It's multi-factorial, but one factor is that even across people of similar BMI, shorter people have a more favorable body surface-area-to-weight ratio, which allows for more efficient cooling. Better temperature management = faster times.
But across people of similar weight, the taller ones have a more favorable surface-area-to -weight ratio. I've always assumed that that's why I (6 feet/1.82m and 135 lbs/62kg) do relatively better in the heat and worse in the cold than shorter people of similar weight & ability, and relatively much better than heavier people of similar ability.
I’ve seen lots of comments here over the years about shorter people having an advantage in distance running. I don’t understand this belief, and I’ve never seen a good explanation. Can someone please explain it?
Seems to me that taller people would have the advantage because they cover more ground with each stride. Wouldn’t a 5’3’’ guy have to turn his legs over much faster to keep up with a 6’3’’ guy?
They don’t necessarily have an advantage. That is not a fact. And to your point runners like Bolt (6’5) and Mu (5’10), Jacob Ingebrigtsen(6’1) are clearly the top in the world and are tall
I’ve seen lots of comments here over the years about shorter people having an advantage in distance running. I don’t understand this belief, and I’ve never seen a good explanation. Can someone please explain it?
Seems to me that taller people would have the advantage because they cover more ground with each stride. Wouldn’t a 5’3’’ guy have to turn his legs over much faster to keep up with a 6’3’’ guy?
They don’t necessarily have an advantage. That is not a fact. And to your point runners like Bolt (6’5) and Mu (5’10), Jacob Ingebrigtsen(6’1) are clearly the top in the world and are tall
OP is clearly discussing DISTANCE RUNNING. So Bolt is completely irrelevant. You could make an argument that Mu is too.
Jacob is taller and stands out as an exception in a 5,000m race.
The average height of elite marathoners is pretty small. Kipchoge 5’7” Bekele 5’5” Kimetto 5’7”. They are elite distance runners.
About ten or twelve years ago, I charted the height of all male track Olympic medalists. I don't believe elite athletes, in aggregate get shorter as the events get longer, I know elite athletes get shorter as events get longer. Throw b.m.i. out the window for track (non-sprinters) athletes. In order for taller track athletes (non-sprinters) and Marathoners to compete against shorter athletes, taller athletes need to be relatively thinner. Great track athletes (non-sprinters) and Marathoners need to be close to two pounds per inch. B.m.i. is an okay tool for medical doctors. B.m.i. allows for individuals to weigh more than two pounds per inch, not track (non-sprinters) and Marathon runners. One-hundred meter dash is a max stride event, at least after 30m. What's the point for a Marathoner at 6'5"? It's not a max stride event. A 6'5" Marathoner will be heavy.
I believe J Ingebrigtsen's name came up. To date, his 5000m time is relatively worse than his 1500m to 2 mile performances. I am certain he will get worse as distances increase past 5000m. J I is built like a 6'2" hockey player who's been starving. He is supposed to be a bigger man. He doesn't have small bone structure.
It's multi-factorial, but one factor is that even across people of similar BMI, shorter people have a more favorable body surface-area-to-weight ratio, which allows for more efficient cooling. Better temperature management = faster times.
A couple posters have already pointed this out, but this is indeed the main theory for why elite long-distance runners tend to be short. In fact, it's an increasing trend. Some French scientists a decade or so ago did a big analysis of top-100 marathoners over a few decades, and they were getting steadily shorter.
How valid is the theory? Hard to know. There are plenty of potential confounders. If an increasing percentage of top marathoners come from places like East Africa (or, for that matter, Japan), where the average heights are shorter than in Europe and North America, it's possible that the decreasing height of top marathoners might simply reflect those demographics without having any causal mechanism. But from a physics/physiology point of view, the heat dissipation theory makes sense.
A couple posters have already pointed this out, but this is indeed the main theory for why elite long-distance runners tend to be short. In fact, it's an increasing trend. Some French scientists a decade or so ago did a big analysis of top-100 marathoners over a few decades, and they were getting steadily shorter.
