet friendly", etc materials must be virtually at an end

we may now be looking at only improvements thru physical size of guys thru nutrition

every generation ( ~25y ) gets taller by 1" & so will their stride proportionately

if say, today, top 10 guys over 1500 are 5'10" & 3'30 average, in 25y, you may expect top 10 to be

3'30 * (5'10"/5'11") =

3'27.04

so taller people run faster? this is news to me.

Assuming stride rate stays equal, and stride length increases, then yes, taller people run faster. Traditionally shorter people have been faster because of their faster stride rates and higher running economies, but once in awhile a tall person comes along with similar running economy/stride rate but longer stride length (Bolt is a recent example).

the average height of field going up from 5'10 to 5'11 in 25y with cardiovascular system keeping up

If our average elite miler now is 5-10 130lbs

Growing 1" and increasing mass in such a way as to keep BMI constant would yield:

5-11 134lbs

so our 1.4% increase in stride length costs us 3.0% in body mass.

What's more - the legs will actually have increased moments of inertia (basically how much force it takes to move the leg from the hip)from the hip - resulting in a running economy penalty.

Assuming the leg increases in total mass by 3%, and in length by 1.4%, the moment of inertia will increase by 7.4%.

Can the aerobic/muscular system keep up? To a point, yes, because efficiency isn't everything and there will never be a 4'0" tall 3:40 miler due to the difficulty in maintain the necessary cadence at that size, but a simple analysis reveals that significant height gains quickly become a losing proposition.

tall people are not dominating middle and long distance. In the marathon,

i'd say short people dominate. There goes your "theory"

Times are going to slip backwards for a while due to better drug testing.

I believe that most every track world record is dirty, esp Mens 1500m and Mile and womens 100m to 10,000m with the one exception being the 5000m.

Once again a 13 min 5000m for the men will be about as fast as they go. We will see a few in the 12:50's but it could be a long wait till we see another sub 12:50

BMI is a pretty nonsense fixed parameter to base arguments

normal weight is 20 - 25, so there is a huge variation in ideal weight for a 1500'er

i don't know how you want to interpret the moment of inertia argument - how do you want to modify the improvement from 3'30 to 3'27 ?

the more global limiting factor is the power/wt ratio

i remember reading the factor for lengthening the guy :

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?p=478708#478708

http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/discussion/viewtopic.php?p=478871#478871

which -> if a 5'10"/3'30 guy was "stretched" overnight to 5'11" with concomitant power increase, his time now woud be

~ 3'30 * ( 70/71 )^1/3 =

3'29.00

with a generation of 25y, the ratio probably gets to basic ratio of 70/71 & 3'27

Has anyone studied success in distance running with respect to proportianality of the runner's bodies. For example what are the proportions of the top miler's legs to body, or torso to body, or foot size to body size, or ankle size...

I'm also interested that no one has mentioned training as a factor. Has training theory come to a standstill.

Torry Holt?

I would expect that the number of athletes in near-world-record shape in any time period to be roughly constant. Modern-day record breakers will slice the bologna very thinly so to speak--we will not see anyone lower the men's 5k record by 11 seconds a la Haile G.

And most of the long-lasting current records, especially on the women's side, are questionable. I would be very skeptical of anything run in the 90's in China and and Russia. Most of those athletes did almost no racing outside their home country and quickly disappeared from the scene after their records. Obviously these are unfair generalizations but you get the idea.