A propos the recent "Clydesdale Class" discussions:
EXCERPTS
It turns out that there are rules governed by physics to explain why
the best distance runners look so different from the best swimmers or
rowers and why being big is beneficial for some sports and not others.
....
"I've told people: 'You're tall. Why not try swimming?'" Dr. Joyner
said. "Anything worth doing is worth doing well and anything worth
keeping a score is worth posting a good score."
....
The rules of physics say that distance cycling and distance running
are for small people. Rowing and swimming are for people who are big.
The physics is so exact that when Dr. Secher tried to predict how fast
competitive rowers could go, based only on their sizes and the weights
of their boats, he was accurate to within 1 percent.
At first glance, a big rower (and elite male rowers can weigh as much
as 250 pounds) may seem to be at a disadvantage trying to row hard
enough to push a boat through the water. But because water buoys the
boat, weight becomes less of an issue compared with the enormous
benefits of having strong muscles.
Their bigger muscles allow bigger people to use more oxygen, giving
them more power. It's like having a bigger motor, Dr. Secher said.
Bigger muscles, with their larger cross-section, also are stronger.
And bigger muscles can store more glycogen, their fuel for short
intense spurts.
The same reasoning explains why elite swimmers are big. Great male
swimmers often are 6 feet 4 inches tall, and muscular. And because of
the advantage that large muscles give for sprints over short
distances, the shorter the distance an athlete must swim, the greater
the advantage it is to be big.
Tall swimmers also have another advantage: because swimmers are
horizontal in the water, their long bodies give them an automatic
edge. "It's the difference between long canoes and short canoes," Dr.
Joyner said.
Distance running is different. Tall people naturally have longer
strides, but stride length, it turns out, does not determine speed.
Running requires that you lift your body off the ground with each
step, propelling yourself forward. The more you weigh, the harder you
have to work to lift your body and the slower you will be.
The best runners are small and light, with slim legs. "If you have
large legs, you have to move a big load," Dr. Secher said. "The
smaller you are, the better you are."
Of course, there are a few exceptions to the scaling rules. There was
the Australian runner Derek Clayton, who weighed 160 pounds and set a
world marathon mark in 1969.
And there is Tom Fleming (my coach) who won the New York City Marathon
in 1973 and 1975. He is 6-foot-1, and while he ran his fastest
marathon, 2 hours 12 minutes, weighing 159 pounds, he ran the Boston
Marathon in 2 hours 14 minutes weighing 179 pounds. "I tell people
that's the fat-man record of Boston," he said.
The tallest elite marathoner today, Robert Cheruiyot, is 6-foot-2. But
he weighs only 143 pounds. Most elite male marathoners, Dr. Joyner
notes, are between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-11 and weigh between 120 and
140 pounds. In distance running, he said, "you just don't find many
big people."
The situation is more complicated for triathletes, who must run and
cycle and swim. The size that is best for running and cycling is not
good for swimming. Yet in general, swimmers have an advantage, Dr.
Secher said. It is easier for a great swimmer to learn cycling and
running than for a good runner or cyclist to learn to be a good
swimmer. Swimming, he says, is so dependent on technique that it is
hard to become proficient as an adult.
The decision for high school coaches, said Hayden Smith, a cross-
country coach at Albion College, is whether to say anything when a
young teenager seems set on the wrong sport. He said he kept mum when
he was coaching in high school. But, he added, the best high school
athlete he ever coached initially went out for football. The football
coach refused to let him join the team - he would not give the boy the
equipment.
"He told the kid, 'You'll be a great runner,'" Mr. Smith recalled.
The coach was right. The boy started running and ended up one of the
top 10 in the nation.
No one ever told Dr. Joyner not to run. Injuries, though, finally
forced him to look for another sport. He chose swimming, knowing that
his size would be to his advantage.
Dr. Joyner got a coach, worked hard on his technique, and recently
ranked 15th swimming a mile in a United States Masters swimming
championship race (for people over age 25) . He started too late, he
said, to know what he might have been as a swimmer.
But that is O.K., Dr. Joyner said. He loved running. And there is more
to performance than simply having the right sort of body for the
sport. There is hard work and rigorous training, and, of course, there
is motivation.
"I always remember something the late Bill Bowerman said at a clinic I
attended in the late 1970s," he added, referring to the legendary
distance running coach. "Sometimes what matters is not what dog is in
the fight but how much fight is in the dog."