How valid is the theory? Hard to know. There are plenty of potential confounders. If an increasing percentage of top marathoners come from places like East Africa (or, for that matter, Japan), where the average heights are shorter than in Europe and North America, it's possible that the decreasing height of top marathoners might simply reflect those demographics without having any causal mechanism. But from a physics/physiology point of view, the heat dissipation theory makes sense.
Thank you for bringing up confounding variables. I believe the average height of East Africans is the primary factor.
running economy - it's more important relative to things like vo2 max and anaerobic power the longer the distance becomes, which is why it doesn't matter for bolt and ingebrigtsen. running economy and lactate threshold are most important for marathon distance.
the bigger guys might have longer stride length but they're using more energy to take those strides because they have more mass above their legs to move.
But why wouldn’t it be proportional? If we go with 2 pounds per inch of height, why wouldn’t someone who’s 5’3’’ and 126 pounds work just as hard as someone who’s 6’3’’ and 150 pounds?
By your explanation, skinny people should have an easier time doing pull-ups than muscular people but that’s often not the case.
I believe surface area plays a large part. Shorter people have more skin (surface area) relative to their height. This allows them to cool more efficiently. This matters a lot more for things like half and full marathons as opposed to 5 and 10ks.
How do shorter people have more relative skin? This makes no sense to me.
I doubt a cat can beat you over 5k since it's more of a sprinter, but let's talk about canines. Go back to the power to weight ratio and think about how much weight each of their legs is carrying compared to even the smallest humans.
Height increases linearly, while weight increases exponentially, so every addition inch of height adds an ever increasing amount of weight. This results in shorter humans being more efficient at running than taller humans.
There are many other factors involved in running ability than just that, so it's not a law of running, but yes, on average, being shorter is an advantage, particularly at the longer distances like the marathon, which can be seen by the people who have held the WR at that event.
You may not like it, but it is true. List the height of the top 25 marathoners of all time. The average is 5'7".
The average height of an East African man is 5'6", so the 5'7" is just the average height of an east african which is where most of the top times are from (5'7" is actually taller than the average). If shorter is better then I'd expect the short east africans to be better than the taller east africans, but it seems it doesn't matter. East africans tall or short are better, doesn't matter about height.
Average height of a basketball player is way above the average height of the regular population. The average height of fast runners is exactly the average height of the population, meaning it doesn't matter. It's on a standard distribution, very few people deviate more than a couple inches from the mean, so I wouldn't expect very many people above 5'11" to be fast, and I wouldn't expect very many people below 5'6" to be very fast. I would expect the majority to be 5'6-5'10 and that's what we have, this is just because so many people are in that range.
Shorter man the size of women sprinters have a far easier time running distance
1. Body weight - less weight to carry round
2. smaller foot size & leg length - less weight to move relative to centre of mass
3. historical shoe weight - less so now, but still as scaling of weight of shoes are disproportionately as sizes increased (foam and rubber is heavy) see point 2 along with less of efficiency as the sizes go up
4. Non flat courses - stretch shorting cycle and cadence for running economy- it’s more efficient to maintain specific cadence however for the same pace a tall runner would potentially lose energy with vertical motion to run at the same pace.
however for shorter events, 1-3 isn’t an issue and for 4, think track, and this is why short and middle distance favour taller and “normal” size runners.
People that are gaunt, look taller than they are, on television. Therefore, a lot of people assume, very thin looking runners are taller than they are. I always assumed Kipchoge was probably around 5' 10 or 5' 11". I was surprised to find out he's 5' 6".
If you imagine people with identical proportions,and body composition but different height, the math can be explained in a straightforward manner:
Surface area will be a function of height squared, while weight will be a function of volume, which is a function of height cubed. Heat will be generated largely as a function of weight, and heat will be radiated as a function of surface area. So heat cgenerated/heat radiated=ah^3/bh^2=ah/b. Now comparing the heat generation to radiation value between a six footer and a five footer you get (a*6)/b/(a*5)/b=6/5. Which means the 6 footer needs to sweat more and shunt more blood to the periphery for cooling.
and of course, there are more variables than just height, but that is a reason. In addition, muscle strength is largely a function of cross-sectional area, not length. The world record for pull-ups is held by an American who weighs 137 pounds.
I know others referenced this, but I felt it needed to be spelled out
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