Making it difficult to swim.’ When talking about SEAL training. Is this true? Is this the reason more anglos have osteoporosis? Also is bone density the reason kids swim a lot faster than adults?
In other words is my inability to swim fast make me less likely to have osteoporosis? 
Discuss
Yes African Americans have a higher bone density than caucasians.
I highly doubt this has anything to do with swimming. My guess is there are less African American swimmers for the same reason there aren’t as many in hockey and golf. $$$ and practice facilities.
your inability to swim fast is because you weren’t taught. extrapolate.
Goggins is the man!
Someone needs to tell Simone Manuel and Cullen Jones that it’s hard for black people to swim fast because of genetics. And Tony Ervin, and Reece Whitley, and Antony Nesty, and…,
Goggins is the man!
I fucking love Goggins.
If David Goggins said it then its true, and if it wasn’t true before he said it now it is. He is simply that badass.
Yes African Americans have a higher bone density than caucasians.
I highly doubt this has anything to do with swimming. My guess is there are less African American swimmers for the same reason there aren’t as many in hockey and golf. $$$ and practice facilities.
Yes.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/04/black-children-swimming-drownings-segregation
$$$ and practice facilities.
Totally. Sociology can be just as interesting and arguably even more important than physiology. Even the sport of cycling…how can we expect genetically gifted cyclists to emerge from impoverished countries/communities when there is only a single bicycle that’s shared by the entire village? No one will argue that there aren’t phenotypic differences between white people and black people (um, skin color) or males and females, but if the continent of Africa has zero ski slopes, it’s untenable to conclude that African nations’ lack of success in ski jump is due to African peoples’ intrinsic inability to be expert skiers. I always try to keep those kinds of things in mind when discussing political and social ideologies, specifically peoples’ tendency to make assumptions about groups of peoples and cultures.
I get all the social reasons.
But from a physiological perspective, doesn’t buoyancy generally help one swim faster? Think about how many triathletes pray for a wetsuit swim. So, does higher bone density would make you sink more? That’s not to say one can’t learn to swim fast if you sink more. It just might take more work.
I get all the social reasons.
But from a physiological perspective, doesn’t buoyancy generally help one swim faster? Think about how many triathletes pray for a wetsuit swim. So, does higher bone density would make you sink more? That’s not to say one can’t learn to swim fast if you sink more. It just might take more work.
Yeah of course, all other components of the body being of equal volume and density, higher bone density would make you slightly less buoyant and cause you to work slightly harder to stay above water. I don’t have these numbers off hand, but my guess would be that the racial/ethnic differences in bone density are only very slight, such that the composite body density is virtually indistinguishable. And this is made even less important when compared to the potentially enormous variability from person to person in, for example, body fat and muscle volumes. That’s why I never feel bad about eating the WHOLE pizza. It’ll make my swim tomorrow at least a little bit easier 
Which black people have higher bone density? East Africans, who are the best distance runners in the world? Genetically, there is more diversity in all the populations of Africa than there is in the rest of the world combined. There is greater genetic diversity between Kenyans and Ethiopians than there is between Swedes and Italians, for example. Arvidas Sabonis, who played for the USSR and the Portland Trail Blazers, was 7’4". Manute Bol was 3-4" taller: who had the greater “bone density?”
I’m going to say that skeletal density has NOTHING to do with swimming. Just a cursory search found that the skeleton weighs an average of 10% of female body weight and 14% of male body weight. How much would a “denser skeleton” weigh?
Bone structure is a matter of genetics, yes, but inthe real world, there is also the impact of stress loading on bone structure modeling. This modeling doesn’t happen uniformly over the body, more just in the area where stress is acting on the bones. For example, my distal humerus, at the elbow where my triceps terminates, has a protuberance from years of swim strokes and the tendons stressing that part of the bone. My rib cage has similar protuberances where my pecs insert into the chest. In runners, you’d expect greater bone modeling in the pelvis and proximal hip (especially the greater trochanter). Conversely, my hips are probably a bit less built up than a runner, and that runner has smaller insertion points in the arms and chest than I do. Even after all that, what is the difference in weight and density?
