There are lots of different sports and many of them favour particular types of body traits. For instance, while there is no height restrictions in basketball, it helps to be tall. and while there are no height restrictions in gymnastics, being tall is a detriment. American football requires a range of body types depending on position, but each position has a relatively narrow band of ideals. Anyone can play darts.
But since I am watching Belgium v Senegal play football, there are also a range of heights, but they are (nearly) all very lean. In fact, at the world cup, while there are different positions that fovour certain traits and there are extremes for instance shortest/ tallest 160/205 (5'3/6'7) and oldest/youngest 43/17 - They are pretty much all lean. The actual weight difference between the lightest/heaviest is 68/98kg (149/216lb).
This makes sense of course, since just in a game they are running hard for many kilometres, jumping and making explosive breaks. Any extra kilos puts them at a disadvantage in speed, jump height and of course, their chances of injury due to the dynamic moves they make, often while diving for a penalty.
But for sport, it isn't just physical traits that make a difference, there are also mental and emotional aspects that especially at the pinnacles of the sports, make a difference between being great and staying average. For the majority of sports, the package it takes to compete at the top is wide, and therefore rare in any population.
And this makes me wonder what happens to sporting levels in the future, since most countries are struggling with populations that are getting fatter, slower, weaker, and more emotionally volatile. For a large population that has programs to unearth talent like in the US, it is possible to have a very high level of obesity and still find enough people to field many sporting teams, even if the requirement is for lean people. But for smaller populations, the depth just might not be there. Factor in the fall in mental health and the psychological requirements needed to train repetitively to improve to a high level, and the pools of potential are pretty small.
While professional sports might not seem the most important thing for humanity, the best chance of ensuring wellbeing depends improving our physical, mental, emotional and social health, and sport is a god way to impact on each of those. If the pool of potential is shrinking in a population, it speaks to the averages of the population degrading. And I think that most of us in the western world, can walk down the street and see the degradation with our own eyes, if we compare conditions to a couple decades ago.
As a society, we have become more efficient in business, but that same process of efficiency has also led us into worse conditions as average individuals. It is a bit ironic that in manufacturing they use "lean" process, but we are getting anything but lean as a species. If you look at our health averages, where are we improving?
I was reading about a recommendation for Finland to bring back standardised testing in schools to start to improve the results that have been declining for the last two decades. Maybe there should be standard testing for all people, all through our lives so that we can see where the averages are changing and address them before they become epidemics, like obesity, loneliness and mental health challenges.
If we were managing a sporting team that needed to function at its highest potential, we would have to take measures to ensure that they were healthy across the board, so that they could play their best. We would ensure they were able to recover, that they were in the right frame of mind, and were able to cope with the pressure, under pressure. We would find the most effective ways to improve our chances of winning.
But we aren't.
The team is falling apart.
It takes many types to play this game, but as we are heading in one direction, will we still be able to field a complete team?
Taraz
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