Because most Kenyans and Ethiopians are about 5'3" to 5'8".
Because most Kenyans and Ethiopians are about 5'3" to 5'8".
everyone but me is an idiot wrote:
Because most Kenyans and Ethiopians are about 5'3" to 5'8".
everyone except you and all the others who posted the same thing.
D-bag Detector wrote:
Why is it "always" necessary for "all" LetsRun Forum responders to be argumentative D-bags? Unless you're a complete and total moron, you knew very well what the OP was trying to convey and that "all" was not meant literally. Jerk.
Probably they think they can prove how smart they are. A lot of insecure and inadequate people tend to do that. They are the typical losers who get to sit alone in a bar and frequent date and pornography sites. Or have small dicks. Or all of the above.
The only way to answer this question would be to look at the % of elite distance runners and bucket them by height range. You would compare the % of the elite group to the % that their height range encompasses of the population at large. If 15% of the worlds male population is say from 5'6 to 5'7 and this is the optimum height, then you would expect say 20% of the worlds top 1000 runners in any given event to be in that bucket. I just made these #'s up so it's all about looking if a population group (by height) is over or under represented.
Shorter runners have their eyes closer to the ground, hence they see obstacles better. It's not only the legs - it's the eyes/legs combination.
At age 52 and as a fairly long guy I'm beginning to realize this while running in the forest on technical segments. I haven't really lost any legs strenght over the last few years, but I trip more often due to a minor but slowly degenerating ability to focus my view and reading the path I'm running on.
Our forefathers all ran on forestpaths and all kinds of uneven surfaces. There was no tarmac and Mondo. The ability to correctly read and while still in speed jump over a rocky obstacle or telling a snake from a branch on the ground literally could be the difference between life and death.
Hence the ideal hight is a combination between eyesight, legstrenght and cadence ability on natural surfaces. It's not just those with african heritage, look at white ultra runners and you'll see the same applies to probably at least eighty percent of the most succesful ones there too.
There's always the exception, but longer guys probably optimizes their odds by sticking to the track and the tarmac (unless they have really, really good eye sight and hereditary odds from both parents of it staying that way long into middle age).
Competitive professional runners are in the long tail of a mostly independent distribution. Tall people are in the long tail of a different distribution. The joint distibution has very little weight in the common tail.
Put another way: The population of 6'3 people is really quite small, particulary outside of rich countries, and the population of competitive runners is very small. Their intersection is tiny.
markschultz25 wrote:
biomechanics. The legs are usually neither too long nor too short. Tend to carry less fat free mass as well.
Lastly, statistics made it the ideal but it's not hard-coded as the ideal...We simply say it's the height range where most elite runners have fallen into.
There is no scientific proof that a certain height will make you a better runner by default than someone whose height falls outside of the "ideal" range. Height is but one other variable in addition to V02 max of course, which is somewhat height dependent since a taller person will likely have more fat free body mass.
"tend to carry less fat mass..."
Bingo. Carry a 5lb weight on your next run and then tell me if weight matters.
The majority of all male winners of the Boston Marathon in the last 25 years were between 5'6" and 6'1" and almost all were less than 145 lbs at the start of the race. The three biggest factors are:
Cardio condition, strength/endurance built, weight/body fat
Horsepower to weight ratio.
The ideal distance runner has long legs relative to height, is smaller in the lower legs (calfs), and has a large lung capacity and heart.
The taller person has to compensate for that size by having bigger muscles and it takes more power to move that mass. But a very small person cannot achieve the stride length to keep up even if they can produce good power. Therefore, there is a "sweet spot" height.
Of course there are outliers, but Kiprop is a good example of a VERY low mass tall person. Rudisha has more mass but is running only 800m so power is more important than long range efficiency. What are his 1500m and up times?
HorsepowerToWeight wrote: But a very small person cannot achieve the stride length to keep up even if they can produce good power. Therefore, there is a "sweet spot" height.
Define "very small". Some of the top marathon men are 5'2" - 5'4" and the women under 5 ft.
Lack of Opportunity
No one is going to invite a 5'5" guy to play basketball or do the high jump. So they need to do what no one else wants to do. Running for hours and hours to come.
Lims run wrote:
All of the great Kenyan and Ethiopian distance runners are about 5' 3" to 5' 8". Is their height height even have a factor ?
If Europeans were more interested in running these days the ideal body size for the 800 and 1500 would likely be slightly larger than it is now. But right now with rampant drug use by E. Africans basically condoned by officials at the highest levels in order to serve some social causes, why bother competing?
You mean poverty height?