What allows a a male with the same height/weight/VO2 Max/etc. as a female to be the faster runner?

The biggest difference is the musceloskeletal system. Men have more fast twitch fibers, more leverage dictated by the muscle attachment points, and better angles for efficient movement. The wide hips and valgus angle through the knee are a big disadvantages for women.

You'd have a tough time finding two trained runners with those characteristics.

But if you did, guys still have the secret PED's. In Laymans terms, guys have balls, chicks don't.

There a lot of things that go into that though...a man and a woman with the same mass would likely have drastically different body composition, with the man having a lot more lean muscle mass.

So yeah i guess it really comes down to hormones.

responses above are categorically incorrect. The most determinant factor would be efficiency. This is why VO2 max is not necessarily the preferred measure of greatness among distance runners any more, and VV02 max has grown in popularity, that is Velocity of V02 max, a la Daniels.

Muscular effeciency lost through the large Q angle in women would be my guess. Basically more force is being transfered at an angle, instead of straight up and down, in women compared to men.

Alan

V02 max are higher in usually higher in men. just like strength and power.

men have balls.

Men have more muscle mass. So even if a man and women did have the same overall mass, the male would have a higher percentage of muscle while the woman would have a superior fat percentage.

I would like to see anyone come up with a valid way to calculate efficiency for a runner. If you are talking about economy well then there is no real good evidence that men are more economical than women. When matched for performance and training history. In general women have a higher percentage of there body mass as fat and in general less muscle mass. That may explain it, differences in velocity at VO2max. There are no differences in fiber type or specific strength (the amount of force per unit of muscle). Certainly no proven differences in any recruitment of muscles. The Q angle thing seems pretty bogus, why would that decrease performance??

We published an article on this very thing. We had good numbers of elite male and female runners, and in general the men had higher VO2max, but economy was basically equal, as was threshold. So we got a group of the females with the highers VO2max and matched them with a gorup of men with the same avreage VO2max. When these two grous wre compared the men were more economical. So we took two groups with equal economy and the men were far higher in VO2max. Makes you think that the higher the max the worse is the ecnomy (which we have found) -- characteristics that are associated with higher max are also associated with worse economy. So, yes vVO2max realy tells the better story. Some find men to be more economical, but that is usually when comparing women and men while both are running at the same speed, which isn't fair because 6:00 pace for a guy is a much lower fraction of max than for a woman. So this is solved by calculating economy by what is the VO2 per Kg per kilometer run. If a runner runs 250m/min (4:00 1k) and VO2/kg is 50, this means it costs 200 ml/kg per kilometer. Another runner running 1k in 3 minutes is going 333m/min and if VO2 for this faster speed costs 60ml/kg then for a kilometer it would cost 333X3 or 200ml/kg per k, and economy is the same even though tested at different speeds. So testing male and female at a common speed shows the men to be more economical, but if both are tested at the same fraction of their respective VO2max then the differece in economy is not significantly different. We also found elite male and female runners both reach 4mmole lactate when at the same fraction of VO2max, which means men are running faster pace at threshold.

Well hopefully I represented your work accurately because those are the articles I had in mind when I wrote my comments. I have tested RE in both men and women at four different velocities, just below LT, preferred running pace, just above the walk run transition and at a velocity they do the majority of there training at. Seems a bit mushy but I wanted to get the widest range of speeds while staying below VLT and above the walk run transition. I didn't see any significant differences between the sexes in RE and no difference across velocities.

I've always kind of had a difficult time with this vVO2max concept. When making comparisons, isn't that kind of like saying the faster runner will be the faster runner?

Yes, isn't that funny. So obvious.

balls

cuz boobs

Actually what you claim is not strictly true. The male might beat the female at shorter distances (5k-HM)... but the female beats his male ass at the marathon (due to her greater fuel economy). It is not always the case that runner A beats runner B (as you describe them) every time.

Not necesarily the faster runner WILL BE the faster runner, but fair to say the faster runner IS the faster runner. That's why I prefer using VDOT values (derived from race times) for determining training intensites, rather than using treadmill tests. Treadmill data must be adjusted to account for the difference in the aerobic demand of TM and overground running. One thing you can find useful in TM testing is much like blood testing - over time you can see what changes may be taking place (as long as the test equipment is properly calibrated)

Since the women's world records are roughly 10+% slower at every distance from 100m - marathon, it's far more likely the real explanation is muscle power related.

Interesting also that the disparity between genders seems largest at distances eliciting 95% - 100% Vo2peak; these races short enough that added size is not as much a detriment, but power is still essential for success.

As well as accounting for more muscle and less fat in males (muscle being more metabolically active), higher testosterone improves the ability to transport lactate out of the quick twitch muscle fibers and into the slow twitch fibers where it can be used as fuel.

Triiodothyronine (cough, cough) also improves this characteristic.