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Research Project...please bear with me.
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As a previous regular on slowtwitch I know that several people have come here looking for data for their PhD. In most cases these seem to get a fair amount of blowback from the audience so I hope you'll be patient in this case.

I study evolutionary tradeoffs in animal systems, primarily working on reptiles and frogs. Most recently I've started asking how frogs can be adapted to two totally different environments (aquatic and terrestrial, swimming and jumping). The problem for natural selection of course, is that any given frog should be constrained by having only one set of genes to make a really good swimmer and a really good jumper.

It just occurred to me that triathletes face a similar tradeoff. :)
So I'm curious to compare patterns in the animal systems I've studied for the past 16 years with the patters in triathletes (and maybe eventually decathletes, pentathletes, etc...). SO for now, I'm wondering if folks out there would share information with me on their swim, bike, run and finish times in triathlons (including the distance of the race itself), along with your height, weight, leg length, arm length, hand and foot lengths (write to tip of middle finger, heel to tip of big toe), sex, age, and years of racing experience. If you'd be interested in participating you can simply reply yes as I'm simply trying to gauge what kind of response I could expect.


alternatively if anyone knows of a place where such data on triathletes (professional or otherwise) are already available, I'd love to mine that data base.

thanks in advance for your input.
cheers
Ryan
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [TheBeek] [ In reply to ]
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The problem for natural selection of course, is that any given frog should be constrained by having only one set of genes to make a really good swimmer and a really good jumper.

It just occurred to me that triathletes face a similar tradeoff. :)

The problem is that triathletes are not really good swimmers...

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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [Sanuk] [ In reply to ]
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But there are really good swimmers who make bad triathletes.
:)
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [Sanuk] [ In reply to ]
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And I don't think they're good jumpers, either.

AndyF
bike geek
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [TheBeek] [ In reply to ]
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The issue with the frogs that you are gonna have is their tadpole stage. The selective pressure is going to be insanely high during this period bc most of them die.

I think they also basically jump and swim with the exact same motion. More like biking and running and maybe how people are more able to do one or the other.
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [adambeston] [ In reply to ]
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just to clarify, I'm a professional biologist. I have been studying frogs, lizards, locomotor behavior, physiology, and evolution for nearly 2 decades. The project is for fun as my professorial tenure is long behind me.

The frog project is well underway. for the record, tadpoles and frogs do NOT use the same locomotor processes for swimming and jumping respectively. The selective pressures are highest during the pre-metamorphic climax stage (not on tadpoles), this is something we have established already.

With that said, I'm not studying an evolutionary phenomenon in triathletes. I simply want to get some data to measure tradeoffs in performance.

So far, this is falling into the derision side of slowtwitch so it looks like I probably have my answer.
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [TheBeek] [ In reply to ]
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You are grasping for straws or you are at TROLL.

Are you in the silly-stage of tenured professionals?

I'd move past that ASAP, if you want to speculate on an Emeritus office.

This is as inane as I have ever seen from a tenured Academic (if you are actually one).


TheBeek wrote:
just to clarify, I'm a professional biologist. I have been studying frogs, lizards, locomotor behavior, physiology, and evolution for nearly 2 decades. The project is for fun as my professorial tenure is long behind me.

The frog project is well underway. for the record, tadpoles and frogs do NOT use the same locomotor processes for swimming and jumping respectively. The selective pressures are highest during the pre-metamorphic climax stage (not on tadpoles), this is something we have established already.

With that said, I'm not studying an evolutionary phenomenon in triathletes. I simply want to get some data to measure tradeoffs in performance.

So far, this is falling into the derision side of slowtwitch so it looks like I probably have my answer.
Last edited by: windschatten: Aug 27, 16 22:00
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [windschatten] [ In reply to ]
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are you kidding? There is a huge literature on athletic performance and tradeoffs.
I think that you are either being rude on purpose or perhaps over interpreting my motivation. I'm simply interested in the question owing to my previous work on amphibians and my time doing tris.

But thanks for your hyper-critical assessment of my life's work.
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [TheBeek] [ In reply to ]
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SO for now, I'm wondering if folks out there would share information with me on their swim, bike, run and finish times in triathlons (including the distance of the race itself), along with your height, weight, leg length, arm length, hand and foot lengths (write to tip of middle finger, heel to tip of big toe), sex, age, and years of racing experience.
---

I'm pretty sure I don't know half, or more, of the data you are searching for. Like, do you want 1 race or many? Weight changes constantly. In fact, the only things I can tell you with any confidence are height, sex, and age.






Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [TheBeek] [ In reply to ]
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TheBeek wrote:
SO for now, I'm wondering if folks out there would share information with me on their swim, bike, run and finish times in triathlons (including the distance of the race itself), along with your height, weight, leg length, arm length, hand and foot lengths (write to tip of middle finger, heel to tip of big toe), sex, age, and years of racing experience.

Even if you could find a few thousand participants, I'm doubtful that these body dimensions are going to tell you anything. For endurance sports, aerobic capacity far outweighs any subtle effects from body proportions. Plus triathletes have quite diverse requirements since they are competing in 3 sports. You'd have a much better chance of success if you focused on one discipline and looked at competitors that are at the very pointy end of the sport, where you'd expect advantageous traits to be noticeable. And you need to take the measurements yourself.
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Re: Research Project...please bear with me. [rruff] [ In reply to ]
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I was asking for yes,no to gauge interest.

It is clear there is none. If you'd like to continue explaining my project to me, how worthless it is, how I don't know what I"m doing etc...please PM me. I'll drop the thread.
cheers
r
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