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Crazy. But I'm not so sure about this claim that the coach makes: My theory is that women are able to push that aging envelop a little further than men and ar
by 07d046 8y ago
Crazy.
But I'm not so sure about this claim that the coach makes:
My theory is that women are able to push that aging envelop a little further than men and are more capable of long-distance peak performance
At the top end, the strongest men are always stronger than the strongest women, and age impacts women more quickly than men, judging by rowing results: https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/racing/records/world/2000 https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/racing/records/world/...
- jchrisa 8y agoIn my day to day life in the biking world, the women who don't train can keep up with the men who do.
- saagarjha 8y agoMight be because men are more likely than women to be overweight, or at least out of shape?
- craftyguy 8y ago[citation needed]
- saagarjha 8y agoHere’s one: https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/adult-overweightobesity-rate-by-gender/ https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/adult-overweightob... The numbers were a bit higher than I expected: 70% of men in the US are overweight and 60% of the women? Wow.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoThe medical definition of "overweight" is pretty broad, and may include some people you wouldn't think of that way at a glance. But yeah, it's pretty bad. Edit: Completely baffled why people are downvoting this.
- Tempest1981 8y agoI read your comment as “yeah but those stats are only 80-90% accurate”. (I didn’t downvote it)
- soundwave106 8y agoBMI is a measurement. The ill effects of obese BMI on health is pretty much settled. The main thing I know there's been some recent controversy regarding the health risks of the edge cases of the "overweight" category. (https://www.verywellhealth.com/is-being-a-little-overweight-ok-bmi-controversy-1746304 https://www.verywellhealth.com/is-being-a-little-overweight-...). My best guess is that your edge cases are going to come from people who are slightly overweight but still exercising regularly and have an overall healthy diet (as this WebMD page implies -- https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/can-you-be-fit-fat#1 https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/can-you-be-fit-fat#1). These people may be healthier overall than someone in the "normal" range with a bad diet and sedentary lifestyle. Best guess is that this is not the majority of overweight people, though... Exercise statistics in the US are pretty dismal. (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-80-percent-of-american-adults-dont-get-recommended-exercise/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-80-percent-of-american-adul...).
- adrianN 8y agoThe US must be a nation of body builders if 70% overweight doesn't mean >65% too fat.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoI just meant that mildly overweight people wearing well-fitting clothes may not "read" as overweight to the casual observer. Some people think "overweight" means "obese," which makes the 70% figure more startling. It's still a major national health issue.
- hfdgiutdryg 8y agoThe average American male seems to carry more upper body muscle mass than, say, your average Indian male. You don't have to look like Schwarzenegger or The Rock to find yourself bumping up against the general guideline numbers.
- briandear 8y agoIf BMI is the measure, then that isn’t a good measure. Dwayne The Rock Johnson is “overweight.”
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rnatklnz 8y agoHaha, yes. I'm sure most Americans have a body comparable to that of Dwayne Johnson.
- Tempest1981 8y agoI found the article on this: https://www.menshealth.com/weight-loss/a19537796/the-problem-with-bmi/ https://www.menshealth.com/weight-loss/a19537796/the-problem... But seems like a corner case.
- CydeWeys 8y agoI don't see how that's possible, given that men's times are better than women's times in all events. Just look at records, race times, etc. The trained men are dominating the trained women, and clearly the untrained women won't do better than the trained women. This pattern is consistent across all sports except possibly ultra-endurance events (way longer than a marathon equivalent).
- jchrisa 8y agoI'm not talking about athletes, I'm talking about out of shape dads vs out of shape moms.
- pmiller2 8y agoWomen do as well or better than men in ultra distance swimming. See https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/the-obscure-endurance-sport-women-are-quietly-dominating.html https://www.thecut.com/2016/09/the-obscure-endurance-sport-w...
- 07d046 8y agoYep, I've heard the same about thru-hiking. Women might be faster at running 2000+ miles than men. It's for efforts measured in minutes or hours that the fastest men are faster than the fastest women. Edit: I wasn't expecting my comments here to be so controversial
- bloomer 8y agoDo you have any source for this? It seems with such a small participation rate for thru-hiking, getting any sort of meaningful data about relative abilities would be unlikely.
- 07d046 8y agoThat's very true, extraordinarily few people are going for fastest times on these, so it's quite speculative. Here's an article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/sports/on-the-longest-hiking-trails-a-woman-finds-equal-footing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/sports/on-the-longest-hik...
- skookumchuck 8y agoWomen tend to be lighter than men, which likely makes a difference.
- bloomer 8y agoThat article actually says that the average time for women is faster than the average time for men and that the fastest male times are still much faster than the fastest female times. The hypotheses they propose for the difference are either selection bias due to differing participation levels or possibly body fat percentage difference leading to greater bouyancy which specifically helps in swimming.
- taneq 8y agoITT: People talking past each other about 'highest performing males outperform highest performing females at almost everything' vs. 'average women are better at some things than average men.'
- dmurray 8y agoAlso this is not a long-distance endurance event, it lasts only a few minutes and should be more about technique, peak power output and engineering skill. The fastest people in the world at 1500-metre runs or 5k bike time trials are never 45-year-old women.
- 07d046 8y agoDefinitely. As a rule of thumb, the shorter the event, the more it advantages young males.