Even with this greater bone modeling, it doesn’t happen uniformly everywhere. It also doesn’t significantly raise the weight of the skeleton. In terms of “race,” If you assume that there is a greater bone density in a population, you’d first have to examine how significant that density is, which bones are affected, how much the total weight gain would be, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, how would this affect buoyancy? Very very little.
If David Goggins said it then its true, and if it wasn’t true before he said it now it is. He is simply that badass.
He is Our Generations Chuck Norris.
Making it difficult to swim.’ When talking about SEAL training. Is this true? Is this the reason more anglos have osteoporosis? Also is bone density the reason kids swim a lot faster than adults?
In other words is my inability to swim fast make me less likely to have osteoporosis?
Discuss
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t your total skeleton only weigh 4-5kg for a typical adult male? So someone with higher bone density would only be a few hundred grams different, no? I can’t imagine this would have enough impact on swim speed overall.
Okay, I am totally talking out of my ass but just want to ponder this?
1-Cyclists spend a fortune to reduce drag by a few watts.
2-Water drag is orders of magnitude higher than air drag.
3-If I am riding 500 grams lower in the water because I have dense bones or 500 grams higher because I have soft bones (irrespective of my race) it seems plausible to me that the difference could be measurable.
Unreasonable thought?
500g of additional mass in the same volume would have you displacing an additional 0.5L of H2O, spread over the entire length of your body. That’s 500cc’s of water. Assuming a person is 2m tall, spreading that 500cc’s over the 2m height of the person gives an increased frontal area of 2.5 square centimetres, or 1.7cm x 1.7cm.
I doubt that is measurable in the least.
Maybe partly related - but a fun story nonetheless…
When I was in the Marines, there was a guy I worked with who was one of the great physical specimens I’ve known. He looked like a GI Joe action figure and was a great mechanic to go along with it - and happened to be very dark skinned, . Being amphibious, Marines have to regularly go to the pool for swim certification. For me this was a morning off were I got to go to the pool instead of wrestling with tanks, but not so much for my buddy. This was the drill where you jump in, peel off your pants in the water and make a simple life preserver by knotting the ankles and blowing or splashing air in.
Adams makes no comments, and when his time comes he jumps off the side into a 4-5 meter deep pool - and sinks directly to the bottom. He ‘lands’ in standing position like Ironman and simply backs up to the wall and stands there making no move to pull his pants off or swim up… after 30 seconds or so the lifeguard realizes he has no intention of moving and hauls him up. After we got him on the deck he fessed up that he had never learned to swim and didn’t want to get in trouble (unexplained how he got through boot camp and mandatory swim qual).
I ended up taking him to the pool for a few sessions and he eventually was able to swim a lap or two - but it took high effort because he was literally swimming uphill to counteract his negative buoyancy. I never could figure out a way for him to just float. I wrote it off to muscle density ( he was probably 100kg+ and no body fat) but bone density could be part of the equation - that and growing up in Mississippi with no easy access to pools, lessons, etc…
Goggins is the man!
He seems like a decent dude, have seen him interviewed a couple times and he has some good things to say. I just don’t like people labeling themselves as “indisputably one of the world’s best endurance athletes”. My dad used to always say that the Queen doesn’t need to tell anyone that she is the Queen. I think in this case this applies.
Goggins is the man!
He seems like a decent dude, have seen him interviewed a couple times and he has some good things to say. I just don’t like people labeling themselves as “indisputably one of the world’s best endurance athletes”. My dad used to always say that the Queen doesn’t need to tell anyone that she is the Queen. I think in this case this applies.
Ironic observation given your signature line.
Yes, because my signature line says im on of the greatest endurance athletes ever.