Olympics and the limits to human performance

Amit Sen Gupta

The greatest sporting spectacle is now underway in Athens. The 
Olympic Games are a test of the limits to which the human body 
can be made to perform. The motto of the Olympic Games — Faster, 
Higher, Stronger — is symbolic of this quest for excellence, the 
quest to reach the absolute limits to which the human body can be 
pushed.

Over the last century athletes competing in the Olympic Games 
have pushed the performance of athletes to higher and higher 
levels.

That brings us to the obvious question — are we nearing the 
limit of human performance? The simple answer to the question 
would be: not yet; but records are being broken by ever narrower 
margins. When we plot a graph showing how the best performance in 
a given event changes over time, we see the graphs leveling off.

Theoretically, an absolute limit to how far or fast the human 
body can go does exist, but it is impossible today to accurately 
predict that limit. Perhaps the only way to recognise the 
ultimate performance will be retrospectively, after a record has 
stood for years.

Some experts have tried to calculate the absolute limit of 
performance. They take the highest value for each crucial 
physiological factor ever recorded in an athlete, such as the 
maximum oxygen uptake, the greatest efficiency with which energy 
is burned and the best stamina. Then they figure out how fast 
someone might go if these were all combined in one body.

What drives performance?

What are the factors that drive performance in athletes? Much of 
the increase in performance, especially in the early part of the 
modern area, came from improved nutrition and improved training 
techniques. In developed countries the advantage of these two 
factors has tapered off, even disappeared. But they are now 
coming into play in the improved performance by athletes from 
developing countries.

In the last 80 years, on an average, records related to 
disciplines that involve running have improved by about 10 
percent. In contrast, the triple jump record is over 30 percent 
longer, for high jump it is 35 percent, and for long jump it is 
41 percent. For the more technical pole vault event, the record 
is over 80 percent higher than in 1896.

This illustrates the fact that there has been greater 
improvements in events that are more technical or where an 
improvement in the apparatus makes a major difference in 
performance. The application of scientific methods in training 
has also helped stretch the levels of attainment.

Much of Olympic sport involves mechanics. The application of the 
principles of physics has also helped boost performance. The 
sportswear company called Speedo is promoting the use of its 
"sharkskin" swimsuit that covers almost the entire body. The 
suits are designed to simulate the skins of sharks and minimise 
"drag", that is, the resistance that swimmers feel in the water.

In the jumps, improved techniques (like the Fosbury Flop 
technique for high jump introduced in 1968) have contributed to 
advanced performance levels. In pole vault the introduction of 
the new pole made of fibreglass revolutionised the sport. Such 
improvements, based on better equipment also took place in 
throwing events such as discus and javelin, as well as in events 
such as archery and shooting.

However, the advantage conferred by technology and improved 
training techniques is now tapering off.

Today, there are two important factors that continue to drive up 
Olympic records. First is the fact that more people are competing 
today than ever before. Statistically, that must lead to improved 
records. We see the entry of new nations that are doing well in 
the Olympics. They are able to do so because of a minimum level 
of health and nutrition that they are able to provide to the 
general population, and basic facilities for sports that a large 
number of people can use.

The performances of Chinese and Cuban athletes, for example, have 
shown tremendous improvement in the last two decades. When a 
country like China is able to compete on equal terms with the 
rest of the world, it means an addition of one-fourth of humanity 
to the pool of possible competitors.

Secondly, those who excel are really the exceptionally talented 
or gifted — whose performance level is way beyond the average 
for the population. While improved health, nutrition and training 
can and do improve the abilities and performance levels in a 
general population, those who truly excel in modern day 
competition are possibly also gifted with a physical and 
physiological advantage to start with. Better facilities and 
nurturing helps to bring out this advantage.

Physiological and physical advantages

The first is the oxygen carrying capacity of the individual. 
Remember that oxygen is vital for any physical activity, as the 
body burns oxygen to produce energy. The way athletes use energy 
differs — long distance runners require a steady supply over 
extended periods while sprinters need very high volumes over a 
short period. The ability of the body to deliver oxygen is 
determined by the lung capacity — that is, the volume of air 
that the lungs can hold, as well as on the oxygen carrying 
capacity of blood.

Sporting performance also depends on muscle mass, and crucially 
on the kind of muscle fibres that are present. Skeletal muscles, 
that is muscles in our body that we use for physical exertion, 
have two types of fibres, categorised on the basis of the speed 
at which they contract — type 1, or slow-twitch muscles and type 
2, fast-twitch muscles. There are two kinds of the latter — type 
2a, intermediate between fast and slow; and type 2b, which are 
superfast-twitch. Long distance runners tend to have mostly type 
1 fibres, which have more extensive blood supply and are packed 
with mitochondria, which deliver sustained levels of energy.

