Ok googled it a third time and found a great paper on the subject. Coincidentally it also looks at the long jump. Here is a link to it http://www.brunel.ac.uk/...etics(Linthorne).pdf

And this is the conclusion:

Edit: Spelling.

Little bit misleading on the long jump record chart, because of the one off nature of Beamon's jump.

If you plot it as a straight diagonal line, it stays pretty consistent and matches the population growth. If Beamon hadn't had that freak jump (His best jump in the years after was 2 feet shorter, 26' 11.75"), you would see the normal staggered progression you see in the early records.

Advanced training, techniques, equipment all contribute.

John

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You're right, but exactly, a straight diagonal line would come come to the population growth. Long jump is only coincidentally the sport I most focused on as it came up in the other thread and also happened to be the subject of the study in my second post. However with a sport like the long jump, I think, one can eliminate some of those other factors or at least say that something like technology probably has only played a small role in the WR development.

Competition. You only need to beat the previous fastest. There are exceptions when an exceptionally motivated individual will set a record that will last for decades, but I imagine that is becoming a rarer event.

We also have a greater wealth of knowledge to draw on, and more access to that knowledge.

Lifestyle. More opportunities for an athlete to work on their sport eg professional, rather than work to support their sport.

Evolution? I can only imagine that the child of generational athletes has a greater chance than a child of generational obesity, if not just for mindset/culture alone.

Now that I think about it I essentially just took a long-winded approach to stating that there is now more competition in reaching the top. The last point you make is an interesting one and a possible mitigating factor.

well, i think it's partly a numbers game. but humans are always tricky and modelling behaviour against graphs is always tough. there are other things - sometimes a cohort of great athletes come up together and push each other along, sometimes a guy has a great day, or benefits from a slightly friendly ref (were any of those long-jump records foot faults, in retrospect?), or whatever. people are strange.

as for evolution, not really. yes, good athletes might mate and have athletic kids. but for evolution to come into play, you'd have to show that world-class athletes are outbreeding (and their kids outsurviving) the general population. that's not happening here.

-mike

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https://lshtm.academia.edu/MikeCallaghan

http://howtobeswiss.blogspot.ch/

I would speculate even more important than population growth per se has been the growth in the number of people with the opportunity to participate in sports. Same basic phenomenon, more people means greater likelihood of finding those at the end of the bell curve.

Thinking about it a little more I think the inverse of my last point might be of greater influence. De-evolution. Meaning I think bad lifestyle could introduce more counterproductive problems. I would think it more likely that bad lifestyle could lead to gene malfunction, disorders, etc than the likelyhood of a gene adaptation. I am still a proponent of evolution, just the timescale of our lives is so small that I would imagine the progression to be equally as small. But you might get the occasional mutant?

I highly recommend the book "The Sports Gene" by David Epstein. It doesn't speak directly to this point, but it covers a lot of issues that lead to atheltic performance, and I am sure that you'll find some overlap with your theory. Terrific book -- one of the most interesting I have read.

There is definitely a few different angles to it. Another one to consider which ties into what ThisIsIt said is the amount of people participating in sport. We might (definitely) have more obese people than before, but I'd also make the assumption that we have more people doing sport than we even had on the planet in 1900. Also should consider the fact that the most obese people are concentrated in a few places like America.

ThisIsIt wrote:

I would speculate even more important than population growth per se has been the growth in the number of people with the opportunity to participate in sports. Same basic phenomenon, more people means greater likelihood of finding those at the end of the bell curve.

Correct. The study I linked to after the first post focused on that vs. just population growth.

"This study suggests that a nation can increase the likelihood of international success
through increasing the participation rate for the sport."


Here is a link to it again for anyone that's missed it. If it doesn't load at first the trick is simply to reload the page.

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/...etics(Linthorne).pdf

I remember reading an excerpt that I think was from that book in Sports Illustrated a couple years ago about the "speed gene". I will look into that because I enjoyed the excerpt. Thank you for the recommendation!

With regards to the graphs, someone around here brought this site to my attention recently.

Edit: I think it was probably jackmott.

Or maybe there are contributing factors...
http://www.ted.com/...k_of_the_week_button

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The Doctor (#12)

Haha I was waiting for that to come up.

FTFY

...and Mexico, and China, and Brazil, and the UK, and the Polynesian Islands, and Australia, and Canada, and Iceland...I think you'd be shocked at the actual epidemiological numbers. There are very few countries today where less than 10% of the population is obese and there is a lot more parity than you'd think. The U.S. doesn't even have the highest obesity rates, Mexico does.

Enjoyed the video thanks for sharing! As Epstein says we haven't become a different species and that's perfectly in line with my thoughts. What I'm suggesting is just that we're getting more out of ourselves and that's why I also think population growth is likely more tied to the general FOP standards in various sports than to world records. As we approach human limits we're only going to get minimally better at the top (world record) level, but my theory is that we'll have much more people just below that level. The example with track surface was a good one, although of course this (effect of technology) varies across sports. "There are many more people training today" is one reason given by Epstein for the number of people who've broken the 4 minute barrier in the mile since Bannister, which after his adjustment for track surface was still at 530 and as he acknowledged "more than one".

Also I take issue with his Hour Record example. He states that the fact the post-reform Hour Record distances were only slightly better than Merckx shows that the previous improvements were only down to aerodynamics, but that ignores the fact that the number of attempts fell off dramatically after the UCI curtailed the aero improvements of the '90s. The guy who held the record in the end, Ondrej Sosenka, was essentially packfodder. I.e. what I'm saying is that it's not a fair conclusion.

I apologize if I was unclear or if it came across as me saying that only America has obese people. It wasn't my intention to say so. Let's leave it at what I said above the bolded part and it not being the majority of the population.

I wonder what Beamons jump would have been at Hernando Siles Stadium (almost 12,000 ft) with the 2mph wind he had? The Bolivians just hate the soccer rules that World cup matches can't be held above 8k feet. Claim discrimination to the Latin high countries. Bob may have not come down in the stadium with that jump.

Look at the mens 100m races these days. Usain Bolt buttons off at about 2/3 distance because he's interested (it seems) only in beating the competition, not setting the world record. I think he knows how fast he can go, and only goes fast enough to get the new WR, so he's still got something in the tank to set it again next year and the year after tht.

I don't think I'm the only one that would love to see him go full out for the full 100m to see how fast he can actually go. It would be great to see him go fast, not just faster than 2nd place

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Could be sound business sense. Makes his brand/commodity last longer.

True, but for me (and I'm nothing like Usain Bolt) I wouldn't want to risk tomorrow. He could get a hang nail and not be able to run properly ever again, and he'd be stuck with coulda, shoulda, woulda. Never knowing just how good I am would drive me nuts. Hell, I found out how good a skier I was (good, but not good enough) and I found out how good an ironman I am (nowhere nearly good enough) but hell, at least now I know. I've put it on the line and found out. Sure, I'm not keen on the results, but at least I know.
To date, Usain Bolt doesn't know how good he actually is, and while he's good, surely soon enough, someone will eclipse whatever mark he sets. If he never pushes himself, his WR will stand for a lot less time than if he (say) pushes it, and gets a 8.99 seconds :-) Is he good enough to do that? Not even HE knows.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

Is that population growth plot correct? Sweet Jesus! We are in trouble.