markschultz25 wrote:
I think the leg to trunk length ratio would be more important than height. You can be 5'8 but built like a wrestler with short stubby legs and a long torso. You're not going to be much of a runner.
Guilty.
markschultz25 wrote:
I think the leg to trunk length ratio would be more important than height. You can be 5'8 but built like a wrestler with short stubby legs and a long torso. You're not going to be much of a runner.
Guilty.
Whats the distribution of height across the population as a whole? I'd have thought that most people are 5'5" - 5'10"....
Dick Microscopic wrote:
Star wrote:Like 6'3" Asbel Kiprop and David Rudisha?
Or Paul Tergat who was 6'0".
Is that what you mean when you say "all"?
Ohhh you mean the exceptions to the rule?
Exceptions?
The OP said all the great Kenyan runners were within a relatively short range.
And I show their greatest 800 runner, their greatest 1500 runner (arguably) and their greatest 10,000 runner are all over 6 feet tall and you call those exceptions?
Point is, there is no ideal height for running.
The average elite runner happens to be about average height.
And the real stand-out runners are both shorter than average and taller than average.
It comes down to heat dissipation and body weight. The lower your body weight is compared to your skin surface area, the better suited you are to run distance races. Kiprop while tall is extremely skinny and light for his height compared to most people people at that height. 800m is kind of an in between event where there is more leeway.
This is more true among people of European descent because the taller ones among them generally have a greater fraction of their height taken up by their torso (hence why they dominate at swimming). Ideal running body can be any height so long as it isn't unusually short and so long as it has a compact torso and lean legs.
Assumptions:
"ideal" cadence (which there is great debate over) is 160.
Short guy is 5'5"
Tall guy is 6'3"
Both runners have the same height to weight ratio.
If these two guys are both running the same pace the fact is that the taller runner is exerting more energy to maintain the same speed mostly due to the vertical exertion of force with every stride - he is also likely to move it a longer distance (more power).
This argument falls apart if the taller guys slows his cadence (no longer "ideal" tho), has less bounce etc. but in general all else the same the taller guy is working harder.
Star wrote:
Like 6'3" Asbel Kiprop and David Rudisha?
Or Paul Tergat who was 6'0".
Is that what you mean when you say "all"?
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.
The OP used "all" when it didn't even apply to the best, let alone most.
If there was a tall medalist here or there I'd let it slip.
But possibly the three best Kenyans ever were over 6 feet tall and he said they were basically all short.
nripenbaba wrote:
It is because all of the brilliant posters here have given quite convincing arguments that "the taller - the better".
Except no one on this website has ever argued that
markschultz25 wrote:
I think the leg to trunk length ratio would be more important than height. You can be 5'8 but built like a wrestler with short stubby legs and a long torso. You're not going to be much of a runner.
Yep. I resemble this remark.
More to the point, endurance, and the ability to dissipate heat are functions of surface area to body mass. Thinner athletes have greater surface area relative to body mass, can dissipate heat more efficiently/ faster.
There is an ideal range of height based upon how the body is built. The range is quite broad, however. The factors that come into play are stride length, muscle fiber contraction/relaxation capacity, surface area to volume ratio, power to weight ratio, etc.
As an example, an ant has amazing power to weight ratios but can not outrun a human due to having a stride length that is too short. However, if an ant were 5'10" it wouldn't even be able to support itself with Earth's gravity acting on it. Likewise if a human were scaled up to be 12' tall they would have to be lying in bed all the time as the body is not designed for such volume and weight. Imagine a 6' 160lb person scaling up to 12' tall. How much do you supposed they'd weigh? 1280 pounds!
So, every distance run has an ideal height associated with it, but because there are other important factors as well a range of heights can still be competitive.
Coach DBag^-1 wrote:
So, every distance run has an ideal height associated with it, but because there are other important factors as well a range of heights can still be competitive.
Its much more likely for all factors that determine ones competitive ability to align for people within the height range of 5'5'' to 5'10''. There is just too much empirical evidence to say otherwise.
If you plotted a frequency distribution of competitive distance runners (at any level) based on height, I would guess that it would be a bell curve with the top of the curve falling in the 5'5'' to 5'10'' range. Sure there are exceptions, but it's much less likely to find a human at 6'2'' who has an optimal combination of traits to be a distance runner than somebody at 5'7''.
My ideal running height is 6'2".
One year I analyzed the top 10 runners in both the 5k and 10k (according to track and field news). If I recall correctly, by far the heaviest was Bob Kennedy and he was 145 pounds or something. Tergat was 6'0 but had a listed weight of 130ish. It was a bit disheartening for me as I was 6'2 and close to 160.
I just did some quick google searching of the top 10 10k runners of 2016 according to track and field news. The fattest was Galen Rupp at 134 pounds. One athlete, I couldn't find. And I found Muchiri listed at both 119 and 143. Looking at his picture, Im going with 119. Three were sub 110.
OP's question was about distance runners, so ignore comments about tall sprinters.
At longer distances and faster pace, heat dissipation becomes increasingly important. If a runner is short and thin, then surface area to volume ratio is better suited for dissipating heat. I think this thesis is confirmed when you look at PRs for marathoners across many different speeds. Elite marathoners have a cluster of PRs at the coolest temps - around 40F. As PR pace slows into mere mortal range, PRs cluster at slightly higher temps.
Of course mechanics and VO2 and all that is important, but no one is running world records without the ability to dump massive amounts of heat, and you have to be small and thin to do that.
Then along comes Webb and Symmonds....
markschultz25 wrote:
I think the leg to trunk length ratio would be more important than height. You can be 5'8 but built like a wrestler with short stubby legs and a long torso. You're not going to be much of a runner.
Short runners won't overheat as much as taller runners and because shorter people have larger surface area to volume ratio, they can sweat and release heat more efficiently. This is one small reason why there will be more shorter elite runners, as they will find it more comfortable when running at fast paces, due to their better ability to control homeostatic internal conditions.
stat this wrote:
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 ?
Because most Kenyans and Ethiopians are that height. I'd bet the average American distance runner is about the same height as the average American, maybe a bit shorter.
Right, is there any reason to think that the the height of distance runners doesn't follow that of the population they come from?