Sprinters, on the other hand, have mostly type 2 fibres, which 
hold lots of sugar as well as enzymes that burn fuel in the 
absence of oxygen. Another physiological advantage that athletes 
can have is a larger lung capacity and a higher oxygen carrying 
capacity of the blood.

This is seen typically in populations who live in higher 
altitudes — they need the high lung capacity as the air they 
breathe has less oxygen. They also have higher oxygen carrying 
capacity in the blood — a larger number of red blood cells that 
carry the oxygen. This explains why many of the greatest long 
distance runners have been from such regions — the great Finnish 
runners like Pavo Nurmi, Lasse Viren and more recently the 
legendary Kenyan runners like Kip Keino.

Domination by Kenyans and West Africans

The Kenyan runners who have dominated modern day distance running 
in the last 30 years are a unique phenomenon. Kenyan men now hold 
world records in distances of 3000 metres, 15 kms, 20 kms, and 25 
kms, the half-marathon, and the marathon. Kenyan men have won 13 
of the last 14 Boston marathons. Kenyan women hold half of the 
top 10 marathon times and world records in 20 kms, 25 kms, and 30 
kms distances. What is even more remarkable is that most of these 
athletes come from a small area in Kenya's Rift Valley, from a 
group of tribes called the Kalenjin who number little more than 
three million people.

A major physiological advantage that the Kenyans seem to have is 
their ability to withstand fatigue and sustained physical 
exertion over long periods. Studies now show (reported in 
Science: Vol.35 July 30, 2004) that lactate, generated by tired, 
oxygen-deprived muscles, accumulates more slowly in their blood. 
Accumulation of lactate leads to fatigue and diminished 
performance of muscles. They have higher levels of an enzyme that 
breaks down lactate. As a result it is calculated that they are 
able to save about eight percent energy per kilometre — a huge 
advantage at the highest levels of competition.

The Kenyans have their counterparts from the other side of the 
continent — West Africa. Scientists are trying to unravel why 
athletes whose ancestors come from the region have emerged as the 
world's fastest sprinters. Initially almost all of them 
represented the United States (descendants of those forcibly 
brought to the country to work in plantations 200 years back), 
but now represent a number of other countries like the UK, 
Canada, Jamaica, France, and others. Today, they monopolise 
virtually all the short distance running events — 100 metres, 
200 metres, 400 metres, the 100 and 400 metre hurdles. They hold 
35 percent of all top 900 times in the running events, 
concentrated entirely in the sprints.

An even more staggering statistic: all of the 32 finalists in the 
last four Olympic men's 100-metre races are of West African 
descent. The last time a person with an ancestry from outside 
that region set the men's world record in the 100 metre sprint 
was in 1960! The answer to this phenomenon also possibly lies in 
the physiological advantage that athletes from this region have 
because they have a higher proportion of type 2 muscle fibres, 
that is, the fast twitch fibres.

Are we then suggesting that genetics determines the level of 
performance in modern athletics? Not really. Genetic make up may 
provide a slight advantage to a group that share certain 
physiological characteristics that are beneficial in a certain 
sport. But this advantage is extremely small — and expresses 
itself only if the advantage is nurtured.

Thus, while it is now being argued that Black sprinters have that 
critical edge, they were not a significant force in world 
athletics before the '60s. It is only when the conditions of 
Blacks in United States and other northern countries improved 
that they started dominating the sprint events. Even today those 
who live in West Africa, and would presumably have the same 
advantage, do not do well at the world level. So environment and 
training do play a very important and critical role in the 
expression of the physiological advantage that people may 
possess.

Modern day gladiators

Unfortunately, no discussion on Olympics and records can be 
complete today without mentioning the bane of doping — the use 
of artificial performance enhancing substances. Doping first 
started with the use of synthetic hormones called steroids that 
help build muscle mass. It soon spread to include other drugs 
specific to the demands of a particular sport. It included drugs 
that help eliminate tremors in disciplines like archery and 
shooting, drugs that help lose water to reduce weight suddenly in 
disciplines like weightlifting, etc.

Testing for such substances was introduced in the 1972 Munich 
Olympics. Since then it's been an even game. As testing 
techniques have developed drug cheats try to stay a step ahead by 
introducing drugs that are more and more difficult to detect 
because they mimic the effects of naturally occurring hormones. 
The huge problem of doping has put a major question mark on a 
number of records that are being set today.

Sadly, we are increasingly seeing a world population marked by 
regression towards physical sloth and mediocrity that amuses 
itself by watching a very few extremely genetically gifted, 
technically trained and sometimes artificially enhanced 
"gladiators". The Olympic movement's biggest challenge today is 
to make sure that it is a measure of true human endeavour. 
Further, that it provides every woman and man a fair chance to 
compete on a level playing field.

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From People's Democracy,
Newspaper of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)