I think a sports quotient is a bad counterexample, because it’s pretty obvious there is a sports quotient: take someone who weighs 500 pounds, and another person who weighs 150; who do you think is going to win most of the time if you have them play tennis, basketball, sprinting, crosscountry running, archery, soccer...? Similarly, if someone has a gimp leg, they’re going to perform badly at pretty much any sport, from table tennis (gotta stand and move around) to boxing.
A sports quotient isn’t a totally crazy idea, but I think it makes more sense as “can play a number of sports reasonably well” measurement rather than measuring the likelihood of achieving excellence at any sport.
I recommend The Sports Gene for an overview of the physical qualities needed for excellent performance. It used to be believed that the ideal athlete was someone with a classic intermediate build, but the more modern approach is to look for athletes whose bodies are at an optimum for particular sports.
Wide range of body types for Olympic athletes...I recommend The Sports Gene for an overview of the physical qualities needed for excellent performance.
They have a wide range of body types… for elite world-class one-out-of-millions competition, where even the tiniest differences like favorable genetic mutations make a difference. This in no way disproves the idea of an SQ, any more than grades in a math graduate course outpredicting an IQ test for who will win a Fields Medal would disprove the idea of an IQ test.
A sports quotient isn’t a totally crazy idea, but I think it makes more sense as “can play a number of sports reasonably well” measurement rather than measuring the likelihood of achieving excellence at any sport.
Generally speaking, it’s usually possible to devise a test for a specific field which outperforms an IQ test, adds predictive value above and beyond IQ. What’s interesting about IQ is how general it is, how early in life it starts being useful, and how most good field-specific tests will subsume or partially measure IQ as well.
Maybe. I don’t know much about wrestling. If it were like judo, I’d guess that the extra weight just makes him fall that much harder.
I’m not sure about archery.
They wouldn’t win at archery, definitely not. One of the challenges in archery is that it’s tiring to lift the bow and keep it steady enough for high accuracy—even pretty fit people who first try their hand at archery will find it kills their arm and backs after 20 or 30 minutes of shooting. A fat person would have this problem in spades, as their arms get tired almost immediately and their accuracy goes to hell.
I think they’d win at boxing.
Same thing with boxing. Let the fattie tire themselves out and you can hit them with impunity. I’ve seen this happen in other striking martial arts.
At a given weight, jujitsu and judo, and I’d guess wrestling as well, somewhat favor stocky people of short-to-medium height: short because it’s generally helpful to have a low center of gravity, and stocky because it makes you more powerful for a given height and more resistant to certain techniques. But they’re also extremely physically tiring. A few extra pounds might be helpful for one of several reasons, but I’d expect a 500-pound wrestler of normal height to lose more in fatigue than they gain in mass; and indeed, we don’t see many competitors at 300 pounds or heavier, despite the fact that heavyweight wrestling starts at 200 and has no upper bound.
(Source: am tall, lanky jujitsuka. I haven’t studied wrestling, but I’ve sparred with a few wrestlers.)
I note also KnaveOfAllTrades’ recent post about the analogous concept of a “sports quotient”.
I think a sports quotient is a bad counterexample, because it’s pretty obvious there is a sports quotient: take someone who weighs 500 pounds, and another person who weighs 150; who do you think is going to win most of the time if you have them play tennis, basketball, sprinting, crosscountry running, archery, soccer...? Similarly, if someone has a gimp leg, they’re going to perform badly at pretty much any sport, from table tennis (gotta stand and move around) to boxing.
Wide range of body types for Olympic athletes
A sports quotient isn’t a totally crazy idea, but I think it makes more sense as “can play a number of sports reasonably well” measurement rather than measuring the likelihood of achieving excellence at any sport.
I recommend The Sports Gene for an overview of the physical qualities needed for excellent performance. It used to be believed that the ideal athlete was someone with a classic intermediate build, but the more modern approach is to look for athletes whose bodies are at an optimum for particular sports.
They have a wide range of body types… for elite world-class one-out-of-millions competition, where even the tiniest differences like favorable genetic mutations make a difference. This in no way disproves the idea of an SQ, any more than grades in a math graduate course outpredicting an IQ test for who will win a Fields Medal would disprove the idea of an IQ test.
Generally speaking, it’s usually possible to devise a test for a specific field which outperforms an IQ test, adds predictive value above and beyond IQ. What’s interesting about IQ is how general it is, how early in life it starts being useful, and how most good field-specific tests will subsume or partially measure IQ as well.
The other surprising thing about IQ is how early it was invented.
The 500 pound person would win at wrestling. I think they’d win at boxing. I’m not sure about archery.
On the other hand, the gimp leg would be a handicap for every mainstream sport I can think of.
Maybe. I don’t know much about wrestling. If it were like judo, I’d guess that the extra weight just makes him fall that much harder.
They wouldn’t win at archery, definitely not. One of the challenges in archery is that it’s tiring to lift the bow and keep it steady enough for high accuracy—even pretty fit people who first try their hand at archery will find it kills their arm and backs after 20 or 30 minutes of shooting. A fat person would have this problem in spades, as their arms get tired almost immediately and their accuracy goes to hell.
Same thing with boxing. Let the fattie tire themselves out and you can hit them with impunity. I’ve seen this happen in other striking martial arts.
Both judo and wrestling have weight classes.
Thanks for the information about archery.
At a given weight, jujitsu and judo, and I’d guess wrestling as well, somewhat favor stocky people of short-to-medium height: short because it’s generally helpful to have a low center of gravity, and stocky because it makes you more powerful for a given height and more resistant to certain techniques. But they’re also extremely physically tiring. A few extra pounds might be helpful for one of several reasons, but I’d expect a 500-pound wrestler of normal height to lose more in fatigue than they gain in mass; and indeed, we don’t see many competitors at 300 pounds or heavier, despite the fact that heavyweight wrestling starts at 200 and has no upper bound.
(Source: am tall, lanky jujitsuka. I haven’t studied wrestling, but I’ve sparred with a few wrestlers.)