Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark17
The superiority of the modern athlete is easily proven in track and field and weightlifting events, where there are actual, unbiased metrics to do so. The 4 minute mile seemed impossible during the deadball era, and wasn't accomplished until 1954. From Wikipedia:
A four-minute mile is the completion of a mile run (1.6 km) in four minutes or less. It was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister, at age 25, in 3:59.4. The "four-minute barrier" has since been broken by over 1,400 athletes, and is now the standard of professional middle distance runners in several cultures.
In the 65 years since, the mile record has been lowered by almost 17 seconds, and currently stands at 3:43.13, by Hicham El Guerrouj of Morocco, at age 24, in 1999.
There, I've proved athletes of today are superior to those of 100 years ago. Lucky me.
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Yeah, but what about a human ancestor from back around the time of the Ice Age that suddenly caught the attention of a hungry predator? I could see them breaking a 4 minute mile out of necessity. Its just that none of us were there to view and actually time the run. So there's one way I'm looking to disprove your comment. And also my original statement was refering to baseball players, and more specically pitchers. Not track athletes, basketball, or football players. In which case go look at the likes of David Wells, C.C: Sabathia, or even better, Bartolo Colon. I rest my case and am back to being correct in my original statement, and unlucky you.
Truth be known, people tend to keep improving such things as records are broken, so others then make breaking that new record their priority and train with even more focus and conviction. Plus people now start training and specializing for such goals at ever earlier ages, like the Williams sisters whose story is documented in the latest Will Smith movie "King Richard". Plus you have further impovements due to advances in medicine and science, training techniques, and even diet and nutrition. Humans have kind of advanced now to the point where you won't see much in the way of gains in new records. There is a point where the human body will hit its physical limit, but then can't go beyond that.
For example, read somewhere that the fastest a human body could possibly throw a baseball is supposedly around 110 MPH. But what's the current record, around 102 - 103 MPH? To get closer to that top speed though you'd have to find a human with the absolutely perfect body and physique, and then they'd actually have to be interested in throwing a ball that fast. And be willing to put in the training and effort to acheive it. Chances are there is a human or two on the planet that could do it, but they have neither the knowledge of that potential ability, nor the desire to act on and train for it. And some sports are given to advantages simply based on size or height. Baseball is one of those sports where physical size isn't always an advantage, nor indicative of the better players (Altuve, Jose' Ramirez, etc.). So the idea of modern ballplayers all being that much better athletes than those playing 75 or 100 years ago is not going to be that great, and will most likely be even less going forward from today.